Data Engineer (AI Platform)

Data Engineer (AI Platform)

IFS is a billion-dollar revenue company with 7000+ employees on all continents. Our leading AI technology is the backbone of our award-winning enterprise software solutions, enabling our customers to be their best when it really matters–at the Moment of Service™. Our commitment to internal AI adoption has allowed us to stay at the forefront of technological advancements, ensuring our colleagues can unlock their creativity and productivity, and our solutions are always cutting-edge.

At IFS, we're flexible, we're innovative, and we're focused not only on how we can engage with our customers but on how we can make a real change and have a worldwide impact. We help solve some of society's greatest challenges, fostering a better future through our agility, collaboration, and trust.

We celebrate diversity and understand our responsibility to reflect the diverse world we work in. We are committed to promoting an inclusive workforce that fully represents the many different cultures, backgrounds, and viewpoints of our customers, our partners, and our communities. As a truly international company serving people from around the globe, we realize that our success is tantamount to the respect we have for those different points of view.

By joining our team, you will have the opportunity to be part of a global, diverse environment; you will be joining a winning team with a commitment to sustainability; and a company where we get things done so that you can make a positive impact on the world.

We're looking for innovative and original thinkers to work in an environment where you can #MakeYourMoment so that we can help others make theirs. With the power of our AI-driven solutions, we empower our team to change the status quo and make a real difference.

If you want to change the status quo, we'll help you make your moment. Join Team Purple. Join IFS.

Job Description

We are seeking experienced Data Engineer to build the data backbone for IFS Nexus Black. Our customers have critical information spread across ERPs, CRMs, ticketing tools, file shares, data warehouses, and logs—often split between cloud and on-prem systems. Your mission is to turn that fragmented landscape into reliable, secure, and AI-ready data products that power complex Q&A, guided workflows, and autonomous agents.

You thrive in fast-moving, ambiguous environments. You've shipped 0→1 systems in startups or startup-like teams, value outcomes over ceremony, and set lightweight guardrails so the team can move quickly without breaking trust on reliability, privacy, or compliance.

Key Responsibilities

• Ingest and unify data from cloud and on-prem sources: relational databases, SaaS apps (e.g., Salesforce, ServiceNow), data warehouses/lakes, file shares (SMB/NFS), and event/log streams.
• Design secure hybrid connectivity patterns (e.g., VPN/private networking, reverse proxies/bastions, customer-hosted extract agents, IP allowlists, mutual TLS).
• Implement scalable ingestion—including incremental loads and backfills—with checkpointing, idempotency, and graceful schema evolution.
• Model data for building AI agents and workflows (dimensional, Data Vault, or Lakehouse) with clear lineage and stable join keys for cross-system use cases.
• Build and maintain transformation layers and orchestration with robust scheduling, retries, observability, and SLAs.
• Create retrieval layers for AI: search indices and vector stores, plus feature/metadata tables for RAG, agents, and guided workflows.
• Operationalize document-intelligence pipelines (OCR, parsing, chunking, PII redaction, embedding generation, enrichment), including on-prem execution when required.
• Optimize performance and cost across storage/compute, caching, indexing strategies, and partitioning to meet latency and throughput targets.
• Collaborate with AI engineers and product to translate workflow/Q&A needs into data contracts, retrieval plans, and guardrails.
• Ship iteratively: plan spikes, land thin slices (MVP), instrument outcomes, and tighten the loop with customers.
• Support customer pilots: troubleshoot networking/auth, handle change windows, and deliver incremental improvements quickly

Qualifications

4–8+ years of data engineering (or equivalent impact) delivering production ELT/ETL on Azure/AWS/GCP with meaningful on-prem/hybrid exposure.

Strong SQL and Python; experience building reliable transformation layers and operating orchestrated workloads at scale.

Familiarity with streaming and event-driven patterns (e.g., Kafka/Event Hubs/Kinesis) and batch/stream convergence.

Experience designing secure connectivity behind firewalls (VPNs, private networking, proxies) and working with enterprise identity/auth (e.g., AD/LDAP, SSO/OAuth).

Exposure to search/retrieval systems and vector stores to support LLM-based applications.

Proven data quality and observability practices (tests, SLIs/SLOs, lineage, alerting) and comfort owning on-call for data pipelines.

Familiarity with modern Lakehouse/warehouse tech and columnar formats; pragmatic approach to choosing tools.

Deep customer empathy; ability to simplify complex requirements and land them in production.

Startup/fast-mover DNA: shipped 0→1 platforms or products, bias-to-action, comfort with ambiguity, excellent judgment on when to optimize vs. iterate.

Excellent communication skills with the ability to translate between technical and business stakeholders; collaborative, low-ego, and ownership-oriented.

Additional Information

We embrace flexibility and hybrid work opportunities to support diverse needs and lifestyles, while also valuing inclusive workplace experiences. By fostering a sense of community, we drive innovation, strengthen connections, and nurture belonging. Our commitment ensures you can work in a way that suits you best, while also engaging with colleagues to share ideas and build meaningful relationships.

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or status as a protected veteran. VEVRAA Federal Contractor, Equal Opportunity Employer