Data & AI Engineer - 90408785 - Washington
Washington, DC, US, 20001
Your success is a train ride away!
As we move America’s workforce toward the future, Amtrak connects businesses and communities across the country. We employ more than 20,000 diverse, energetic professionals in a variety of career fields throughout the United States. The safety of our passengers, our employees, the public and our operating environment is our priority, and the success of our railroad is due to our employees.
Are you ready to join our team?
Our values of ‘Do the Right Thing, Excel Together and Put Customers First’ are at the heart of what matters most to us, and our Core Capabilities, ‘Building Trust, Accountability, Effective Communication, Customer Focus, and Proactive Safety & Security’ are what every employee needs to know and do to be most impactful at Amtrak. By living the Amtrak values, focusing on our capabilities, and actively embracing and fostering diverse ideas, backgrounds, and perspectives, together we will honor our past and make Amtrak a company of the future.
Job Summary
The Data & AI Engineer Specialist plays a key role in delivering Amtrak’s enterprise data and AI capabilities that enable data-driven decisions, automation, and innovation. This role independently designs, builds, and maintains data and AI systems that make data discoverable, reliable, and actionable across the organization.
As a core member of the Digital Technology team, the Data & AI Engineer transforms data requirements into scalable pipelines and services, ensures the integrity and quality of data products, and contributes to the continuous improvement of Amtrak’s data and AI ecosystem. This position partners closely with platform, governance, and analytics teams to deliver trusted, production-ready data and insights.
Essential Functions
• Design, develop, and maintain data pipelines, AI frameworks and integration workflows supporting analytics and AI applications.
• Implement data transformation, validation, and quality controls to ensure reliability and compliance with standards.
• Collaborate with architects, analysts, and data scientists to operationalize data models and business logic.
• Participate in agile planning, sprint delivery, and retrospectives to continuously improve team performance.
• Document technical specifications, lineage, and best practices for data assets and workflows.
Minimum Qualifications
• Education: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Data Engineering, Information Systems, or a related technical field.
• Experience: 2–4 years of hands-on experience in data engineering, integration, or software development.
• Licenses/Certifications: None required.
Preferred Qualifications
• Experience with data lakehouse or cloud data platforms.
• Familiarity with metadata management, lineage, and observability practices.
• Exposure to AI/ML pipeline development, automation frameworks, or MLOps concepts.
Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities
• Proficiency in Python and SQL with strong foundations in data and AI architecture, including feature pipelines, model serving, and inference patterns.
• Understanding of ETL/ELT concepts, APIs, and data pipeline orchestration.
• Strong experience building federated data and feature models; performance tuning for analytics and AI workloads; designing reusable views and features; implementing caching, row-level security, and data contracts.
• Experience working within cloud or hybrid data environments.
• Strong analytical, debugging, and problem-solving skills.
• Demonstrated ability to work independently and deliver high-quality results within an agile framework.
• Effective collaboration and communication skills across technical and business stakeholders.
The salary/hourly range is $72,000.00 – $93,312.00. Pay is based on several factors including but not limited to education, work experience, certifications, etc. Depending on an employee’s assigned worksite or location, Amtrak may consider a geo-pay differential to be applied to the employee’s base salary. Amtrak may offer additional incentive and pay programs to recognize and reward our employees, including a short-term incentive bonus based upon factors such as individual and company performance that is commensurate with the level of the position. In addition to your salary, Amtrak offers a comprehensive benefit package that includes health, dental, and vision plans; health savings accounts; wellness programs; flexible spending accounts; 401K retirement plan with employer match; life insurance; short and long term disability insurance; paid time off; back-up care; adoption assistance; surrogacy assistance; reimbursement of education expenses; Public Service Loan Forgiveness eligibility; Railroad Retirement sickness and retirement benefits; and rail pass privileges. Learn more about our benefits offerings here.
Requisition ID:166349
Work Arrangement:06-Onsite 4/5 Days Click here for more information about work arrangements at Amtrak.
Relocation Offered:No
Travel Requirements:Up to 25%
You power our progress through your performance.
We want your work at Amtrak to be more than a job. We want your career at Amtrak to be a fulfilling experience where you find challenging work, rewarding opportunities, respect among colleagues, and attractive compensation. Amtrak maintains a culture that values high performance and recognizes individual employee contributions.
Amtrak is committed to a safe workplace free of drugs and alcohol. All Amtrak positions requires a pre-employment background check that includes prior employment verification, a criminal history check and a pre-employment drug screen.
Candidates who test positive for marijuana will be disqualified, regardless of any state or local statute, ordinance, regulation, or other law that legalizes or decriminalizes the use or possession of marijuana, whether for medical, recreational, or other use. Amtrak's pre-employment drug testing program is administered in accordance with DOT regulations and applicable law.
In accordance with DOT regulations (49 CFR § 40.25), Amtrak is required to obtain prior drug and alcohol testing records for applicants/employees intending to perform safety-sensitive duties for covered Department of Transportation positions. If an applicant/employee refuses to provide written consent for Amtrak to obtain these records, the individual will not be permitted to perform safety-sensitive functions.
In accordance with federal law governing security checks of covered individuals for providers of public transportation (Title 6 U.S.C. §1143), Amtrak is required to screen applicants for any permanent or interim disqualifying criminal offenses.
Note that any education requirement listed above may be deemed satisfied if you have an equivalent combination of education, training and experience.
Amtrak is an equal opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race/color, to include traits historically associated with race, including but not limited to, hair texture and hairstyles such as braids, locks and twists, religion, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth and related conditions, such as lactation), national origin/ethnicity, disability (intellectual, mental and physical), veteran status, marital status, ancestry, sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression, genetic information, citizenship or any other personal characteristics protected by law.
