Senior Data Engineer

 About Ava Community Energy

Ava Community Energy (Ava), Formerly East Bay Community Energy, is a Joint Powers Authority comprising Alameda County and its incorporated areas, and the cities of Lathrop, Stockton, and Tracy. Ava’s charter is to provide its customers with low carbon, cost-effective electricity that integrates innovative energy products and maximizes local benefits through the development of local solutions, ranging from increasing access to rooftop solar to supporting the adoption of electric vehicles. 

Culture and Commitment to Diversity 

Ava believes in a vibrant culture that supports and nurtures a workplace that offers every individual the opportunity to attain professional goals and contribute to accomplishing our mission. We foster a culture of open communication, responsibility, curiosity, accountability, and teamwork. We want creative problem solvers that are excited to work in an entrepreneurial environment and grow our organization!  

As an equal opportunity employer, we are committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion. We are committed to a diverse and inclusive workforce that is reflective of our service area’s rich culture and communities. We welcome a diversity of experiences, perspectives, and skills. 

We strongly encourage people of all characteristics to apply and prohibit unlawful discrimination and harassment of any type based on age, religion, color, gender identity or expression, race, ancestry, or national origin, religion or creed, marital status, military or veteran status, sexual orientation, genetic information or characteristics, and those with a disability as protected by federal, state and local laws.

Position Summary

Ava is seeking to hire a full-time Senior Data Engineer to join our growing Analytics team, reporting to the Head of Technology and Analytics. Ava is looking for a software engineer with experience in data pipelines and data wrangling who can expand and optimize Ava’s existing data infrastructure, extensively collaborating with our Salesforce, Data Science, Modeling and Analytics team. We are looking for someone who can navigate both the realms of Data and Software Engineering. Ideally, we are looking for a software engineer who communicates effectively and is collaborative in nature, and who will be excited about contributing to Ava’s technology stack and broader mission.

Position Details 

Essential Duties and Responsibilities 

• Create and maintain an optimal engineering tech stack and reliable data pipeline operations, including but not limited to:
• Further developing and maintaining the infrastructure required for optimal extraction, transformation, and loading of data from a wide variety of data sources (e.g., ETL, APIs). 
• Innovating internal processes by automating manual tasks, fine-tuning data delivery mechanisms, and revamping infrastructure to ensure scalability.
• Designing and implementing best practices for data storage and query optimization, with a focus on minimizing costs within GCP.
• Designing robust error logging and process monitoring solutions while adhering to best practices and leveraging technologies available on the Google Cloud Platform.
• Establishing and maintaining engineering, analytical, and monitoring protocols to uphold data quality standards.
• Playing a key role in transitioning Ava's bash processes to a containerized framework utilizing Google Cloud Platform's CloudRun service.
• Assisting in the adoption of top-tier DevOps practices, which includes refining version control infrastructure to better suit DevOps workflows, implementing GitHub Actions for automated process orchestration, and establishing robust CI/CD pipelines for seamless integration and delivery of software updates.
• Having a “tackle challenges head-on” mentality for jumping and solving problems as they arise, supporting the team with process testing, bug fixes, and code reviews to ensure software reliability and quality.

• Innovation in Data Engineering and Analytics:
• Further enhance the Ava API using best practices in data architecture and engineering efficiency
• Help implement best practices in machine Learning infrastructure in partnership with the Analytics team
• Help develop and maintain open source software that has been developed to foster the growth of clean and renewable energy.

• Data and Cyber Security:
• Enhancing IAM (Identity and Access Management) policies related to data and cybersecurity to ensure compliance with industry standards and best practices.
• Collaborating on network security measures to fortify Ava's infrastructure against potential cyber threats, ensuring data integrity and confidentiality are preserved.
• Other duties as required

 

Minimum Qualifications

• A bachelor’s degree in computer science or another engineering and/or data-intensive discipline
• Current day-to-day and hands-on experience developing and maintaining data engineering processes
• > 5 years of work experience at the intersection of data and software engineering in a cross-functional collaborative environment
• > 5 years of experience in building, maintaining, and optimizing ‘big data’ pipelines (e.g., architecture, engineering systems, processes), implementing DevOps processes for efficient asynchronous collaboration, and strong analytical skills related to working with unstructured datasets.
• A successful history of maintaining or developing software and data engineering infrastructure for internal and external data sharing, analytical processes, and machine learning infrastructure
• Extensive experience with Bash Scripting, Linux operating systems
• Extensive experience with relational SQL (GCP BigQuery preferred) databases
• Extensive experience with Python
• Extensive experience with Cloud Services (e.g., Google Cloud Platform, Amazon, Azure). Preferred: Google Cloud Platform 
• Extensive experience with batch-processing systems
• Experience with data pipeline and workflow management tools (e.g. Luigi, Airflow) 
• Extensive experience in containerized applications and container based orchestration environments (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes)
• Extensive experience with version control (e.g., git, Github)
• Experience with infrastructure as code (e.g. Terraform)
• Bonus: Experience with CRMs and their backend infrastructure (e.g., Salesforce, Salesforce Bulk Python API)

 

 Compensation and Benefits 

The annual salary for this position is $173,567 with a Total Compensation of up to $190,924 annually based on performance. 

Ava offers a generous benefits package which includes: 

• Zero cost Individual, family, and domestic partner health insurance (medical, dental, vision) 

• Life and AD&D, EAP, STD, and LTD 
• Retirement with Employer Matching  
• Paid Time Off and Holidays
• Fertility & Adoption Benefits
• Pet Insurance
• Mental Health Support
• Flexible Spending Accounts (health and dependent care accounts) 
• Paid Volunteer Days
• And More!

 

Location and Working Conditions 

Ava's team has a hybrid approach inclusive of in-office and remote work. Ava’s team is expected to go into the office Tuesday, Thursday, and the first Wednesday of the month. For this position, based on role fit, Ava may be flexible on the number of days expected in the office and open to remote work. We are not providing sponsorships currently.

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Ava is dedicated to reasonably accommodate an applicant for known physical or mental disabilities so that the applicant may participate in the application process.  We will engage in a timely, good-faith interactive process with any employee with a known physical or mental disability to identify potential reasonable accommodations, if any, to enable the employee to perform the essential functions of their position. 

• General office environment is primarily sedentary work which requires the following physical activities: standing, sitting, walking, reaching, lifting, finger dexterity, grasping, repetitive motions, talking, hearing and visual acuity. 

• The employee must occasionally lift and/or move up to 10 pounds. 
• The noise level is usually moderate. 

  

Licenses/Certificates 

• Possession and continued maintenance of a valid class C California driver’s license or the ability to provide alternate transportation and a safe driving record. 

 

Working at Ava Community Energy 

Ava is committed to complying with applicable laws, including the Americans with Disability Act and Fair Employment and Housing Act, ensuring equal employment opportunities to qualified individuals with a disability. Ava prohibits unlawful discrimination based on age, sex or gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding or related medical conditions), genetic information or characteristics, gender identity, gender expression, race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, creed, marital status, military or veteran status, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, medical condition, or on any other basis prohibited by federal, state, or local laws. Ava strives to maintain a COVID-free workplace, being fully vaccinated is a condition of employment (exemptions will be evaluated by legal council).

 

The information contained herein has been designed to indicate the general nature and level of work performed by employees within this classification. It is not designed to contain or be interpreted as a comprehensive inventory of all duties, responsibilities and qualifications required of employees assigned to this job. The information also does not constitute either an expressed or implied contract, and these provisions are subject to change.