Sr. Data Modeler with Transportation experience

Key Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and maintain conceptual, logical, and physical data models for operational data at rest and data in motion across relational, NoSQL, and event-driven systems.
• Lead the definition, evolution, and governance of standardized event contracts and API schemas using Kafka Schema Registry, enforcing compatibility modes, schema references, and consumer-impact standards.
• Establish and govern canonical information models, shared operational entities, authoritative definitions, relationships, and naming conventions aligned with enterprise standards (such as ISO/IEC 11179-5).
• Reverse-engineer and analyze legacy operational systems—including mainframe environments—to support target-state modernization and seamless data integration.
• Partner with solution architects, application engineers, business SMEs, and data integration teams to maintain end-to-end traceability between business concepts, logical models, physical schemas, and event streams.
• Review database and schema designs to verify data integrity, normalization tradeoffs, history/effective dating structures, and compliance with enterprise security and governance policies.
• Facilitate modeling working sessions to translate complex transportation business rules into reusable, consistent technical definitions across systems.

Qualifications & Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or a related technical discipline.
• 8+ years of hands-on data modeling experience designing enterprise conceptual, logical, and physical schemas for mission-critical, highly integrated transactional or operational systems.
• Proven mastery of data modeling fundamentals, including grain definition, key strategies, normalization/denormalization trade-offs, constraints, temporal/effective dating, and state management across both Relational and NoSQL platforms.
• Hands-on experience with Kafka and Confluent Schema Registry, with practical knowledge of subjects, schema evolution rules, compatibility modes, and reusable event contracts.
• Demonstrated track record establishing governed semantic naming standards, metadata dictionaries, and enterprise data models (exposure to ISO/IEC 11179-5 principles preferred).
• Strong understanding of distributed architectures, middleware, API integration, and hybrid legacy-to-cloud migration patterns (mainframe exposure is a plus).
• Domain experience in transportation, railroad, logistics, transit, aviation, or utilities is strongly preferred.
• Excellent communication, documentation, and stakeholder facilitation skills.

Work Arrangement & Travel

• Remote arrangement with required travel to Washington, DC, Wilmington, DE, or Philadelphia, PA for project milestones if required by business needs.
• In-person attendance at quarterly Program Increment (PI) Planning sessions is mandatory; client provides rail travel, lodging, and approved meal allowances in accordance with company travel policies.

Employment Practices

VLink is an equal opportunity employer committed to fostering an inclusive environment where diversity is celebrated. All qualified applicants will be considered for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or veteran status. Employment is contingent upon successful completion of a background check.

This job application process may use AI-powered tools to assist in screening and evaluating applications based on objective, job-related qualifications. AI is used solely to support the recruitment process and all final hiring decisions are made exclusively by our human recruitment team.

Applicant information will be handled in accordance with VLink's privacy policy.