Data Engineer
Liftoff Campaigns
About Liftoff Campaigns, LLC
Liftoff Campaigns is a mission-driven digital and communications agency seeking skilled individuals with a passion for making a difference to join our team. Our clients are statewide and local Democratic political campaigns, PACs, advocates, non-profits, and changemaking companies.
Job Overview
Hockeystick is hiring a Data Engineer to join our data team. The Data Engineer is responsible for building and maintaining the pipelines that move data into our Google BigQuery warehouse, ensuring data reliability across our stack, and collaborating with our Analytics Engineer to support programs and stakeholders.
We’re looking for a versatile engineer who takes ownership of their work, follows through without close supervision, and is interested in growing their technical skills on the job. We value curiosity and initiative - the ideal candidate is someone who is willing to dig into a problem, take risks, and learn from the results.
As the data team grows, we are interested in expanding into data science and machine learning work. Candidates who also have an interest in developing those skills will have the opportunity to do so in this role over time.
Responsibilities
- Own and maintain data pipelines ingesting into Google BigQuery from managed connectors, custom scripts, and manual sources
- Monitor pipeline health, troubleshoot failures, and proactively improve reliability
- Write Python scripts to automate ingestion, transformation, and data operations tasks
- Collaborate with our Analytics Engineer to ensure upstream data is clean, timely, and well-structured for dbt models
- Integrate external data sources and APIs into our data ecosystem
- Build internal tools that make our team and stakeholders more self-sufficient
- Use AI-assisted development tools like Claude Code to accelerate development and improve output quality
- Advance the architecture and documentation of our evolving data platform
Technical Skills and Qualifications
- Strong Python skills for data processing, automation, and scripting
- Proficiency in SQL, with experience in query optimization and data modeling
- Experience with Google BigQuery or a comparable cloud data warehouse
- Solid understanding of ETL/ELT pipeline best practices - including modular design, testing, documentation, and reproducibility
- Experience designing and integrating RESTful APIs and third-party data services
- Proficiency with Git/GitHub for version control and collaborative development
- Familiarity with AI tools and prompting for task execution on technical work
- Detail-oriented, with a proactive approach to catching data issues before they reach downstream teams
Preferred Qualifications
- 1–3 years of professional experience in data engineering, software engineering, or a related technical role (including internships)
- Passion for Democratic causes, progressive movements, or civic technology
- Experience with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools such as Terraform
- Experience in political campaigns, advocacy organizations, or civic tech
- Familiarity with voter file data (VAN, TargetSmart, L2, etc.)
- Exposure to dbt or close collaboration with analytics engineers
- Any experience with workflow orchestration tools such as Airflow
Salary and Benefits
This position reports to the Data Manager. The salary for this position is $80,000 - $90,000.
We also offer a generous benefits package:
- Unlimited vacation days
- Federal holidays off
- Employer-paid health, dental, and vision insurance
- Fully remote anywhere within the United States
- Annual professional development stipend
- 401k benefits
Our Hiring Process
We aim to be transparent and efficient. Each question throughout our hiring process ties directly back to the skills and experiences listed above. Our typical process includes:
- Screening Interview
- Skills Assessment
- Video Interview(s)
- Reference Check
Our hiring process generally takes about 4–5 weeks from phone interview to a job offer. We let candidates know after each step whether they are moving forward or not.