Sr Engineer, Data Engineering

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Team Overview

This role requires deep technical expertise in GCP Data Engineering services, cloud cost optimization, workload right-sizing, architecture design, resource tagging/governance, and FinOps practices. The candidate should be comfortable partnering with engineering, architecture, platform, and business teams to improve performance, scalability, reliability, and cloud cost efficiency. This is a hybrid position and involves regular performance of job responsibilities virtually as well as in-person at an assigned TU office location for a minimum of two days a week.

Role Overview And Core Responsibilities

• ata Platform Architecture & Engineering

• Design, implement, and optimize enterprise-scale data platforms on GCP.
• Build scalable batch and streaming data pipelines.
• Architect data ingestion, transformation, storage, and consumption solutions.
• Evaluate and recommend the most appropriate GCP services for specific use cases.
• Define standards and best practices for cloud-native data engineering.

• GCP Workload Optimization

• Analyze existing cloud workloads and identify optimization opportunities.
• Recommend right-sizing strategies for compute, storage, and networking resources.
• Improve resource utilization across data engineering platforms.
• Optimize cluster sizing, auto-scaling policies, job scheduling, and resource allocation.
• Reduce operational costs without impacting performance or reliability.

• FinOps & Cloud Cost Management

• Perform detailed cloud cost analysis and chargeback/showback reporting.
• Establish cloud cost governance frameworks and optimization programs.
• Identify idle, underutilized, and overprovisioned resources.
• Develop cloud cost dashboards and KPIs.
• Track budget consumption and provide cost-saving recommendations.
• Build forecasting models for cloud spending.

• Governance & Resource Management

• Define and enforce metadata, labeling, and tagging standards.
• Ensure cloud resources are properly categorized for cost allocation and accountability.
• Implement governance controls for cloud resource lifecycle management.
• Collaborate with platform and security teams to ensure compliance with organizational policies.

• Performance Optimization

• Tune data pipelines for throughput, latency, and cost efficiency.
• Optimize BigQuery queries and storage patterns.
• Improve Spark workload performance through cluster tuning.
• Optimize data partitioning, clustering, indexing, and caching strategies.
• Establish SLIs/SLOs for data platforms and monitor operational efficiency.

• Stakeholder Collaboration

• Work closely with architects, engineering teams, finance teams, and business stakeholders.
• Provide consulting and technical guidance on cloud adoption and optimization.
• Present cost-benefit analysis and architecture recommendations to leadership teams.

Required Knowledge And Experiences

• 5-8 years of experience in Data Engineering, Cloud Engineering, or Cloud Architecture.
• Minimum 3+ years of hands-on experience with Google Cloud Platform.
• Strong experience designing cloud-native data platforms.
• Experience implementing cloud cost optimization initiatives.
• Experience with enterprise-scale data processing environments.

Required Technical Skills

Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

Strong knowledge and hands-on experience with:

Data Engineering Services

• BigQuery
• Dataproc
• Dataflow
• Pub/Sub
• Cloud Composer (Airflow)
• Cloud Storage
• BigLake
• Data Fusion
• Datastream
• Cloud SQL
• AlloyDB
• Spanner
• Looker / Looker Studio

Compute & Infrastructure

• GKE (Google Kubernetes Engine)
• Compute Engine
• Cloud Run
• Serverless technologies
• Instance Groups
• Managed Services

Monitoring & Operations

• Cloud Monitoring
• Cloud Logging
• Cloud Trace
• Cloud Profiler
• Cloud Asset Inventory

Cost Optimization & FinOps Skills

Strong understanding of:

• GCP pricing and billing models
• Compute cost optimization
• BigQuery cost controls and query optimization
• Dataproc cluster sizing and lifecycle optimization
• Storage class optimization
• Committed Use Discounts (CUDs)
• Sustained Use Discounts
• Reservation planning
• Cost allocation models
• Chargeback and Showback mechanisms
• Budgeting and forecasting
• Cloud ROI analysis
• Unit economics
• Capacity planning
• FinOps best practices

Governance & Tagging

• Resource Labels and Tags
• Cost Center Mapping
• Environment Classification (Prod, Non-Prod, Dev, Test)
• Data Classification
• Ownership Attribution
• Resource Lifecycle Governance
• Automated policy enforcement

Data Engineering Skills

• Apache Spark
• PySpark
• SQL
• Advanced BigQuery optimization
• Data Modeling
• ETL/ELT design
• Streaming architectures
• Data Warehousing
• Lakehouse architectures
• Data Quality frameworks
• Data Lineage
• Metadata management

DevOps & Automation Skills

• Terraform
• Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
• GitHub Actions / Azure DevOps / Jenkins
• CI/CD pipelines
• Python
• Shell scripting
• Kubernetes
• Docker

Security & Compliance

• IAM design and governance
• Service Accounts
• VPC and networking fundamentals
• Data protection and encryption
• Secrets management
• Audit logging
• Compliance and governance frameworks

Preferred Certifications

One or more of the following:

• Google Professional Data Engineer
• Google Professional Cloud Architect
• Google Professional Cloud DevOps Engineer
• FinOps Certified Practitioner
• FinOps Certified Professional
• Terraform Associate

Success Metrics

The successful candidate should be able to:

• Reduce cloud spend through optimization initiatives.
• Improve utilization of GCP data platform resources.
• Establish tagging and governance standards.
• Optimize BigQuery, Dataproc, Dataflow, and storage costs.
• Improve performance of enterprise data pipelines.
• Provide measurable savings through architecture and workload optimization.
• Drive cloud adoption while maintaining cost efficiency and operational excellence.

TransUnion Overview:

At TransUnion, we encourage and are committed to creating a real, positive impact and shared sense of purpose within our Workforce for Good, which empowers our people to grow, innovate and contribute to a better future for our communities and customers. We strive to build an environment where our associates are in the driver’s seat of their professional development- while having access to help along the way. We recognize that success comes when our associates thrive both professionally and personally; that’s why we prioritize work/life flexibility and offer resources for our teams across the globe to collaborate and drive excellence.

Be a part of our Workforce for Good - you’ll work with great people, pioneering products and cutting-edge technology.

TransUnion Job Title

Sr Developer, Applications Development