Data Engineer (contract)

Please note that this is a contract role providing services to Hilton through Talent Solutions. If you are selected for this role, you will be employed by Talent Solutions and will not be an employee of Hilton. Contract workers are not employees of Hilton or any of its subsidiaries, nor will they be eligible for Hilton benefits. • US based remote role with a preference for a candidate in McLean, VA area • • • Job Summary We are seeking a highly skilled and experienced data engineering professional to join our enterprise data platform team. In this role, you will be responsible for designing, developing, and implementing scalable, cloud-native data solutions that power critical business intelligence and AI-driven initiatives across the organization. You will work at the intersection of modern data engineering and emerging artificial intelligence technologies, contributing to a robust and secure data ecosystem that spans a distributed cloud infrastructure. This is an opportunity to make a meaningful impact by building the data foundation that enables advanced analytics, machine learning, and enterprise-wide decision-making. Responsibilities • Design, develop, and implement scalable data solutions for ingesting, processing, provisioning, and securing data across the enterprise data platform, including Data Lake, Cloud Data Warehouse, and downstream data marts • Leverage modern data engineering frameworks and cloud-native services to build reliable and performant data pipelines • Apply understanding of feature engineering, model input/output pipelines, and data serving patterns to support AI and machine learning use cases • Implement and support LLM integration patterns, data pipelines for AI use cases, and metadata and semantic layer design for AI consumption • Contribute to the full software development lifecycle, including design reviews, testing, validation, and certification of data pipelines and solutions • Collaborate with cross-functional teams to ensure data solutions meet business requirements and adhere to engineering best practices • Apply strong knowledge of distributed processing frameworks and data engineering patterns to optimize pipeline performance and scalability • Support CI/CD processes and contribute to the continuous improvement of development workflows and deployment practices Skills • Strong hands-on experience with Java, Scala, and Apache Spark for large-scale data processing • Proficiency with streaming and event-driven technologies including Apache Kafka and Amazon Firehose • Experience with cloud-native services including AWS Lambda, AWS Glue, and Amazon EMR • Expertise in workflow orchestration using Apache Airflow • Solid understanding of data lake and cloud data warehouse architectures • Familiarity with data integration tools such as Talend or Informatica is a plus • Experience working with vectorized data, embeddings, or AI-assisted data processing tools is a plus • Strong understanding of data engineering best practices, patterns, and distributed processing frameworks • Experience with CI/CD tools including Maven, Stash (Bitbucket), Bamboo, and GitLab Qualifications • 8+ years of experience in data engineering or a related field • Demonstrated experience designing and implementing enterprise-scale data platforms in a cloud environment • Experience contributing to the full software development lifecycle including design, testing, and validation of data solutions • Background working with AI or machine learning data pipelines is strongly preferred This is a rare opportunity to work on a high-impact, enterprise-scale data platform that sits at the forefront of cloud and AI innovation. You will collaborate with talented engineers and data professionals in a dynamic environment where your contributions will directly influence how data is used to drive strategic decisions across a globally recognized organization. If you are passionate about building cutting-edge data infrastructure and want to shape the future of data engineering in an exciting and fast-paced setting, this role offers the challenge and growth you have been looking for. Pay Rate Range 75 - 83 USD hourly