Senior Data Platform Operations Engineer

About the role

CGI Federal is seeking a Senior Data Platform Operations Engineer to lead the administration, monitoring, and optimization of enterprise data and analytics platforms, including Azure Databricks, Azure Synapse, Microsoft Power Platform, and Palantir.

This role involves ensuring the stability, performance, and governance of mission-critical data environments, working closely with engineering, architecture, and business teams to maintain seamless data flows and reliable analytics operations. Key responsibilities include troubleshooting complex issues, implementing best-practice governance, and supporting secure, scalable, and resilient data platform operations across the organization.

Responsibilities

• Administer and optimize Azure Databricks environments including workspaces, clusters, pools, and job orchestration.
• Oversee operations of Azure Synapse pipelines, Spark pools, SQL pools, monitoring, and performance tuning.
• Maintain operational monitoring, alerting, logging, and performance optimization across Databricks, Synapse and other Azure services.
• Diagnose and resolve cluster performance issues, job failures, Spark execution problems, and network-related bottlenecks.
• Oversee production deployments, version control, and rollback strategies.
• Administer Power BI workspaces, refresh processes, premium capacity, and deployment pipelines.
• Govern Power Apps environments including DLP rules, connectors, lifecycle management, and usage monitoring.
• Administer operations within the Power Platform Admin Center including auditing and governance frameworks.
• Operate and support large-scale platforms like Palantir Foundry, including ingestion pipelines, transformations, code repositories, and job execution.

Requirements

• Educational requirement: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related field.
• Experience: 5+ years of hands-on experience in data operations, data platform administration, or data management.
• Technical Skills: Hands-on experience with Azure Databricks administration and Azure Synapse operations. Strong understanding of Azure Data Lake Storage (Gen2), Parquet, Delta, and modern data engineering patterns (e.g., medallion architecture). Proficiency in ETL/ELT concepts. Strong CI/CD knowledge for data engineering workloads, including Git-based workflows and DevOps pipelines. Demonstrated ability to troubleshoot distributed systems and complex data platform issues. Experience with Power BI administration and dataset performance tuning. Experience configuring and managing On-Premises Data Gateways.
• Soft Skills: Ability to work effectively with cross-functional teams including developers, analysts, architects, and stakeholders. Strong documentation habits and operational rigor. Reliability-focused mindset with a commitment to stability and quality. Proven troubleshooting skills for complex distributed systems and multi-platform environments.

Qualifications

To Be Successful In This Role

• Education: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related field.
• Experience: 5+ years of hands-on experience in data operations, data platform administration, or data management.
• Technical Skills: Hands-on experience with Azure Databricks administration and Azure Synapse operations. Strong understanding of Azure Data Lake Storage (Gen2), Parquet, Delta, and modern data engineering patterns (e.g., medallion architecture). Proficiency in ETL/ELT concepts. Strong CI/CD knowledge for data engineering workloads, including Git-based workflows and DevOps pipelines. Demonstrated ability to troubleshoot distributed systems and complex data platform issues. Experience with Power BI administration and dataset performance tuning. Experience configuring and managing On-Premises Data Gateways.
• Soft Skills: Ability to work effectively with cross-functional teams including developers, analysts, architects, and stakeholders. Strong documentation habits and operational rigor. Reliability-focused mindset with a commitment to stability and quality. Proven troubleshooting skills for complex distributed systems and multi-platform environments.

Skills

• Hands-on experience with Azure Databricks administration and Azure Synapse operations.
• Strong understanding of Azure Data Lake Storage (Gen2), Parquet, Delta, and modern data engineering patterns (e.g., medallion architecture).
• Proficiency in ETL/ELT concepts.
• Strong CI/CD knowledge for data engineering workloads, including Git-based workflows and DevOps pipelines.
• Demonstrated ability to troubleshoot distributed systems and complex data platform issues.
• Experience with Power BI administration and dataset performance tuning.
• Experience configuring and managing On-Premises Data Gateways.
• Experience operating in large-scale enterprise platforms like Databricks and Palantir Foundry.

Benefits

CGI Federal offers competitive compensation, comprehensive insurance options, matching contributions through the 401(k) plan and the share purchase plan, paid time off for vacation, holidays, and sick time, paid parental leave, learning opportunities and tuition assistance, wellness and well-being programs, and more.