Data Infrastructure Engineer (contract)

About the role

Lunar Energy is seeking a Data Infrastructure Engineer to design, deploy, and maintain the hybrid infrastructure stack supporting their enterprise data platform. This role involves owning the entire lifecycle of a multi-tier environment, which includes columnar analytics databases, relational SQL systems, Windows and Linux application servers, and shared storage.

Responsibilities

• Design, deploy, and maintain Vertica analytics database clusters (physical and virtual), including cluster topology, K-safety, node health, projection design, and query performance tuning.
• Administer SQL Server 2016/2019 Enterprise on virtualized Windows infrastructure, configuring and maintaining Always On Availability Groups for high availability.
• Write and maintain PowerShell and Python scripts to automate Windows server deployments, patching, monitoring, alerting, and operational tooling across the infrastructure stack.
• Build, maintain, and optimize ETL pipelines that move and transform data across Vertica, SQL Server, PostgreSQL, and flat-file sources, with robust error handling and data quality checks.
• Administer and tune PostgreSQL instances on Linux, managing roles, schemas, access controls, backup and recovery, and integrating PostgreSQL within the broader data pipeline.
• Manage the hypervisor platform (VMware vSphere/ESXi or equivalent), including VM provisioning, resource tuning, vSwitch configuration, host patching, and live migrations with minimal downtime.
• Develop and maintain infrastructure-as-code, runbooks, and monitoring dashboards; lead incident response for infrastructure outages and conduct post-mortems.

Requirements

• 5+ years of experience in database or systems infrastructure engineering, with hands-on expertise in Nutanix, SQL Server, and PostgreSQL administration.
• Proficiency in PowerShell scripting for Windows automation and Python scripting for infrastructure automation, data processing, and ETL pipeline development.
• Experience designing and maintaining ETL pipelines across heterogeneous database and file-based sources, including error handling, retry logic, and scheduling.
• Strong working knowledge of Linux system administration (RHEL/AlmaLinux/Rocky Linux 9.x or Ubuntu 24.04 LTS) and Windows Server 2019 system administration, including storage layout, networking, OS hardening, and lifecycle management.
• Hypervisor administration experience with VMware vSphere/ESXi or equivalent — VM provisioning, resource management, live migration, and host maintenance.
• Solid understanding of storage concepts including local disk layouts, NAS/SAN, and IOPS planning.

Desired Skills

• Collaborative and communicative approach — comfortable working across data science, analytics, and engineering teams with clear written and verbal communication.

Benefits

Lunar Energy offers a competitive compensation package, including a range of $63.00 - $68.00 per hour, based on experience. The company also provides a comprehensive benefits package, details of which can be discussed upon interview.

Pay

The hourly range for this position, provided pursuant to the Pay Transparency for Pay Equity Act for California applicants, is $63.00 - $68.00 USD. The actual offer will reflect the total compensation package and benefits, determined by the company's discretion and relevant business considerations.

Schedule

This is a 6-month contract position.