Sr Machine Learning Engineer

Senior Data Engineer | AWS EMR, Glue & Python/Scala Data Pipelines

W2 Only, No C2C or third party candidates will be considered

Pay: Up to $82/hr W2

Contract: Contract opportunity

Duration: Approximately 5 months

Schedule: Onsite

Location: McLean, VA preferred; other approved U.S. office locations may be considered

Start: December 7, 2026

If your background is in building large-scale data pipelines with Python, Scala, and AWS, particularly EMR and Glue, this is a role worth taking a look at.

Swoon is partnering with a leading financial services organization seeking an experienced Data Engineer to support cloud-based data engineering initiatives. The team needs someone who can contribute directly to the development and optimization of data pipelines, work across distributed processing environments, and build reliable solutions for moving and transforming data at scale.

This is a hands-on engineering position rather than a primarily analytical or reporting-focused role. The ideal candidate has strong software engineering fundamentals alongside data engineering experience, particularly within AWS environments.

What you'll get to work on:

• Develop and maintain data processing pipelines using Python, Scala, and SQL.

• Work with AWS EMR and Glue to support distributed data processing, ETL workflows, and large-scale data transformations.

• Build and support data pipelines using Apache Spark and related big data technologies.

• Work with Kafka and streaming data to support reliable data movement and processing.

• Develop and integrate REST APIs as part of broader data engineering solutions.

• Troubleshoot pipeline performance, data processing issues, and production engineering challenges.

• Collaborate with technical teams to develop maintainable, scalable data solutions.

You'll be a strong fit if you have:

• Approximately 5–10 years of hands-on data engineering or software engineering experience, with a strong background in production data pipelines.

• Strong Python and Scala programming experience, including developing and maintaining data processing applications.

• Hands-on experience with AWS EMR and AWS Glue, not just general AWS exposure.

• Strong SQL skills and experience working with large datasets and complex transformations.

• Experience with Apache Spark, PySpark, or similar distributed data processing technologies.

• Experience with Apache Kafka and streaming data pipelines.

• Experience developing or integrating REST APIs.

• The ability to work independently, troubleshoot technical challenges, and contribute within an established engineering environment.

Experience incorporating AI or GenAI tools into engineering workflows is a plus.

A note on the technical focus:

We're particularly interested in engineers who have built and supported production data pipelines within AWS.

If your recent experience is primarily Azure Data Factory, Databricks, Snowflake, or BI/reporting without hands-on AWS EMR and Glue experience, this likely won't be the strongest match.

Additional details:

This is a contract opportunity with a preference for candidates who can work onsite in McLean, VA. Candidates near other approved office locations may also be considered.

The interview process includes a technical assessment and a virtual interview.

If this aligns with your background, we encourage you to apply!