Senior Data Engineer (AI)

Location: On-site in El Segundo, CA; Austin, TX; Washington, DC; or San Francisco, CA, United States.

Salary: $80,000–$210,000 per year, plus options grant.

Company

Gallatin is a fast-moving startup rebuilding logistics infrastructure and AI decision-support systems for US and allied national security missions.

What you will do

• Design, build, and operate containerized services integrating databases, REST/SOAP APIs, file drops, message buses, and legacy systems of record.
• Own the open lakehouse using object storage, Apache Iceberg tables, REST cataloging, data versioning, and schema evolution.
• Build batch, streaming, and change-data-capture pipelines that operate across commercial and government clouds, disconnected networks, and air-gapped edge appliances.
• Transform raw data into curated semantic entities; implement entity resolution, data fusion, lineage, provenance, quality checks, and confidence labeling.
• Build TypeScript, Vue, and Python applications that enable source connection, field mapping, low-code pipeline composition, sandbox testing, branching, and production promotion.
• Collaborate with Product, AI/ML, Frontend, Infrastructure, mission partners, and field teams; contribute to RFCs, reviews, documentation, CI/CD, and mentoring.

Requirements

• 8+ years of professional data engineering experience, including production pipeline design and operation and ownership of a data platform or lakehouse.
• Production experience with Apache Iceberg or another open table format, plus Trino, Presto, Spark SQL, or a similar distributed query engine; knowledge of partitioning, compaction, and schema evolution.
• Experience with batch and streaming technologies such as Kafka, NiFi, Debezium, or Spark, and with integrating heterogeneous relational, NoSQL, API, file, and stream sources.
• Strong Python and SQL skills; production service development in Python and/or TypeScript; enough Vue, React, or similar frontend experience to deliver internal tools end to end.
• Strong analytical and operational data modeling skills, including entity models for complex real-world domains.
• Production orchestration experience with Airflow, Dagster, Argo Workflows, or similar, and experience documenting RESTful APIs.
• Strong Kubernetes and Docker experience, including operating stateful data services and debugging networking, storage, and namespace issues.
• Experience with open-source, self-hosted, and air-gapped deployments; AWS data services or Azure equivalents; and DevSecOps/CI/CD pipelines.
• Ability to work independently with minimal oversight and communicate clearly with technical and non-technical stakeholders; ability to obtain and maintain relevant security clearances and work in classified environments when necessary.

Nice to have

• Active SECRET or TOP SECRET clearance.
• Experience with data catalogs, lineage, governance, Iceberg REST catalogs, Nessie, Polaris, OpenLineage, or DataHub.
• Experience with data versioning and branching using Nessie or lakeFS; Apache NiFi custom processors; entity resolution; semantic data fusion; knowledge graphs; or ontology modeling.
• Experience shipping data workloads into air-gapped or classified environments, or with Palantir Foundry and ontology development.
• Experience building data infrastructure for AI, including metadata and retrieval systems that improve agent accuracy and explainability.
• Background in operations research, optimization, constraint solving, defense logistics, sustainment, or supply chain systems.
• Contributions to open-source data projects.

Culture & Benefits

• Work in-office at one of four US engineering locations alongside engineers, designers, and industry experts.
• 100% employer-paid health insurance premiums, 401(k), unlimited PTO, and free office lunches and snacks.
• Competitive compensation with a generous options grant and opportunities for rapid career growth.
• Work on AI decision-support and logistics systems for US and allied national security missions.