The Senior Data Engineer is a highly hands-on individual contributor responsible for building, operating, and improving Sinclair's enterprise data platform. This is a Snowflake-first engineering role: most of the work is performed within Snowflake and its native ecosystem. The role spans ingestion, integration, transformation, data modeling, data quality, observability, performance, cost optimization, and production support, with particular emphasis on Snowflake-native development and Snowflake Openflow.
The ideal candidate has approximately five years of progressive data engineering experience with substantial Snowflake depth, strong SQL and Python skills, and a track record of delivering reliable, well-governed data solutions in a complex enterprise setting.
This position is on-site in Hunt Valley, MD. Candidates must be local or willing to commute.
Responsibilities
Snowflake Engineering & Data Pipeline Development
- Design, build, test, deploy, and maintain production-grade data pipelines using Snowflake-native capabilities including Snowpipe, streams, tasks, stored procedures, and functions.
- Build scalable ELT patterns and bronze/silver/gold data models that make enterprise data reliable, reusable, and easy to consume.
- Develop SQL and Python solutions for transformation, automation, orchestration, validation, and operational workflows.
- Troubleshoot production issues, perform root-cause analysis, and implement durable, maintainable fixes.
Snowflake Openflow & Enterprise Integrations
- Build, configure, operate, and troubleshoot Snowflake Openflow pipelines and connectors for enterprise data ingestion and replication.
- Develop and support integrations from relational databases, Oracle environments, traffic and operational systems, CRM platforms, and other enterprise sources.
- Implement API-based and vendor integrations using secure stages, external access integrations, authentication, and appropriate Snowflake ingestion patterns.
- Modernize legacy ETL by moving appropriate workloads to Openflow and Snowflake-native ELT patterns that improve reliability, maintainability, and efficiency.
Data Quality, Reliability & Observability
- Build data quality and validation controls covering completeness, accuracy, freshness, reconciliation, and integration health.
- Develop monitoring and observability for ingestion, pipeline execution, data freshness, failures, and other operational conditions.
- Design pipelines for resilience, restartability, traceability, and maintainability, with clear operational ownership and documentation.
Platform Engineering, Performance & Governance
- Work deeply with Snowflake databases, schemas, warehouses, stages, integrations, roles, and other platform objects required to deliver production data solutions.
- Optimize queries, pipelines, warehouses, and data structures for performance and cost using actual workload and usage patterns.
- Apply appropriate access controls, environment separation, data protection, auditability, and governance practices in partnership with Security and data owners.
- Identify technical debt, reliability risks, unnecessary spend, and opportunities to simplify or standardize solutions.
Data Products & Engineering Collaboration
- Build governed data foundations for enterprise reporting, analytics, operational workflows, and emerging AI and data-product use cases.
- Develop reusable data assets that support analytics applications, semantic layers, agents, and other consumption patterns without duplicating business logic.
- Participate in technical design, code reviews, releases, production support, and continuous improvement; use Git, automated deployment, testing, and documentation practices.
- Collaborate with Data Engineering, BI, Data Science, Security, Infrastructure, Finance, and business stakeholders to deliver practical, supportable solutions.
Required Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or a related field; equivalent relevant experience will be considered.
- Approximately five or more years of progressive experience in data engineering, analytics engineering, or a closely related discipline.
- Deep, hands-on Snowflake experience building and supporting production data solutions in an enterprise environment.
- Strong SQL skills with experience in data modeling, ELT/ETL development, query optimization, and production troubleshooting.
- Hands-on experience with Snowflake-native capabilities such as Snowpipe, streams, tasks, stored procedures, and related engineering patterns.
- Experience building production integrations across multiple source systems and business domains, plus strong Python skills for engineering, automation, APIs, or Snowflake development.
- Experience with data quality, monitoring, observability, access controls, and governance in a production environment.
- Experience with Git-based source control, code review, deployment practices, and modern software engineering approaches; strong problem-solving, communication, documentation, and ownership skills.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience with Snowflake Openflow and NiFi-based connectors for enterprise data replication and integration.
- Snowflake certification such as SnowPro Core, Advanced Data Engineer, or Advanced Administrator.
- Experience modernizing legacy ETL platforms into Snowflake-native and Openflow architectures.
- Experience with Snowflake performance tuning, warehouse sizing, workload optimization, resource monitoring, cost management, data sharing, or secure data distribution.
- Experience with external access integrations, OAuth, API integrations, notification patterns, or data quality/operational observability solutions.
- Experience with enterprise financial, customer, CRM, advertising, traffic, media, audience, or operational data; familiarity with Snowflake Cortex or Snowflake Intelligence is a plus.
Why Join Us
This is an opportunity to do meaningful, hands-on data engineering at the center of an enterprise Snowflake environment that directly supports how the business operates, measures performance, serves customers, and makes decisions. You will work on real production data problems across Snowflake, Openflow, enterprise integrations, data quality, automation, and emerging AI capabilities. If you enjoy building things that work, taking ownership of production systems, solving complex data challenges, and continuously improving a modern data platform, this role is built for you.
The base salary compensation range for this role is $102,000 to $136,000. Final compensation for this role will be determined by various factors such as a candidate’s relevant work experience, skills, certifications, and geographic location. Full time positions are eligible for benefits that include participation in a retirement plan, life and disability insurance, health, dental and vision plans, flexible spending accounts, 15 paid vacation days, 2 paid personal days, 9 paid holidays, 40 hours of paid sick leave, parental leave, and employee stock purchase plan.
EEO AND INCLUSIVITY:
Sinclair is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and a drug free workplace. Employment practices will not be influenced or affected by virtue of an applicant's or employee's race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, gender identity, and sexual orientation), national origin, age, disability, genetic information, military or veteran status or any other characteristic protected by law.
About Sinclair:
Sinclair, Inc. (Nasdaq: SBGI) is a diversified media company and a leading provider of local news and sports. The Company owns, operates and/or provides services to 177 television stations in 79 markets affiliated with all major broadcast networks; owns Tennis Channel, the premium destination for tennis enthusiasts; and multicast networks CHARGE, Comet, ROAR and The Nest. Sinclair’s AMP Media produces a growing portfolio of digital content and original podcasts. Additional information about Sinclair can be found at www.sbgi.net.
About the Team
The life-blood of our organization is our people. We have a compelling story, a goal-oriented culture, and we take really good care of people. How good? Here is a glimpse: great benefits, open-door policy, upward mobility and a strong desire to see you succeed. Ready to be part of a winning team? Let’s talk.
Please note that this position is not eligible for visa sponsorship, including employer sponsorship for an H-1B visa, OPT-STEM employment, etc.