Senior Principal Consultant - Data Engineering & Analytics

ABOUT 3CI

3Ci, an MAU company, is an IT professional services and technology consulting firm specializing in full-stack software development, data engineering, process intelligence, and digital transformation. We partner with leading enterprises to accelerate transformation and deliver measurable business outcomes.

As enterprise AI programs accelerate across every industry, 3Ci's Data Engineering practice has become one of our most strategically critical capabilities - building the modern data platforms, analytics infrastructure, and AI-ready data architecture that power clients' most important technology investments.

THE OPPORTUNITY

As a Senior Consultant - Data Engineering, you will serve as an autonomous technical leader who owns end-to-end delivery of moderately complex data platform and analytics engineering engagements. You are 3Ci's technical authority on assigned programs - trusted to make architecture decisions independently, manage director-level client relationships, and represent our Data Engineering practice without daily supervision.

You'll drive the full data platform lifecycle: from source system discovery and architecture design through pipeline build, data modeling, analytics enablement, and DataOps operationalization. AI-augmented engineering is a core expectation at this level - you'll lead AI adoption on your engagements while building 3Ci's internal AI data engineering knowledge base.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

Data Platform Architecture & Delivery

• Lead end-to-end delivery of data platform engagements: architecture design, pipeline engineering, data modeling, and analytics enablement
• Own engagement governance: technical scope, schedule, quality, and stakeholder communication
• Design cloud-native data architectures: lakehouse patterns (Databricks, Snowflake, Microsoft Fabric), medallion architecture, data mesh domain design
• Lead data platform migrations: legacy DW to cloud, on-premises to cloud-native, and platform consolidations
• Establish DataOps practices: CI/CD for data pipelines, automated testing frameworks, and data observability tooling

Advanced Data Engineering

• Design and implement enterprise-grade dbt projects: multi-project architecture, packages, macros, semantic layer, and governance
• Build streaming and real-time data pipeline architectures: Kafka, Spark Streaming, Azure Event Hubs, or equivalent
• Design and implement data quality frameworks: multi-layer validation, SLA monitoring, anomaly detection, and data contracts
• Develop AI-ready data infrastructure: feature stores, vector databases, embedding pipelines, and model serving data layers

Client Technical Advisory

• Serve as primary data engineering advisory contact for client data directors, platform architects, and engineering managers
• Advise clients on data platform strategy: build vs. buy decisions, cloud platform selection, and DataOps maturity
• Lead technical architecture reviews, data discovery workshops, and platform roadmap sessions
• Identify expansion opportunities in active accounts and surface growth opportunities to practice leadership

AI & Intelligent Data Engineering

• Lead integration of AI capabilities into data platform delivery: LLM-powered transformation, AI-assisted pipeline generation, and intelligent data quality monitoring
• Design and implement AI-ready data architectures: vector stores, RAG data pipelines, feature engineering platforms, and embedding infrastructure
• Build and maintain 3Ci's Data AI Playbook contributions: AI architecture patterns, prompt libraries, and tool integration guides
• Coach Consultants and Junior Consultants on AI-augmented data engineering techniques and responsible AI data use

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Data Science, Engineering, or related field
• 5-8 years of data engineering or analytics engineering experience in client-facing consulting or complex enterprise environments
• Demonstrated end-to-end ownership of cloud data platform builds or migrations
• Deep expertise in dbt, a cloud data platform (Snowflake, Databricks, BigQuery, or Fabric), and a modern orchestration tool
• Proven ability to design AI-ready data architectures: vector databases, embedding pipelines, or RAG data infrastructure
• Director-level client technical relationship management experience
• Strong DataOps and data quality framework design capability

Preferred Certifications & Credentials

• dbt Certified Analytics Engineer - required within 6 months if not already held
• Databricks Certified Data Engineer Professional
• Snowflake SnowPro Advanced: Data Engineer
• Microsoft Certified: Azure Data Engineer Associate (DP-203) or Fabric Analytics Engineer
• AWS Certified Data Analytics - Specialty
• AI/ML data platform certification: Azure AI Engineer, AWS ML Specialty, or equivalent

WHY 3CI

Senior Consultants at 3Ci own their engagements - the architecture, the client relationships, and the outcomes. You'll work on enterprise-scale data platform programs with the autonomy to make real technical decisions, and the support of a team that's deeply invested in your growth. Whether your next step is deepening your technical mastery as a Principal or taking on people leadership as a Manager, we'll build that path with you.

3Ci is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.