Junior Data Platform Administrator

Job Description

Junior Data Platform Administrator | MERS / Goodwill

The Tone:
This is a salaried position at MERS / Goodwill, an organization based in Missouri dedicated to changing lives through the power of work. The company, operating within its Management Information Systems team, supports various operational areas like IT, finance, and retail. This role is crucial for ensuring reliable, well-documented data assets by managing ingestion, processing, and maintenance within the Databricks environment. The position directly contributes to enabling organizational reporting and analytics, underpinning the company’s mission.

The TL;DR
• Role: Junior Data Platform Administrator
• Type: Salaried
• Location: In-person, Missouri (with 25% travel)
• Pay: $31.25 – $33.65 hourly
• Team: Management Information Systems, reporting to the Data Lake team lead
• Mission: This person builds and maintains data pipelines in Databricks to provide reliable, well-documented data assets for organizational reporting and analytics.
• Tech Stack: SQL, relational databases, Databricks, Apache Spark, PySpark, Python, Git, Microsoft Azure, Entra ID, CSV, JSON, Parquet

What You’ll Actually Do
• Pipeline Development: Build, monitor, and maintain data ingestion pipelines into Databricks from various source systems, including API endpoints and POS systems.
• Workflow Creation: Develop and maintain notebooks, jobs, and workflows in Databricks using PySpark and SQL.
• Environment Management: Perform routine maintenance of the Databricks environment, including cluster configuration assistance, job scheduling, and data quality validation.
• Issue Resolution: Investigate and resolve pipeline failures, data freshness issues, and schema drift, documenting root cause and remediation steps.
• Stakeholder Collaboration: Collaborate with the Data Lake team and business stakeholders to translate reporting and analytics requirements into data engineering tasks.

The Must-Haves
• Background: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Data Engineering, Analytics, or a related field; or an equivalent combination of education and experience, in an entry-level engineering capacity.
• Experience: 0–2 years of professional or internship experience in data engineering, analytics engineering, business intelligence, or database administration.
• Skills: Working knowledge of SQL, relational databases, data modeling, and ETL/ELT concepts, with experience in at least one programming language, preferably Python. Ability to troubleshoot, validate data, and interpret existing code and pipelines.
• Bonus: Familiarity with cloud data platforms, including Databricks, Apache Spark, or PySpark; understanding of structured and unstructured data formats; familiarity with Git; and exposure to Microsoft Azure or Entra ID.