AI Big Data Engineer AWS Data Engineer

Hello

This is Kumar from Tek Leaders Inc hope you are doing great. Please find the below Job Description.

Role: AI Big Data Engineer

Location: Tysons VA or Rockville MD (Hybrid Position & In-person interview)

Duration: Contract to hire

Job Description:

We are seeking an early-career Big Data Engineer who works AI-first. This role is for someone 1-2 years into their career who already treats AI tools as a core part of how they build not an occasional autocomplete and who has real projects to show for it. You will build and maintain data pipelines alongside senior engineers using Spark Python and AWS. SQL and coding fundamentals matter but were not screening for deep expertise. Well teach the data engineering. What we cant teach is the instinct to reach for AI get a working prototype fast and then have the judgment to know when the output is wrong. The X factor: youve built something nobody asked you to build largely with AI assistance and you can explain both what it does and where the AI got it wrong. Responsibilities

• Build and maintain data processing pipelines using Spark and Python with mentorship from senior engineers
• Use AI coding assistants as your default working mode for scaffolding pipelines generating tests understanding unfamiliar code and drafting documentation then review and validate everything before it ships. You own the output not the tool
• Write automated unit and integration tests for data quality and debug pipeline failures using AI to speed up root-cause analysis
• Prototype quickly and build small tools that remove repetitive work for the team turning rough ideas into something runnable in hours rather than weeks
• Document what you build and share whats working including prompts workflows and AI patterns that made you faster Education / Experience Requirements Bachelors degree in Computer Science Information Systems Engineering or related discipline with 1-2 years of relevant experience. Internships co-ops research work open-source contributions and substantial personal projects all count. Masters degree may substitute for experience. AI Skills (Core Requirement)
• Daily hands-on use of AI development tools such as GitHub Copilot Q Developer ChatGPT Claude Cursor or Kiro
• Prompt engineering: you can get useful output from a vague starting point and you iterate rather than accepting the first answer
• Critical validation: you can spot when AI code is subtly wrong including bad edge-case handling hallucinated APIs and plausible-looking logic errors. This is the single most important skill in the role
• Prototyping speed and workflow design: youve used AI to go from idea to working demo fast and youve changed how you work to take advantage of it
• Bonus: experience with AI agents MCP servers RAG or LLM APIs in something you actually built

Technical Skills:

• Solid programming ability in Python writing clean readable code you can explain line by line with comfort using Git and code review
• Working SQL: joins aggregations filtering and awareness of NULLs and duplicates. Basic is fine
• Some exposure to Spark and AWS (S3 at minimum) in any setting including coursework internship personal project or free-tier Databricks plus a basic grasp of why moving data between machines is expensive.
• Strong communication and fast learning with the ability to explain a technical problem to someone who wasnt in your head and the instinct to ask for help early The X Factor
• At least one project you can walk us through covering what you built how you used AI to build it what broke and what youd do differently
• Something you built or taught yourself because you wanted to not because it was assigned
• Comfortable pushing back respectfully on people and on AI output Good to Have
• Exposure to Hive Trino or another query engine
• Experience with CI/CD
• Prior Agile team experience (Scrum or Kanban)
• Hackathons Kaggle technical blog posts or AWS certifications
• Financial Services exposure

Thanks & Regards

Kumar K

IT Recruiter

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