Data Specialist

Overview We are hiring a Data Engineering Specialist to join a growing data engineering team in Charlotte. This person will play a key role in designing and guiding data solutions that support analytics, reporting, and other business use cases across the organization. This is not just a heads-down developer role. The team is looking for someone who can combine strong hands-on data engineering experience with leadership, solutioning, and stakeholder management. The right person will be able to help shape technical direction, guide developers, and make sure solutions align with long term architecture and business goals. Key Responsibilities • Design and guide data engineering solutions using Databricks, PySpark, and modern data architecture best practices • Lead and support data initiatives from early project discussions through execution • Partner with architects, product owners, and other stakeholders to understand requirements and translate them into practical technical plans • Help the team determine the right approach for ingesting, transforming, and modeling data from a variety of source systems, including complex XML and JSON feeds • Apply medallion architecture concepts and help define the right strategy for moving data through bronze, silver, and gold layers • Provide technical leadership to data engineers and help keep work aligned to best practices, architectural standards, and long term strategy • Review proposed solutions and course-correct when needed to make sure the team is building the right thing the right way • Support multiple projects at once and help prioritize work across the team • Step in hands-on when needed to unblock the team or solve technical issues • Build and model data in a way that supports downstream analytical and reporting use cases Must Haves • Strong experience in data engineering with solid hands-on work in Databricks and PySpark • Strong understanding of medallion architecture and how to structure data across bronze, silver, and gold layers • Strong data modeling skills, including the ability to organize and model data for reporting and analytics use cases • Experience working with complex source data, including nested XML and JSON • Ability to think through data solutioning, not just development • Experience guiding technical direction for a team or project • Ability to work closely with architects, product owners, and business stakeholders • Strong communication skills and the ability to explain technical decisions clearly • Ability to manage multiple streams of work and keep projects moving • Enough hands-on depth to support developers technically when they get stuck Nice to Haves • Experience supporting reporting use cases in Power BI • Exposure to Azure ML or other downstream analytics / modeling environments • Experience in insurance or another enterprise environment with complex data ecosystems • Experience leading data engineering teams or functioning in a team lead capacity What Success Looks Like • Can quickly understand incoming business requirements and turn them into a practical data approach • Helps the team make good technical decisions instead of acting like an order taker • Balances hands-on support with leadership and project ownership • Keeps multiple efforts moving while staying aligned with architecture and best practices • Brings both technical depth and good stakeholder judgment