Data Engineer

The American Lung Association has an excellent opportunity for a Data Engineer. Working as a member of the Information Technology department, you will join an outstanding group of professionals dedicated to our mission: to save lives by improving lung health and preventing lung disease through research, education, and advocacy.

The Data Engineer is responsible for designing, building, maintaining, and optimizing data platforms that support enterprise analytics, reporting, and AI/ML initiatives. This role combines data engineering, data modeling, and data architecture responsibilities to deliver scalable, reliable, and governed data solutions. The Data Engineer works closely with business stakeholders and governance teams to translate business requirements into scalable, well-governed data solutions that support organizational objectives.

Location: Chicago, Illinois

• Hybrid: The position is located at the American Lung Association’s Chicago, Illinois office and will be a combination of in-person and virtual work.

Responsibilities:

             Data Engineering

• Design, build, and maintain reliable, scalable ETL/ELT pipelines to ingest data from diverse sources (APIs, SaaS platforms, databases, streaming sources, flat files).
• Develop and optimize batch and real-time data workflows using modern orchestration and transformation tools.
• Ensure data quality, reliability, and observability through automated testing, monitoring, and alerting.
• Partner with Data Team and business stakeholders to develop curated, analytics-ready data sources that enable self-service consumption.

Data Modeling

• Design conceptual, logical, and physical data models that support transactional, analytical, and reporting workloads.
• Build and maintain semantic models and reusable datasets that make data intuitive and accessible for business users and downstream analytics tools.
• Apply dimensional modeling (Kimball, data vault, or 3NF) approaches as appropriate to the use case.
• Define and maintain data standards, naming conventions, and metadata documentation.
• Collaborate with business stakeholders to translate domain knowledge into reusable, governed data structures.

Data Architecture

• Contribute to the enterprise data architecture roadmap, including Lakehouse, Warehouse, and streaming patterns.
• Help evaluate and recommend tools, platforms, and design patterns that best fit enterprise needs.
• Support the design of data integration, master data, and reference data strategies aligned with enterprise architecture principles.
• Champion data governance, lineage, security, and compliance best practices in partnership with governance teams.

Qualifications:  
 Required:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related field, or an equivalent combination of education and experience. 
• 3+ years of hands-on data engineering experience building production data pipelines.
• 1–2+ years of data modeling experience across OLTP and/or OLAP systems.
• Strong proficiency in SQL and solid programming skills in Python or similar OOP languages.
• Experience working with at least one cloud data platform (Azure, AWS, or GCP) and a modern warehouse or Lakehouse environment (Snowflake, MS Fabric, Databricks, etc.).
• Hands-on experience building data integrations to a data lake/warehouse environment, either via coding (SQL, etc..) or commercial ELT/ETL tools.
• Working knowledge of dimensional modeling, star/snowflake schemas, and slowly changing dimensions.
• Familiarity with semantic modeling concepts and developing curated data sources for analytics and BI consumption.
• Understanding of data governance, security, lineage, and metadata management concepts.
• Experience with CI/CD, Git, and version-controlled development for data workloads.
• Strong communication skills — able to translate technical concepts for business stakeholders and the ability to translate business needs and logic to technical workflows.
• Must have a valid Driver’s license and your own reliable transportation with the ability to travel within assigned area 5% of the time for meetings and conferences, as well as the flexibility to work irregular hours, including evenings and weekends with some overnights required.
• Ability to lift and carry 25 lbs. (event supplies).
• Consistent with its mission, the American Lung Association maintains a smoke-free workplace; all employees must abstain from tobacco use in any form, including vaping.

Preferred:

• Experience designing semantic layers or analytics-ready datasets to support self-service BI and reporting.
• Familiarity with Data Vault 2.0, Data Mesh, or medallion architecture patterns.
• Exposure to streaming technologies (e.g., Kafka, event-based ingestion, structured streaming).
• Experience working in regulated industries (healthcare, finance, insurance) and with PII/PHI data.
• Relevant certifications in cloud data engineering, data management, or data modeling (e.g., CDMP, cloud-provider data engineering certifications).
• Interest in growing into a senior data engineering or data architecture role over time.

Compensation: Exact compensation may vary based on skills, experience, and location. The target hiring range for this position is between $108,000 and $120,000 per annum.

Benefits: The Lung Association offers a comprehensive benefits package including: 

• Paid Leave - 10 vacation days in the first year (15 days thereafter), 2 personal days and 15 sick days per year, as well as 12 company-paid holidays per year. We also offer Paid Parental Leave for eligible employees. 
• Insurance - Employees (and their eligible dependents) can enroll in our medical, dental, and vision plans, as well as voluntary plans for critical illness, accident, hospital indemnity, short-term disability and supplemental life/AD&D insurance. Employees will be enrolled in company-paid life/AD&D and long-term disability Insurance coverage.
• Retirement Plan - Eligible employees can participate in our 401(k) Defined Contribution Retirement Plan, which offers matching employer contributions (up to 4%) and year-end discretionary non-elective contributions. 

Equal Employment Opportunity 

The American Lung Association is an equal opportunity employer. It is the policy of the American Lung Association to prohibit discrimination and harassment of any type and to provide equal employment opportunities to employees and applicants, without regard to their race, color, sex, sexual orientation, age, marital status, religion, national origin, alienage or citizenship status, genetic predisposition or carrier status, or physical and/or mental disabilities, veteran status, or any other status protected by law. 

Policy Statement 

It is the policy of the American Lung Association to prohibit discrimination and harassment of any type and to provide equal employment opportunities to employees and applicants, without regard to their race, color, sex, sexual orientation, age, marital status, religion, national origin, alienage or citizenship status, genetic predisposition or carrier status, or physical and/or mental disabilities, veteran status, or any other status protected by law. This policy applies in all employment actions including recruitment, hiring, promotions, transfers, corrective actions, terminations, compensation, benefits and training.