Job Description

Data engineering is a critical part of keeping data fresh, standardizing datasets, and offering value-added data transformations to City departments that improve services to the residents of San Francisco. As the Data Engineer you will take a lead role in developing and executing modern data engineering patterns for the City. We seek someone that is excited to empower use of data, enthusiastic about open data, and a continuous learner.

This temporary position will help augment our engineering capabilities as we continue to respond to the COVID crisis and begin the recovery effort.  You will play a key role in maintaining, improving, developing, and migrating the pipelines that support COVID public reporting and internal COVID Command Center (CCC) reporting.

Removing barriers and making it easier for all people to access services or knowledge is a core part of any role at DataSF. Beyond any technical skill set or prior work history, accomplishing this ambitious task requires an empathetic understanding of the diverse array of experiences embodied in San Francisco. Your own life experience is a critical contribution to this effort.  DataSF is committed to building a team whose diversity reflects the residents we serve. 

This is an exciting position for someone eager to harness the power of data to improve transparency, citizen engagement, and government performance; someone who is excited by DataSF’s mission of empowering the use of data in decision making and service delivery. KEY OBJECTIVES

The Data Engineer will help develop, maintain, and improve data engineering services to support the sharing of City data through the City’sdata platform.

You’ll build data & analytics pipelines to support data-driven work

• Work with departmental staff to develop extract, transform, load (ETL) requirements for individual datasets
• Consult with various departments on the best way to automate and publish datasets within their data ecosystems
• Apply an ethical lens to the appropriate use of data
• Create new analytics pipelines using ETL/ELT approaches according to standards and patterns you help develop and refine
• Serve as the technical lead for database exports, manipulation, and procedures used to create and update data incorporated into the data platform
• Implement analytics pipelines and/or data models to support covid data analytics work

You’ll maintain existing pipelines

• Monitor existing data automations developed using the Safe Feature Manipulation Engine (FME) Server or developed in Snowflake/dbt, respond to, and resolve incidents
• Engage with Covid Command Center staff to address and diagnose issues as they arise

You’ll improve and refine pipelines to improve data quality

• Analyze pipeline throughput, issues, and other metrics to inform improvements to the automation platform
• Support DataSF’s Analytics Engineer in identifying and implementing infrastructure improvements
• Migrate existing ETLs from FME to newer infrastructure to improve data quality and reliability
• Standardize and improve existing pipelines to adhere to best practices
• As needed help iterate and refine best practices

Qualifications

1.  An associate degree in computer science or a closely related field from an accredited college or university OR its equivalent in terms of total course credits/units [i.e., at least sixty (60) semester or ninety (90) quarter credits/units with a minimum of twenty (20) semester or thirty (30) quarter credits/units in computer science or a closely-related field]; AND

2.  Three (3) years of experience analyzing, installing, configuring, enhancing, and/or maintaining the components of an enterprise network. SUBSTITUTION:  Additional experience as described above may be substituted for the required degree on a year-for-year basis (up to a maximum of two (2) years). One (1) year is equivalent to thirty (30) semester units/ forty-five (45) quarter units with a minimum of 10 semester / 15 quarter units in computer science or a closely related field. DESIRABLE QUALIFICATIONS

DataSF encourages applications regardless of whether you think you meet 100% of the skills listed below.

Personal Skills

• Excellent oral and written communication skills
• Investigative ability and intellectual curiosity
• Ability to learn and embrace new technologies
• Familiar with the principles and concepts of open data
• Comfort with risk and trying new things
• Ability to work independently and as part of a small team
• Enjoys collaborative processes and developing shared understanding
• Strong organization skills

Technical/Knowledge Skills

• Experience in related work
• Experience in data manipulation and analytical thinking
• Experience writing and maintaining ETL/ELT code, especially creating and deploying through a framework
• Programming proficiency in  SQL
• Experience with or willingness to learn FME (a GUI based ETL tool)

BONUS POINTS IF YOU HAVE

Technical/Knowledge Skills

• Experience with Snowflake/DBT
• Experience working with FME
• Familiarity with Microsoft’s Azure Cloud Tools and/or PowerBI
• Experience training non-technical users to use technology to support their work
• Strong quantitative analysis skills
• Strong familiarity with geospatial data and best practices
• Experience translating business needs into technical implementations, including mapping out business processes and data models
• Experience working with a variety of databases, APIs, and formats to extract and transform data

IMPORTANT: APPLICANTS ARE REQUIRED TO ATTACH A RESUME AND A STATEMENT OF INTEREST AT THE TIME OF FILING BY USING THE "ADDITIONAL ATTACHMENTS" LINK CONTAINED WITHIN THE APPLICATION.

Additional Information

Benefits: https://sfdhr.org/benefits-overview

COMPENSATION:  $131,924 - $165,958 annually APPLICANTS ARE ENCOURAGED TO FILE IMMEDIATELY AS THIS RECRUITMENT MAY CLOSE AT ANY TIME, BUT NO EARLIER THAN JULY 26, 2021. NOTE:  While we are currently remote due to Covid-19, assume that this job will be at least partially in-person in San Francisco when it is safe.

CONDITION OF EMPLOYMENT:  All City and County of San Francisco employees are required to be vaccinated against COVID-19 as a condition of employment.  For details on how it is applicable to your employment, please click here.

The City and County of San Francisco encourages women, minorities and persons with disabilities to apply. Applicants will be considered regardless of their sex, race, age, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition (associated with cancer, a history of cancer, or genetic characteristics), HIV/AIDS status, genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, military and veteran status, or other protected category under the law.

Carol Isen - Human Resources Director