Lead Data Engineer

Walker & Dunlop is one of the largest providers of capital to the commercial real estate industry, committed to creating meaningful social, environmental, and economic change. As a Lead Data Engineer, you will serve as a senior technical leader, defining architecture and engineering standards for the enterprise data platform while partnering with engineering teams to build scalable and reliable data systems.

Responsibilities:

• Define and maintain architectural standards for the enterprise data platform, including data modeling, pipeline design, orchestration, and observability practices
• Lead the Technical Design Document (TDD) process, including authoring, reviewing, and approving technical designs for complex initiatives
• Conduct design reviews and production readiness reviews across Data Engineering teams
• Guide the evolution of the core data platform stack, including Redshift, Airflow, Kafka, SQL Server, and Aurora PostgreSQL
• Establish and promote engineering standards related to code quality, testing, CI/CD, documentation, and release management
• Identify and help address technical debt, platform fragmentation, scalability concerns, and reliability improvements
• Partner with Engineering Managers and teams on technical planning, solution design, and implementation approaches
• Mentor and coach engineers on architecture, engineering best practices, and technical leadership skills
• Serve as a technical point of contact for cross-functional stakeholders on platform capabilities, integrations, and data architecture patterns
• Support evaluation and adoption of new tools, frameworks, and technologies related to data engineering, transformation, quality, and governance
• Perform other duties as assigned

Requirements:

• 8+ years of experience in data engineering, including experience serving as a technical lead or senior individual contributor across multiple teams or initiatives
• Strong experience building and supporting cloud-native data platforms within AWS environments
• Experience with modern data engineering tools and technologies including Airflow, Kafka, Redshift, PostgreSQL, or similar platforms
• Experience implementing CI/CD practices, automated testing, and production support processes for data pipelines and platforms
• Deep expertise in SQL, data modeling, and modern data engineering practices
• Strong understanding of scalable data platform architecture, orchestration, and operational reliability
• Familiarity with data governance, lineage, data quality, and data contract concepts
• Experience writing and reviewing technical design documentation and leading technical decision-making processes
• Strong understanding of monitoring, observability, and platform health practices for enterprise data systems
• Ability to lead technical initiatives and influence engineering standards across distributed teams
• Strong communication and collaboration skills, including the ability to communicate technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders
• Ability to show ownership of your work, take on challenges and acknowledge growth opportunities, and demonstrate patience when learning new processes
• Courtesy, respect, and thoughtfulness in teaming with colleagues and other stakeholders
• Bachelor's degree preferred, preferably in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience
• Familiarity with enterprise data warehouse technologies and data transformation frameworks preferred
• Commercial real estate, financial services, or regulated industry experience preferred