Data Architect (Assistant Research Engineer )
University of Maryland
Job Description Summary
Organization's Summary Statement:The A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland serves as the catalyst for high-quality research, innovation, and learning, delivering on a promise that all graduates will leave ready to impact the Grand Challenges (e.g., energy, environment, security, and human health) of the 21st century. The Clark School is dedicated to leading and transforming the engineering discipline and profession, to accelerating entrepreneurship, and to transforming research and learning activities into new innovations that benefit millions.
The Center for Advanced Transportation Technology (CATT) Laboratory is the industry leader for transportation information analysis, visualization, and user interface design. We provide cutting-edge analytics products and an integrated suite of situational awareness tools for transportation practitioners. These products and services are rapidly changing the way governments operate and make decisions. You can learn more about our products at https://ritis.org/.
We receive hundreds of gigabytes of transportation data daily, making our petabytes of archived data likely the largest collection of traffic data in the world. Our clients use our software to monitor real-time operations and analyze historical data to generate valuable insights. Our work saves taxpayers money, improves the environment, and saves lives!
We’re as passionate about transportation as we are about building great software. We care about building usable, stable, and secure software to analyze massive amounts of data. We use cutting-edge tech to build and maintain our software. We have a mature development process and use industry best practices to build the best software possible. Our team is composed of application developers, analysts, UX designers, data scientists, IT, quality assurance specialists, and customer support operating in an Agile environment.
Our office is in College Park near the University of Maryland, easily accessible by DC Metro, MARC train, bus, car, and bike. Local employees are welcome to work in our office, or other locations, with a flexible schedule around our core hours. We also have many employees who are fully remote and work from different states. UMD requires all employees to live in the US, and we periodically bring remote employees to work with colleagues on-site.
We believe varied perspectives build better products, are proud to have a diverse team, and encourage people of all backgrounds to apply.
When you join our team, you will work to define, document, and test a wide variety of transportation data analytics and operations applications. You will learn new skills and stay current with industry best practices and emerging technologies.
Position Summary
The CATT Lab is seeking an experienced data engineer to architect and deliver advanced technical solutions to complex transportation data problems. This individual will lead cross functional developers to design and implement large-scale data processing pipelines. They will design geospatial data processing solutions for critical infrastructure planning and operations managers. If you’re looking for complex data problems in the GIS domain to collaboratively solve with a brilliant research and development team, please apply!
Essential duties and responsibilities:
● Design, develop, deploy, and manage data storage and processing solutions.
● Develop data models and schemas for new data sources for both relational and non-relational distributed platforms.
● Write and maintain data pipelines to ingest large datasets from APIs and cloud storage to local storage instances.
● Write data retrieval, statistical calculation, and geospatial analysis queries and stored procedures.
● Assist with analysis and discovery of new datasets for integration into existing internal platforms.
● Collaborate with data platform team to optimize data processing pipeline performance.
● Estimate effort for work tasks and report on work progress to the technical team lead.
● Participate in our Tier II Support team rotation
Minimum Qualifications
Education:
Doctoral Degree in Computer Science or Engineering.
Experience:
20+ years experience architecting and leading the implementation of complex, high demand and volume data platform solutions.
10+ years experience in a principal or lead role, contributing directly to enterprise data services and product development.
5+ years experience in a technical team leadership role, mentoring less experienced developers in delivering robust, performant data features.
Experience writing ETL scripts, APIs and standalone applications in both Python and Java with advanced knowledge of SQL.
Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:
Experience designing and implementing large-scale data processing pipelines and analytics systems using Apache Spark and Apache Beam.
Experience with data analytics, investigating new data sources and architecting storage and compute solutions that maximize the value of the dataset. Familiarity with data science best practices.
Knowledge of frontend user interface design and development, including REACT, typescript and javascript. Ability to architect a full stack feature including backend and frontend development.
Strong communication skills; ability to present technical plans to a non-technical audience efficiently.
Preferences
Experience with non-relational data storage and processing solutions like Cassandra, Hadoop, Spark, Iceberg, Sedona etc.
Experience working with geospatial datasets, using geospatial extensions (such as PostGIS) and querying features.
Experience with Linux (RHEL), including writing robust Bash scripts.
Experience architecting and implementing backup and recovery strategies.
Experience with Git, Jira, Confluence, and Bitbucket.
Experience with cloud platforms including AWS and GCP.
Physical Demands:
Sedentary work performed in an office environment. Regularly required to communicate and exchange information and to use technology/devices. Position can be 100% remote (US based only)
Licenses/ Certifications: NA
Additional Job Details
Required Application Materials:
- CV/Resume
- References upon request.
- Professional Statement-required upon completion of the interview process and before an offer
- 3 External Letters-required upon completion of the interview process and before an offer
Best Consideration Date: N/A
Posting Close Date: 04/17/2026
Open Until Filled: NO
Financial Disclosure Required
NoFor more information on Financial Disclosure, please visit Maryland's State Ethics Commission website.
Department
ENGR-Civil-Center for Advanced Transportation TechnologyWorker Sub-Type
Faculty RegularSalary Range
$165,000-$177,968.79Benefits Summary
For more information on Regular Faculty benefits, select this link.
Background Checks
Offers of employment are contingent on completion of a background check. Information reported by the background check will not automatically disqualify anyone from employment. Before any adverse decision, the finalist will have an opportunity to provide information to the University regarding disclosable background check information. The University reserves the right to rescind the offer of employment or otherwise decline or terminate employment if the information reported by the background check is deemed incompatible with the position, regardless of when the background check is completed.
Employment Eligibility
The successful candidate must complete employment eligibility verification (on Form I-9) by presenting documents that establish identity and work authorization within the timeframe required by federal immigration law, and where applicable, to demonstrate renewed employment authorization. Failure to complete employment eligibility verification or reverification within the timeframe set forth by law may result in suspension or termination of employment.
EEO Statement
The University of Maryland, College Park is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive equal consideration for employment. Please read the University’s Equal Employment Opportunity Statement of Policy.
Title IX Non-Discrimination Notice
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