Data Platform Engineer

Lehigh County Authority is seeking a Data Platform Engineer to enhance their data architecture. The role involves designing, implementing, and optimizing scalable data systems to support AI-driven features and ensure performance, scalability, and availability of data systems.

Responsibilities:

• Design and maintain scalable storage across SQL, NoSQL, in-memory, and search platforms
• Ensure system resilience, availability, and observability
• Implement lifecycle management, backup/recovery, and security protocols
• Identify and resolve bottlenecks across the data layer
• Tune indexing, caching, and partitioning strategies
• Improve query throughput and data latency for AI and transactional workloads
• Support AI-driven features with performant, accessible data structures
• Work on vector storage, semantic indexing, and future RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) features
• Use AI-assisted tools (e.g., GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT) to improve development speed and documentation
• Partner with engineering teams to deliver backend features reliant on complex data pipelines
• Document schemas, systems, and best practices
• Mentor peers on observability and modern data design

Requirements:

• 5+ years of experience managing or building large-scale data systems
• Proficient in SQL, NoSQL, and distributed systems (MSSQL, MongoDB, Redis)
• Comfortable with Elasticsearch or Solr, schema evolution, and data modeling
• Familiar with cloud-native infrastructure (AWS or Azure)
• Skilled in observability and performance tuning
• Excited to adopt AI-assisted tools to boost efficiency and quality
• Experience with vector databases and semantic search
• Knowledge of RAG patterns or AI-first architecture
• Familiarity with streaming/event-driven platforms like Kafka or EventBridge
• Experience with Kubernetes or container-based deployments