Contract Senior Azure Data Engineer

Houston - USA

Monthly Salary: Not Disclosed

Posted on: 30+ days ago

Vacancies: 1 Vacancy

Job Summary

Senior/Lead Azure Data Engineer (Contract 3 Months)
Location:Remote (U.S.) core overlap withCST
Engagement:Contract only(1099/C2C) no C2H for this role
Start:Immediate Duration:3 months (extension possible)
Comp:Competitive hourly rate (DOE)

About Smartbridge
Smartbridge simplifies business transformation acrossApp Development Automation Data & Analytics and Modernization. We build production systems for clients inEnergy Life Sciences and Food & Beverage.

The Opportunity
Our project needs asenior/leadwho can bothdesignandbuildmodern Azure data platformssomeone withstrong codingin T-SQL and Python/PySparkarchitectural judgment anddeep database chops(modeling performance reliability). Because this iscontract-only fit must be tight and immediate impact.

What Youll Own (Architecture Build)

Architecture:Define the target-state Azure data architecture (ingestion orchestration storage zones serving patterns) security/networking boundaries cost/perf tradeoffs and promotion strategy (DevTestProd).
Pipelines & Code:Implement robust ELT/ETL withADF/Synapse Pipelines(parameters reusable templates CI/CD). Hands-on inT-SQLandPython/PySparkfor transformations utilities and tests.
Database Excellence:Physical/semantic modelingpartitioningcolumnstorestrategies statistics managementquery plananalysisindexdesign concurrency & transaction isolation workload management.
Observability & Reliability:SLA/SLO definitionsAzure Monitor / Log Analytics / App Insightsdashboards and alerts; error handling retries/backoff idempotency CDC and schema drift strategies.
Security & Governance:RBAC Key Vault managed identities private endpoints/VNet data masking patterns; document data contracts and access patterns.
Leadership:Code reviews PR discipline mentoring and crisp documentation/runbooks for client handoff.

Must-Have (Senior-Level) Experience

812 yearsin data engineering (recentAzurefocus).
Expert withADF(linked services datasets IRsincluding self-hosted)Synapse(SQL pools/serverless pipelines) andADLS/Blob.
T-SQL: advanced query tuning execution plan analysis windowing TVFs/stored procs temp tables vs CTE tradeoffs cardinality estimator know-how.
Python/PySpark: production data transforms packaging and testing.
CI/CD: Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions (multi-stage releases approvals infra data deployments).
Proven delivery ofproduction-gradeplatforms at scale (TB-level data strict SLAs).

Not a fit:Primarily BI/reporting backgrounds without strong pipeline/build DB performance experience.
Nice to Have

Designed and implemented robust data validation procedures to verify the completeness of data transfers ensuring all records were successfully migrated and proactively triggering alerts in cases of discrepancies.
Experience with working with large SQL tables (100 million rows)
IaC (Bicep/Terraform) for data resources.
Event-driven integration (Service Bus/Event Grid CDC tooling).
Certs:DP-203 or AZ-204 are a plus.

Required Experience:

Senior IC

Senior/Lead Azure Data Engineer (Contract 3 Months)Location:Remote (U.S.) core overlap withCSTEngagement:Contract only(1099/C2C) no C2H for this roleStart:Immediate Duration:3 months (extension possible)Comp:Competitive hourly rate (DOE)About SmartbridgeSmartbridge simplifies business transformati...

Architecture:Define the target-state Azure data architecture (ingestion orchestration storage zones serving patterns) security/networking boundaries cost/perf tradeoffs and promotion strategy (DevTestProd).
Pipelines & Code:Implement robust ELT/ETL withADF/Synapse Pipelines(parameters reusable templates CI/CD). Hands-on inT-SQLandPython/PySparkfor transformations utilities and tests.
Database Excellence:Physical/semantic modelingpartitioningcolumnstorestrategies statistics managementquery plananalysisindexdesign concurrency & transaction isolation workload management.
Observability & Reliability:SLA/SLO definitionsAzure Monitor / Log Analytics / App Insightsdashboards and alerts; error handling retries/backoff idempotency CDC and schema drift strategies.
Security & Governance:RBAC Key Vault managed identities private endpoints/VNet data masking patterns; document data contracts and access patterns.
Leadership:Code reviews PR discipline mentoring and crisp documentation/runbooks for client handoff.

Must-Have (Senior-Level) Experience

812 yearsin data engineering (recentAzurefocus).
Expert withADF(linked services datasets IRsincluding self-hosted)Synapse(SQL pools/serverless pipelines) andADLS/Blob.
T-SQL: advanced query tuning execution plan analysis windowing TVFs/stored procs temp tables vs CTE tradeoffs cardinality estimator know-how.
Python/PySpark: production data transforms packaging and testing.
CI/CD: Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions (multi-stage releases approvals infra data deployments).
Proven delivery ofproduction-gradeplatforms at scale (TB-level data strict SLAs).

Not a fit:Primarily BI/reporting backgrounds without strong pipeline/build DB performance experience.
Nice to Have

Designed and implemented robust data validation procedures to verify the completeness of data transfers ensuring all records were successfully migrated and proactively triggering alerts in cases of discrepancies.
Experience with working with large SQL tables (100 million rows)
IaC (Bicep/Terraform) for data resources.
Event-driven integration (Service Bus/Event Grid CDC tooling).
Certs:DP-203 or AZ-204 are a plus.

Required Experience:

Senior IC