Software Engineer (Data Platform)

Posting number: 26-20134

Department: MBTA - Technology Innovation Division

Division: 863-Technology Innovation Division

Job classification: Software Engineer (Baseline)

Posting type: Open/External and Promotional/Internal

Categories: IT and Computers

SummaryThe Software Engineer is an independent contributor who delivers features end-to-end, contributes to team-level improvements, and operates effectively across multiple parts of the tech stack. The position shapes technical solutions, refines requirements with Product Managers, and improves code quality and code maintainability leveraging software engineering principles and practices.

DATA PLATFORMThe Data Platform specialization focuses on building, operating, and improving MBTA’s data ingestion, storage, transformation, and serving systems. Engineers in this specialization develop pipelines, maintain OLAP databases or data lakes, support analytics workloads, and ensure reliability, observability, and data integrity across MBTA’s data infrastructure. Work includes operating compute environments, developing data transformation logic, and applying modern data engineering principles to support MBTA’s business intelligence and operational decision-making needs. Examples of duties

• Perform a wide variety of software engineering tasks primarily in the relevant languages.
• Deliver and maintain well-architected features from design through implementation.
• Demonstrate strong fundamental coding and debugging skills by writing reliable, maintainable code while demonstrating a strong understanding of possible tradeoffs to meet deadlines by effectively articulating impacts and proposing solutions.
• Contribute to on-call rotations and address routine incidents.
• Follow engineering standards, including code reviews, documentation, and testing. Participate and offer constructive feedback to improve.
• Improve maintainability and reduce complexity through refactoring.
• Investigate defects and lead feasibility assessments to identify improvements.
• Protect data security, compliance, and privacy across all work activities by following secure coding practices.
• Participate in team rituals (stand-ups, planning, retros).
• Work collaboratively with UX and PMs to refine requirements for difficult problems and reduce unnecessary scope.
• Participate in on-call rotation of technology systems and services.
• Perform all other duties and projects that may be assigned.

Additional responsibilities may include focus on one or more departments or locations. See applicable addendum for department or location specific functions.

Supervision

• No direct reports.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree from an accredited institution.
• Two (2) years of relevant professional experience in software engineering.
• Experience independently delivering features end-to-end to solve problems.
• Experience applying software engineering principles and practices to quickly and creatively achieve team or project goals.
• Experience with monitoring, on-call, incident response, and reliability engineering.
• Strong debugging and investigative skills.
• Experience with software testing best practices and CI/CD.
• Demonstrated ability to translate business requirements into technology.
• Strong communication skills.
• Demonstrated proficiency in at least one or more programming languages.
• As part of the selection process, candidates will be asked to complete and pass job-related technical assessments, which may include a software design diagramming exercise and/or a timed coding exercise.
• Ability to participate in on-call rotation of technology systems and services.

Substitutions

• A high school diploma or GED with an additional seven (7) years of directly related experience substitutes for the bachelor’s degree requirement.
• An associate’s degree from an accredited institution and an additional three (3) years of directly related experience substitutes for the bachelor’s degree requirement.
• A master’s degree in a related subject substitutes for two (2) years of general experience.
• A nationally recognized certification, or statewide/professional certification in a related field substitutes for one (1) year of experience.

Supplemental information

• More than four (4) years of relevant professional experience in software engineering.
• Solid understanding of APIs, data flows, and failure modes.
• Experience with Elixir.
• Experience with AWS.
• Experience in public sector, transportation agency, and/or civic technology team.
• Experience with Terraform / OpenTofu / Infrastructure as Code tools.
• Experience in agile software development practices.
• Knowledge of transit data standards (such as GTFS, GTFS-RT, TODS, TIDES).

DATA PLATFORM

• Experience developing or operating data platforms such as Snowflake, Databricks, or other data infrastructure. 
• Experience with open-source data tools such as Airflow, ClickHouse, or dbt.
• Strong understanding of data structures, formats, and performance considerations for analytical workloads.
• Experience building or maintaining data ingestion, transformation, or orchestration pipelines.
• Experience with Python in a data engineering or analytics context.
• Experience with Infrastructure-as-Code tools such as Terraform or Pulumi for data stack management.
• Familiarity with transit data standards (GTFS, GTFS-RT, TODS, TIDES) as applied to analytics workloads.
• Strong understanding of data structures and formats for analytical workloads.