Data Engineer

Job Description

At K&L Gates, we are looking for smart, imaginative and hard-working people with diverse backgrounds, experiences and ideas to join us. Perhaps our search for talented visionaries and your search for important and impactful work lead to the same place.

We are seeking a Data Engineer to join K&L Gates. The Data Engineer (Fabric) is a junior contributor in Enterprise Applications, Data, and AI Platforms, building the Microsoft Fabric data platform. They develop pipelines, Lakehouses, and semantic models powering analytics, reporting, and AI solutions across Finance, HR, Client Growth, and Legal Operations. Using Fabric Data Factory, Notebooks, Lakehouse, and Data Warehouse, they create scalable, reliable, and business-aligned data products. This includes pipelines supporting Azure AI Foundry and retrieval-augmented generation solutions. In an Agile DevOps environment, they translate complex business needs into governed, reliable data products. Reports to the Senior Manager, Data Engineering. Candidates must be self-starters who possess the ability to work independently and as part of a team. Excellent communication skills and a commitment to providing the highest quality client service are strongly preferred.

KEY RELATIONSHIPS
Director, Enterprise Applications, Data, and AI Platforms; Senior Manager, Data Engineering; Senior Manager, Automation and Development; Senior Manager, Enterprise Applications; Senior Applications Architect; Senior Data Architect; Team Lead, Workflow and Automation; Cloud Platform Engineer; Project Manager; Business Data Experts and Business Data Sponsors

ESSENTIAL DUTIES
• Designing, developing, and maintaining data pipelines and advanced transformations using Microsoft Fabric tools for ingestion, orchestration, automation, and performance optimization.
• Designing and implementing Microsoft Fabric Lakehouse and Data Warehouse solutions on OneLake, choosing suitable technology for performance, structure, and business needs. Ensuring unified storage governance and enabling cross-domain data sharing.
• Applying modern data modeling practices, including dimensional and Medallion approaches, and build optimized Power BI datasets using DAX and Power Query.
• Implementing data quality, validation, monitoring, and error-handling processes to ensure reliability and trust in data products.
• Deploying and managing data solutions through CI/CD pipelines in Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions while creating and maintaining technical documentation and templates.
• Participating in Agile ceremonies and track work using Azure DevOps boards, including sprint planning, backlog refinement, and work item management.
• Designing and maintaining data pipelines supporting Azure AI Foundry workloads, including grounding datasets, vector indexing preparation, and feature data for retrieval-augmented generation.
• Translating business requirements into technical specifications and scalable data solutions, working with Business Data Experts and Sponsors to validate understanding.
• Serving as a model for the Enterprise Applications team philosophy, advocating enterprise processes, procedures, security, standards, and knowledge-first support.
• Participating in testing activities for assigned solutions, including unit testing, integration testing, and supporting UAT to confirm data accuracy and functional needs.
• Utilizing AI tools like Microsoft Copilot and Claude while following governance standards, ensuring responsible usage, data classification, and compliant model implementation.
• Contributing to the design, development, or upkeep of AI-enabled solutions on the Microsoft platform stack, following the governed portfolio model.

ADDITIONAL DUTIES

EXPERIENCE SKILLS REQUIRED
• Hold Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Data Engineering, or a related field; equivalent professional experience is acceptable. Obtain relevant Microsoft certifications, such as DP-600, DP-203, or AI-900.
• Understand data architecture, schema design, Medallion Architecture, performance tuning, and Data Mesh concepts, including domain ownership and federated governance principles.
• Demonstrate knowledge of Microsoft Purview for data governance, metadata management, unified catalog, and sensitivity labeling within the Microsoft Fabric ecosystem.
• Maintain a secure, professional workspace and be willing to travel up to 10% for offices, vendors, conferences, or seminars.
• Participate in scheduled release windows and production support events, occurring 2–4 times quarterly, including evenings or weekends with prior notice.
• Demonstrate proficiency translating business requirements into technical specifications and visually communicating solutions using diagrams, whiteboarding, and collaborative design tools.
• Demonstrate effective collaboration and communication abilities across offices and time zones, engaging diverse personalities with professionalism.
• 2+ years’ hands-on experience delivering Microsoft Fabric solutions, including Data Factory, Dataflow Gen2, Notebooks, Lakehouse, and Data Warehouse.
• Demonstrate SQL and Python skills for transformation and automation, including Spark, and experience designing CI/CD pipelines with Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions.
• Possess practical experience with Power BI, including DAX and Power Query (M language), with the ability to build and optimize semantic models.
• Possess experience utilizing AI-powered tools and preparing data pipelines for Azure AI Foundry model grounding and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) solutions.
• Possess experience with real-time analytics and event-driven architecture using Microsoft Fabric Real-Time Intelligence (Eventstream, KQL databases).

Compensation Salary $112,000 - $209,000/ year

The compensation salary for this position will be determined during the interview process and will vary based on multiple factors, including but not limited to prior experience, relevant expertise, current business needs, and market factors.

In accordance with the Los Angeles Fair Chance Ordinance, San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, and the California Fair Chance Act, qualified applicants for our Los Angeles and San Francisco offices with arrest and conviction records will be considered.

ABOUT THE FIRM

K&L Gates is a fully integrated global law firm with lawyers located across five continents in more than 40 offices. We have experienced dramatic growth in the past decade and now rank among the largest U.S. based law firms in the world. We take pride in constantly striving for innovation, imagination and an entrepreneurial spirit. We come up with big ideas and then roll up our sleeves to get the job done, guiding our clients through their most complex issues in a variety of industry sectors and across multiple regions of the world.

The industry recognition the firm has garnered emanates from the foundation of a global community aligned on behalf of our clients. The people at K&L Gates are committed to working together to create a legacy for each other, the firm, our clients, and the communities in which we serve. We thrive in an inclusive and socially conscious environment that embraces diversity and takes a holistic approach to the career evolution of all our professionals.