Platform Engineering

Kforce has a client in Houston, TX that is seeking an experienced Platform & Data Engineering. This is a hybrid role in Houston, TX and will require 2 days onsite. Overview: The client is seeking a Platform Engineer with deep expertise in Databricks administration, data governance, and platform-level engineering standards. This role enables multiple analytics and AI teams to build safely, efficiently, and consistently on a shared Databricks platform by enforcing data quality, ingestion standards, security policies, and cost governance. You will be the technical owner of platform guardrails, operational stability, access patterns, and cost controls-ensuring the platform scales reliably across business teams. Key Responsibilities: * Platform Administration & Governance * Security, Compliance & Access Controls: Manage workspace and catalog permissions, row/column-level policies, attribute-based filtering, and workspace isolation; Collaborate with security teams to maintain compliance and enforce global data protection standards * Cost Management & Monitoring: Implement cost thresholds, alerts, compute policies, and usage dashboards to prevent overspend; Monitor job and cluster costs, detect anomalies, and recommend optimization actions; Provide visibility into SKU-level spend and workspace cost patterns * Operational Stability & Observability: Ensure platform reliability through automated testing, CI/CD templates, and code governance; Build dashboards to track code compliance, data access, pipeline health, schema drift, and cost thresholds; Resolve platform incidents and prevent recurrence by strengthening guardrails and configurations * Enablement & Best Practices: Define -handrails- for building on the platform: ingestion, Delta conventions, CI/CD, observability, and AI/ML patterns; Coach data/analytics teams on compliant onboarding and optimal platform usage; Maintain internal documentation, patterns, code templates, and guidance* 5+ years in data engineering or platform engineering, with at least 2-3 years in Databricks administration * Expert knowledge of Unity Catalog, cluster policies, Delta Lake, Spark, workspace configuration, and jobs * Strong grounding in data governance, data modeling, ingestion frameworks, schema enforcement, versioning, and lineage * Proven experience implementing RBAC and ABAC in Databricks or similar platforms * Experience with cost optimization, monitoring, billing logs, and computer governance * Strong Python/PySpark and SQL skills; Familiarity with DLT, Airflow, or Databricks Workflows Preferred Qualifications: * Experience in large-scale enterprise data platforms (Azure/AWS/GCP) * Familiarity with Trading & Supply or other high-stakes analytical environments * Experience creating dashboards for governance, cost, compliance, and pipeline health * Experience with CI/CD, GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps, or similar tools * Success Indicators * Teams consistently follow ingestion and data standards * Platform costs stabilized and predictable * Strong adoption of platform guardrails, templates, and operational dashboards * Reduced incidents related to access, cost, or ingestion quality * Strong communication skills with ability to set standards and influence teams diplomatically

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