Data Engineer - AI Practice Team

Job Description ABS is seeking an exceptional Data Engineer to join us full-time on our Artificial Intelligence (AI) Practice Team. In this role, you will design and operate the data foundations that power AI chat assistants, custom AI models, and AI-driven process optimization for ABS Consulting clients. You will build robust pipelines that integrate structured and unstructured data, standardize and tag enterprise content, and enable scalable, low-latency retrieval for AI workloads. Location: This position can be based in Houston, Texas; Knoxville, Tennessee; or Washington, DC. What You Will Do: • Design, build, and maintain scalable ETL/ELT pipelines to ingest, clean, and transform structured and unstructured data for AI assistants and custom models. • Integrate diverse knowledge repositories (documents, policies, procedures, standards, databases) into centralized data platforms that support retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and search. • Implement data standardization, normalization, and tagging pipelines to align content with enterprise taxonomies and ontologies. • Collaborate with AI/ML engineers to productionize model-ready datasets, feature stores, and embeddings for prediction, classification, and optimization use cases. • Optimize data workflows for reliability, cost, and performance across batch and streaming workloads, including monitoring, alerting, and capacity planning. • Establish and enforce data quality, lineage, and governance practices to ensure trustworthy inputs to AI systems and process-automation solutions. • Automate and templatize common data engineering patterns to accelerate delivery across multiple client engagements and industry domains. • Partner with consultants and business stakeholders to translate process optimization and analytics requirements into robust, maintainable data solutions. What You Will Need: Education and Experience • Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Data Engineering, Information Systems, or a closely related technical field; Master’s degree preferred. • 6+ years of professional data engineering experience designing, building, and operating production data solutions. • Demonstrated experience working in data-intensive environments (e.g., analytics platforms, AI/ML workloads, large-scale content repositories, or enterprise data platforms). • Hands-on experience delivering solutions on at least one major cloud provider (AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud), including managed data and analytics services. Knowledge, Skills, And Abilities • Strong command of SQL and at least one programming language commonly used in data engineering (Python preferred) for building production-grade data pipelines. • Hands-on experience with modern data processing frameworks and platforms (e.g., Spark, Databricks, Snowflake, BigQuery, Synapse, or similar). • Proficiency with ETL/ELT orchestration tools and workflows (e.g., Airflow, dbt, Azure Data Factory, AWS Glue, or equivalent). • Experience designing and operating data lakes/lakehouses and integrating multiple data sources (relational, NoSQL, files, APIs) into cohesive data models. • Deep experience working with unstructured and semi-structured data (documents, PDFs, JSON, logs), including content extraction, normalization, and metadata/tagging. • Familiarity with AI/ML data patterns, including feature engineering, embeddings, vector databases, and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines. • Strong understanding of data modeling, data quality, data governance, and lineage practices for regulated or compliance-sensitive environments. • Proficiency with cloud-native data services (e.g., S3/ADLS/GCS, managed warehouses, streaming services like Kafka/Kinesis/Event Hubs). • Solid grounding in software engineering best practices (version control, CI/CD, testing, code review) as applied to data engineering. Reporting Relationships: This role reports to a project manager and does not initially include direct reports. Salary Range: $95,000 - $150,000 USD Starting salary is based on multiple factors including skillset and experience. About Us We set out more than 160 years ago to promote the security of life and property at sea and preserve the natural environment. Today, we remain true to our mission and continue to support organizations facing a rapidly evolving seascape of challenging regulations and new technologies. Through it all, we are anchored by a vision and mission that help our clients find clarity in uncertain times. ABS is a global leader in marine and offshore classification and other innovative safety, quality, and environmental services. We’re at the forefront of supporting the global energy transition at sea, the application of remote and autonomous marine systems, cutting-edge technical solutions, and many more exciting advancements. Our commitment to safety, reliability, and efficiency is ever-present, guiding our clients to safer and more efficient operations. About Our Benefits ABS Group proudly offers a variety of industry-leading benefits designed to enhance the life and well-being of our employees and their families. These benefits include, but are not limited to, medical insurance (PPO and HD), dental and vision insurance, Health Savings account (HSA), Flexible Savings Account (FSA), life insurance, accidental death and dismemberment insurance, disability leave programs, parental leave program, paid holidays, and paid vacation time. The Company provides an Employee Assistance Plan (EAP) that offers additional support in personal wellness, including work-life services. ABS Group also offers a 401K plan with a generous company match, subject to plan requirements. Equal Opportunity The ABS Group of Companies is committed to the equal employment opportunity of its employees and prohibits discrimination against any employee or qualified applicant based on race, color, creed, religion, national origin, sex, gender identity, age, disability, marital status, sexual orientation, citizenship status or veteran status, or other non-work-related characteristics that may be protected under the law of the Federal Government or specific state employment laws. Notice ABS and Affiliated Companies (ABS) will not pay a fee to any third-party agency without a valid ABS Master Service Agreement (MSA) authorized and signed by Human Resources. Any resume, CV, application, or other forms of candidate submission provided to any employee of ABS without a valid MSA on file will be considered property of ABS, and no fee will be paid. Other This job description is not intended, and should not be construed, to be an all-inclusive list of responsibilities, skills, efforts or working conditions associated with the job of the incumbent. It is intended to be an accurate reflection of the principal job elements essential for making a fair decision regarding the pay structure of the job. #ogjs