Senior Palantir Data Engineer at Unissant in Herndon, VA, USA

Job description

• We are seeking a Senior Palantir Data Engineer (Lead) to join our team and support our client.
• The ideal candidate is a senior data engineering leader who will own the pipeline architecture underpinning Unissant's Palantir practice, ensuring reliable, governed, and scalable data flows into Foundry for DHS mission clients. This founding role has significant influence over technical standards and hiring as the practice grows. This is a full-time, hybrid position based in Washington, DC/Herndon, VA, requiring onsite work two to three days per week.

Responsibilities

• Architect and lead development of complex, large-scale data pipelines using Pipeline Builder and Code Workbook.
• Own integration strategy for external systems and APIs feeding Foundry environments.
• Define data governance, security, and quality standards for the practice.
• Lead code reviews and set engineering best practices for pipeline development.
• Partner with Foundry Developers and Solution Architects on ontology and pipeline alignment.
• Support technical proposal writing and client capability demonstrations.

Requirements

• Five (5) or more years of data engineering experience, including three (3) or more years of hands-on Palantir Foundry experience in a senior or lead capacity.
• Expert-level Python/PySpark and SQL; working knowledge of TypeScript.
• Proven experience architecting large-scale, distributed data pipelines in production environments.
• Experience with cloud platforms, including AWS, Azure, or GCP.
• Prior experience in federal law enforcement, homeland security, or intelligence community data environments preferred.
• Experience mentoring junior data engineers or leading a technical team preferred.
• Bachelor's Degree is required. Preferred field of study in Computer Science, Information Technology, Information Systems, Operations Management, or related field of study.
• MBA/Master's Degree in a relevant field of study preferred.
• Palantir Foundry Data Engineer certification preferred.
• Excellent verbal and written skills, ability to present proposals and performance data, comfortable interfacing all levels of organization.
• Ability to write clear and concise creative content in a highly confidential manner.
• Ability to obtain and maintain a DHS Public Trust clearance is required.

Skills

Required

• Expert-level Python/PySpark
• SQL
• Working knowledge of TypeScript
• Palantir Foundry
• Data pipeline architecture
• Cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP)