Data Engineer

About the role

Newsela operates a digital platform that delivers curated news and educational content to classrooms across the United States. The Data Engineer position at Newsela focuses on constructing and sustaining the data infrastructure that powers analytics and reporting throughout the organization. This role requires designing reliable data pipelines, maintaining data quality standards, and enabling teams to make informed decisions based on accurate information. The Data Engineer collaborates with product managers, analysts, and fellow engineers to translate business needs into effective data solutions that drive product improvements. This position is fully remote and open to candidates based anywhere within the United States, offering flexibility while contributing to a mission-driven company.

Key facts

What you'll do

Architect and build data pipelines that extract, transform, and load information across multiple storage systems reliably

Develop automated workflows that ensure data freshness and consistency across all downstream consumers and applications

Partner with multidisciplinary teams to understand their data requirements and deliver scalable solutions that meet those needs

Monitor pipeline performance and respond to failures or degradation to maintain high availability of data services

Write clear documentation describing data schemas, transformation logic, and infrastructure configurations for team reference

Implement data validation and quality checks that identify anomalies, duplicates, or inconsistencies in incoming datasets

Optimize existing data infrastructure for improved throughput, reduced latency, and lower operational costs over time

Support business intelligence and analytics initiatives by providing well-structured, accessible datasets to stakeholders

Participate in code reviews and contribute to engineering standards and best practices within the data group

Evaluate emerging tools and technologies that could enhance the company's data processing and storage capabilities

Troubleshoot and resolve data quality issues by tracing problems back through source systems and transformation logic

Contribute to the evolution of the company's data strategy by proposing improvements and sharing knowledge with peers

Requirements

Demonstrated experience designing and operating data pipelines in a production or production-like environment

Strong proficiency in at least one general-purpose programming language used for data processing and engineering

Familiarity with cloud-based data services and managed infrastructure offerings for building scalable systems

Solid understanding of relational databases and non-relational data stores and their appropriate application scenarios

Ability to diagnose and resolve complex issues in data flows, transformations, and integrations effectively

Experience with version control systems and collaborative software development practices in a team setting

Excellent written and verbal communication skills for explaining technical concepts to diverse audiences

Bachelor's degree in computer science, software engineering, mathematics, or a closely related discipline

Comfortable working in an agile or iterative development environment with regular releases and feedback cycles

Aptitude for learning new tools and frameworks quickly and adapting to evolving business and technical requirements

Nice to have

Exposure to real-time or streaming data sources and event-driven processing patterns in production environments

Experience with containerization technologies and cluster management platforms for deploying and scaling data services

Background in education technology, media, or content-driven companies and understanding their unique data challenges

Knowledge of data governance practices, cataloging, metadata management, and maintaining organized data ecosystems

Familiarity with data visualization platforms and the ability to create dashboards for stakeholder consumption

Skills & tools

SQL and Python for querying, transforming, and moving data between systems efficiently

Cloud platform services for data storage, compute, and managed analytics offerings

Data modeling techniques for structuring analytical datasets and warehouse schemas

Workflow scheduling and orchestration frameworks for managing pipeline execution and dependencies

Git and collaborative development workflows for versioning code and infrastructure definitions

Logging and monitoring solutions for tracking pipeline health, latency, and error rates

Data integration and API tools for connecting external systems and internal platforms together

Practical notes

This role operates in a fully remote setting, and candidates must be based within the United States

Newsela is committed to building a diverse and inclusive workplace and encourages all qualified individuals to apply

The interview process typically includes technical discussions, coding exercises, and conversations with prospective teammates

The Data Engineer should expect to work across time zones and communicate progress asynchronously with colleagues

Newsela values transparency and open communication, and expects all team members to share progress and blockers regularly