Data Engineer - Industrial Output, R&S

Summary

Designs and implements data management infrastructure. Builds, automates, and maintains data management systems that combine core data sources into data repositories to enable reporting/visualization and analysis of data. Writes or improves code to handle complex data processing tasks. Engages in product development of internal systems, tools, and platforms. With moderate direction, identifies key opportunities for improvement and technical/process enhancement to increase operational efficiencies. Explores and queries datasets, cleans and transforms data, and may develop dashboards and visualizations. Has an intermediate ability to use tools and technologies that protect the security of Board data.

Duties and Responsibilities

• With moderate guidance, influences building and architecting next generation data management platforms on a group of core technologies. Develops, maintains, and optimizes data management solutions that ensure high availability of data availability, data scalability, data quality, data integrity and data security. Explores new datasets, promoting data discovery and understanding, revises existing data and builds and maintains data views and aggregate data series of moderate complexity. Queries datasets and cleans/transforms data of moderate complexity.
• Has an intermediate understanding of new/key technologies and platforms and how to incorporate third party APIs and open source/reusable components. Uses intermediate knowledge of new/key technologies to influence the implementation of innovative solutions.
• Utilizes lean and agile software development practices such as test-driven development, refactoring, continuous integration, and deployment, version control, and simple design to create quality, reusable- code. Writes or improves code to handle complex data processing tasks, or rewrites old processes written in older languages. Collects ongoing data updates from external sources to establish and maintain software code used to convert raw data into usable formats.
• With moderate guidance, creates and maintains programs and processes necessary to provide data for production and research. Implements processes and programs that monitor data quality, logging and responding to production issues, and ensures production data is always accurate and available for key stakeholders/customers and business processes that depend on it.
• Engages in product development of internal systems, tools and platforms supporting operational capabilities. Engages in transitioning existing products out of legacy technology platforms. Helps to create new products as ad hoc requests arise.
• Integrates data from multiple sources to employ moderately complex features of integration technologies. Develops recommendations and provides guidance related to data integration strategy in order to meet future reporting and analytic needs.
• With moderate guidance, influences the designing, constructing, and implementing of a database system to meet strategic needs. Builds data management systems that combine core data sources into data repositories to enable reporting and analysis of data. Develops, maintains, and automates data pipelines that ingest data from a wide variety of structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data formats.
• With moderate direction, identifies key opportunities for improvement and technical/process enhancement to increase operational efficiencies, address future technological needs, and reduce costs associated with the use of internal tools.
• Works on safeguarding digital data throughout its entire lifecycle to protect it from corruption, theft, or unauthorized access. Has an intermediate ability to use tools and technologies that protect data in transit and/or at rest through processes like data masking, encryption, and redaction of sensitive information. Sets access permissions.
• Utilizes intermediate knowledge of key components of cloud computing and one or more cloud technology platforms. Engages in evaluating use cases to determine which cloud tools and services best fit a client’s needs.
• Gathers and analyzes various quantitative and qualitative data to provide useful information and actionable recommendations to s. Based on data analysis, illustrates and report data findings using intermediate knowledge of visual charts, figures, tables, and dashboards to tailor findings to specific audiences.
• Remains aware of and adheres to applicable governing standards.
• Governs large volumes of both structured and unstructured data. Designs, develops, automates, and troubleshoots data flows and pipelines to process large quantities of data.
• With moderate assistance, proactively troubleshoots, diagnoses, documents and resolves escalated support problems as assigned. Refines and leverages abilities in explaining technical problems/solutions to non-technical individuals, in order to provide context for how the issue was resolved.
• Writes documentation for new and existing productions processes and data items. Ensures up-to-date documentation is available and written in a clear and succinct manner.

The Industrial Output (IO) section has an opening for a Data Engineer (DE) who will focus on a major technical infrastructure modernization project, along with the section’s nontraditional data, cloud, and generative AI efforts. Over the next few years, the majority of the DE’s time will be spent modernizing the infrastructure of the Board’s monthly G.17 statistical release on industrial production and capacity utilization (IP/CU), the Board’s highest priority product for the Forecasting & Modeling (F&M) Initiative. This is an exciting opportunity to take a leadership role, along with the DE’s Group Manager and other section members, to develop robust new infrastructure that matches and exceeds the current architecture’s capabilities. The DE will also support the release’s existing architecture and help advance the section’s use of non-traditional (i.e. “big”) data sources as part of the section’s Expanded Measurement Agenda (EMA), along with collaborating in the administration and continuous improvement of the section’s technological infrastructure.

The IO section is a team of 14 economists (including the section chief and three group managers), 4 research assistants, 1 other DE (not including the new hire), 1 economic data analyst, and 1 business analyst. In addition to publishing the G.17 release, the IO section produces forecasts for the industrial sector and spearheads the division’s work identifying and using novel/non-traditional data sources to develop timely measures of economic activity. Finally, section members conduct mission-relevant research on several topics, including economic measurement, innovation and productivity, firm investment and financing decisions, trade, and employment and business dynamics.

The DE will take a leadership role in working with other section DEs and economists to maintain, troubleshoot, and update the IP/CU data and code infrastructure. The G.17 is heavily dependent on FAME legacy software for both programming and database storage, relying on FAME’s formula functionality and in-house-developed functions. Because the release needs to be produced each month in a robust, secure environment, adapting the infrastructure requires careful, ambitious work over the next few years. Modernizing the G.17 will require a significant investment by the section’s technical staff in conjunction with F&M contractors. The successful candidate will embrace new technology (such as AI and coding assistants) with a prudent focus on the robustness and reliability of the system. The successful candidate will demonstrate a willingness and aptitude to develop strong FAME-coding skills, along with skills in modern languages (R, Python, etc.). Experience working with FAME, R, Python, or Stata, as well as database storage software (such as DuckDB or SQL-based systems like PostgreSQL, MySQL, or SQLite), is a substantial plus.

The DE will also be expected to manage some of the organizational tasks related to the statistical release, such as coordinating with Board IT and the Public Information Office on the transfer and validation of IP/CU files. The DE will also work with other section DEs and economists contributing to the section’s Expanded Measurement Agenda, an ambitious program focused on nontraditional data, and generative AI.

The successful candidate will be able to switch easily between working independently and working collaboratively with section members. In addition, the successful candidate will demonstrate initiative, creativity, and a willingness to innovate. The candidate will have a strong interest in coding, be a hard worker, be a willing learner and collaborator, and be reliable in the same way the G.17 release itself is reliably produced every month.

Required experience and competencies:

• A bachelor’s degree; preferably in computer science, mathematics, physics, statistics, economics, or a related field and a minimum of 4 years of related experience.

• Strong programming skills. Experience with FAME, R, or Python is a plus.

• Strong verbal and written communication skills

• Ability to work independently and to collaborate with others in a team environment and quickly understand data structures and idiosyncrasies.

• Reliability and an ability to work efficiently on time-sensitive projects.

• Curiosity, creativity, a desire to learn, initiative, and an interest in economics, economic measurement, and statistics.

Notes:

• This position is located in Washington, DC, and requires in-office presence.

• The expected salary range for this role is $110,400 - $190,900, which spans all the posted grades. Final offers are based on the grade for which you minimally qualify and are determined by experience and education, as well as internal and external factors

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and do not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, or application, membership, or service in the uniformed services.