Job Description
Job Description
SENIOR DATA ENGINEER
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Posted: 8/19/2025
ABOUT CJA
The New York City Criminal Justice Agency (CJA) is a not-for-profit service and research organization that operates in partnership with the New York City Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice. CJA is the City's main pretrial services agency, combining operations, pilot projects, and research under one roof. CJA utilizes procedural justice practices to provide pretrial services to over 100,000 persons arrested annually in New York City. Information collected about these arrestees and subsequent case processing is maintained in the agency's internal and externally shared database systems, which are used to conduct descriptive and evaluation research on arrestee characteristics, case processing and court outcomes, and on issues and potential reforms to criminal justice policy in New York City. CJA's programs operate in the criminal courts and detention facilities 24 hours a day seven days a week within the 5 boroughs of NYC, employing over 300 employees, citywide.
PROGRAM SUMMARY
NYCJA's Information Technology team provides strategic vision, leadership, and innovative solutions so that our 300+ staff at 13 locations have the trusted data and applications they need to deliver high-quality pretrial services and research. IT staff have a strong customer focus, partnering with business units and stakeholders to pilot new programs and create custom applications with an eye toward future business needs. Our dedicated professionals meet challenges head-on by being flexible, embracing change, and supporting each other in a culture of mutual respect, trust, and teamwork that encourages personal and professional growth.
PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES
PLATFORM OPERATIONS & MAINTENANCE
- Support the Azure SQL Server environment powering operational applications and analytics.
- Support NYCJA's event-driven, real-time data processing system that computes and delivers live KPIs and measures to dashboards, applications, and external partners.
PIPELINE ENGINEERING
- Partner with Product, Analytics, and DevOps teams as NYCJA expands its data platform to support modern analytics use cases.
- Collaborate cross-functionally with Product, Analytics, DevOps, and Data teams to build reliable streaming and batch pipelines
- Document, version, and test all pipelines to support current and future business requirements.
- Manage daily operation of Lakehouse pipeline engineering and technical projects
DATA STORAGE & MODELING
- Collaborate with the Data Architect and IT leadership to design and evolve layered data storage and analytics environments.
- Implement dimensional models and data structures to enable unified reporting and analytics across systems.
- Implement big data solutions in a Cloud data platform.
REPORTING & BI
- Support and optimize existing SSRS and Power BI reports sourced from SQL Server.
- Publish certified datasets and semantic models in Power BI, integrating SQL Server and Azure sources.
DEVOPS & INFRASTRUCTURE AS CODE
- Embed CI/CD as a cornerstone of sustainable delivery using Azure DevOps or equivalent pipelines.
- Provision cloud resources using infrastructure-as-code tools and manage SQL Server schemas with automation.
QUALITY, SECURITY & MONITORING
- Automate data quality checks, enforce RBAC, encryption, and auditing across SQL Server and Azure.
- Surface metrics, configure proactive alerts, and manage incident response.
- Support data cataloging, lineage, and sensitivity classification for CJIS and HIPAA compliance.
TEAM
- Participate in code reviews, backlog refinement, and cost-optimization sessions.
- Participate in a rotating 24×7 on-call schedule to support SQL Server and Azure data operations
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS AND SKILLS
- Bachelor's degree in data science, Computer Science, Information Technology or equivalent experience.
- 4+ years building and operating data solutions in SQL Server and Azure or equivalent cloud environments.
- 2+ years of experience with event streaming technologies such as Kafka or Azure Event Hubs.
- 2+ Big data Cloud Data Platform experience is required
- 2+ years of technical leadership (sprint planning, code review, mentoring) in an agile environment.
- Expert T-SQL performance-tuning skills and advanced scripting or data engineering experience (e.g., Python).
- Hands-on experience with complex data integration, orchestration, monitoring, and reporting tools.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills; able to translate justice-domain needs into scalable hybrid-cloud solutions.
- Able to work independently with minimal guidance.
Schedule: Tues-Thurs on site/ Mon & Friday work from home
**Please note this role may occasionally require additional in office days
SALARY: $115,000- $125,000 annually
CJA VALUES
Each employee at CJA is guided by these values in our work:
- Commitment: We are committed to being active partners in criminal justice reform through initiatives and creative problem-solving that evaluates different methods and strategies for alternatives to detention.
- Fairness: We are guided by fairness and the presumption of innocence for those who are detained and work with integrity and without bias to protect the privacy and interest of court-involved people and their families.
- Innovation: We value curiosity as a driving force to lead the way in pretrial services. We use innovative techniques in research, pilot programs, and engaging justice-involved communities to execute our mission of reducing unnecessary pretrial detention.
BENEFITS: CJA offers a very generous benefit plan including health, dental and vision insurance, a comprehensive mental health, and wellness, Employee Assistance Program (EAP) plan, four weeks' vacation, paid holidays, and a retirement plan with employer matching contributions. CJA is also strongly committed to professional learning and development for its staff members and offers staff varied opportunities for learning and development through partnerships and vendor services for web based, in-person professional development training, as well as in-house job training and development.
Note: Only those candidates being considered will be contacted.
CJA is seeking applicants who pursue professional development pathways by participating in educational opportunities, reading professional publications, maintaining professional networks, and engaging with professional associations
The New York City Criminal Justice Agency is an Equal Opportunity Employer
CJA is committed to creating a diverse work environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based on race, color, national origin, sex, gender identity, religion, sexual orientation, age, disability, parental status, veteran status, or any other protected status under applicable laws. We encourage individuals of all backgrounds to apply.