About the job

This is a 1099 contract position with the opportunity to transition to full-time W2 employment. Please provide resume when applying.

The Strawhecker Group

The Strawhecker Group (TSG) is a fast-growing analytics and consulting firm focused on the electronic payments industry. The company serves the entire payments ecosystem, from fintech startups to Fortune 500 companies. The firm provides its clients with advisory services, research, and analytics to help them plan and execute their strategic initiatives. Based in Omaha, Nebraska, a recognized payments industry hub, TSG is an established leader in this high-growth, ever-evolving space.

Job description: Data Engineer

The Strawhecker Group (TSG) is in search of a Data Engineer to design, build, and maintain the data pipelines and infrastructure that power our payment analytics, reporting, and business intelligence products. In this role, you will primarily work in Python and SQL, building pipelines into BigQuery on Google Cloud Platform. As a Data Engineer, on any given day you might be building a new ETL pipeline, optimizing a warehouse model, or partnering with analytics and product teams on a new dataset. The ideal candidate has strong experience building OLAP-friendly data models and analytics pipelines using Python, SQL, and BigQuery. Experience supporting predictive analytics and machine learning use cases is preferred.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain scalable ETL/ELT pipelines to ingest, transform, and deliver data from internal systems and third-party payment sources.
• Build and optimize data models and warehouse structures in BigQuery to support analytics, reporting, and product needs.
• Develop and maintain data pipeline orchestration using tools such as Cloud Composer (Airflow) or Dataflow.
• Ensure data quality, integrity, and consistency across pipelines through validation, testing, and monitoring.
• Help migrate rules-driven transformation logic from Excel spreadsheets into versioned SQL tables, enabling historical reloads and reproducible processing based on the rules in effect at a given point in time.
• Collaborate with multidisciplinary team of Data Engineers, Back-End Software Engineers, Product Managers, and Data Scientists.
• Implement data security and access controls appropriate for sensitive payment and merchant data, aligned with PCI DSS and internal governance standards.
• Work with the product and analytics teams to understand requirements and translate them into reliable, well-documented datasets.
• Optimize pipeline performance and cost efficiency across Google Cloud Platform data services.
• Dive into difficult problems and successfully deliver results on schedule.
• Respond to ad hoc business requests by translating ambiguous questions into reliable datasets, analyses, and data products.
• Continuously optimize ingestion and transformation pipelines for speed, scalability, and cost efficiency.

Job Qualifications

• 3+ years of recent hands-on experience in data engineering or a related backend engineering role.
• Bachelor's degree or more in Computer Science or a related field.
• Strong SQL skills and experience with data modeling for analytics workloads.
• Proficiency in Python for data pipeline development.
• Strong hands-on experience with Google Cloud Platform, especially BigQuery and related data services.
• Experience with workflow orchestration tools such as Cloud Composer, Apache Airflow, or Dataflow.
• Strong understanding of OLAP, data warehousing, and analytics-oriented modeling concepts, including partitioning, clustering, and performance tuning.
• Experience working with structured and semi-structured data (JSON, CSV, Parquet).
• A track record of projects completed on time, you are a flawless executor, not a procrastinator.
• Experience with all phases of the software development life cycle, best practices, and Agile Software Development.
• Experience with dbt, Looker Studio, or Tableau is a plus.
• Experience supporting predictive analytics and machine learning workflows built on top of production data pipelines is a plus.

Position Type and Location

This role begins as a 1099 independent contractor engagement, with the opportunity to transition to full-time W2 employment based on performance and business need. Specific terms of the contract engagement, including scope, duration, and payment terms, will be defined in a separate Independent Contractor Agreement. During the 1099 contract phase, this position can be performed remotely from anywhere in the United States. Upon transition to W2 employment, this position will be based onsite in Omaha, NE.

Compensation and Benefits

1099 Contract Phase: Compensation is structured as a contract rate, as agreed upon in the Independent Contractor Agreement. TSG provides the equipment needed to perform the work. As an independent contractor, you are responsible for your own tax withholding and insurance. This phase does not include TSG's employee benefits package.

W2 Employment Phase: Upon transition to full-time W2 employment, TSG offers competitive compensation and an excellent benefits package, including:

• Free Fridays (1 Friday a month to be taken as PTO)
• Unlimited PTO
• Casual work environment
• Health Insurance and Dental Insurance
• Simple IRA Match
• Life Insurance premiums 100% paid for by TSG

Background Checks, Access, and Security Controls

All contract to hire employees, whether in the 1099 contract phase or the W2 employment phase, are held to the same background check, access control, and security control requirements. This includes background checks required for employment and compliance with TSG's PCI DSS and data security policies. There is no difference in vetting or security standards between the two phases.

Working Conditions:

During the 1099 contract phase, work location and schedule are agreed upon between the contractor and TSG in the Independent Contractor Agreement. Upon transition to W2 employment, the role follows a standard office environment, Monday through Friday, with some flexibility in scheduling, business casual attire, and off-street free parking in Omaha.

The above is intended to describe the essential job functions and the essential job requirements for the performance of this job. It is not to be construed as an exhaustive statement of all supplemental duties, responsibilities, or non-essential requirements.