VP, Senior Data Engineer at CREA, LLC in Boston, MA

CREA, LLC is a full-service low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) syndicator forming long-term relationships with investors and developers that cultivate success and improve lives. With over 20 years in affordable housing, CREA has raised $14.1 billion - resulting in the formation of 106K+ homes within 1,122 communities across the country. Thanks to the contribution of over 130 employees, CREA continues to look for talented and passionate individuals who are excited about opportunities to grow with us into the future. We are currently looking to add a talented Information Technology department in the CREA offices in Indianapolis, IN, or Boston, MA.

Physical Presence: In-Office | Tue – Thu; Flexible | Mon & Fri

Open to: Boston, MA, or Indianapolis, IN

Reports to: Senior Vice President, Business Intelligence & Analysis

Position Summary:

We are seeking a VP / Senior Data Engineer with a minimum of 9 years of relevant experience; 10+ years is preferred. This hands-on technical leadership role is responsible for designing, modernizing, and managing the enterprise data platform across Microsoft Fabric, Power BI, Azure SQL, data integration, ETL/ELT, and warehouse solutions. The successful candidate will combine deep engineering expertise with strong data management, reporting, governance, and stakeholder leadership capabilities.

Primary Responsibilities:

Enterprise Data Platform & Architecture

• Lead the design, implementation, modernization, and support of scalable enterprise data platforms using Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Fabric.
• Define practical data architecture standards for ingestion, transformation, storage, semantic modeling, reporting, security, and lifecycle management.
• Design solutions using Fabric Data Lake, Warehouse, Data Factory, notebooks, pipelines, and semantic models based on business and technical requirements.
• Guide modernization and migration of on-premises SQL Server workloads and data integrations to Azure SQL and Microsoft Fabric.
• Evaluate platform capabilities, capacity needs, performance, reliability, and cost to support sustainable data services.

Power BI Reporting & Platform Management

• Lead Power BI report, dashboard, semantic model, and dataset development for executive, operational, and analytical reporting.
• Administer and govern Power BI and Fabric workspaces, deployment pipelines, access, sharing, refresh schedules, gateways, and environment promotion.
• Establish reporting standards for data modeling, DAX, Power Query, naming, documentation, certification, reuse, and lifecycle management.
• Implement row-level security, object-level security, workspace roles, and controlled distribution of business information.
• Monitor refresh reliability, query performance, capacity utilization, adoption, and report quality; troubleshoot and optimize issues.

Data Engineering, ETL/ELT & Integration

• Design, build, test, deploy, and maintain secure, reliable, and reusable ETL/ELT pipelines and data integrations.
• Create ingestion and transformation processes for structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data from cloud and on-premises sources.
• Use Microsoft Fabric Data Factory, Azure Data Factory, SQL, APIs, and other integration methods to support batch and near-real-time use cases.
• Implement orchestration, scheduling, dependency management, error handling, restorability, logging, monitoring, and operational documentation.
• Build reusable frameworks and automation to reduce manual data processing and improve delivery consistency.

Azure SQL, Warehouse & Data Modeling

• Design, develop, administer, and optimize solutions using Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Managed Instance, SQL Server, and Fabric Warehouse.
• Apply relational, dimensional, star-schema, and semantic modeling techniques to support reporting, analytics, and business operations.
• Develop and optimize T-SQL, stored procedures, views, functions, indexes, and data transformation logic.
• Manage data warehouse and lakehouse structures, historization, incremental processing, partitioning, and performance optimization.
• Partner with application and infrastructure teams on secure connectivity, database migration, availability, backup, and recovery requirements.

Additional Responsibilities:

Data Management, Quality & Governance

• Establish and support data management practices covering ownership, stewardship, metadata, lineage, classification, retention, and access.
• Implement data quality controls, reconciliation, validation, monitoring, and issue-management processes across pipelines and reporting solutions.
• Define and maintain business and technical data definitions, source-to-target mappings, lineage documentation, and data catalogs.
• Support master and reference data management practices that improve consistency across systems and reporting.
• Champion data privacy, security, regulatory, audit, and governance requirements in partnership with cybersecurity and business stakeholders.

Technical Leadership & Stakeholder Partnership

• Provide hands-on technical leadership, architecture guidance, engineering standards, solution reviews, code reviews, and mentoring.
• Partner with business leaders and subject matter experts to translate reporting and analytics needs into prioritized, scalable data solutions.
• Communicate platform roadmaps, dependencies, risks, tradeoffs, and operational performance to technical and executive stakeholders.
• Coordinate work across employees, consultants, vendors, and business partners while maintaining accountability for solution quality.
• Create and maintain architecture diagrams, data models, technical specifications, runbooks, operating procedures, and support documentation.

Operations, Security & Continuous Improvement

• Monitor data platform availability, pipeline execution, refresh performance, storage, capacity, and service health across cloud and on-premises environments.
• Lead troubleshooting, root cause analysis, remediation, and continuous improvement for data and reporting incidents.
• Apply least privilege, managed identities, secrets management, encryption, private connectivity, and secure development practices.
• Support CI/CD, source control, testing, release management, and automated deployment for data solutions and Power BI content.
• Research and recommend improvements to analytics, warehouse, data virtualization, integration, automation, and AI-enabled data capabilities.

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Data Engineering, Information Systems, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Minimum 9 years of professional experience in data engineering, business intelligence, analytics engineering, database development, or data platform management.
• Demonstrated experience designing and operating Microsoft data platforms with increasing technical leadership responsibility.
• Strong experience with Power BI report development and platform management, including semantic models, DAX, Power Query, workspaces, gateways, security, deployment, and refresh operations.
• Hands-on experience with Microsoft Fabric, including Data Lake, Warehouse, Data Factory, pipelines, and semantic models.
• Strong experience with Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Managed Instance, SQL Server, T-SQL, performance tuning, and data migration.
• Experience designing and supporting ETL/ELT pipelines, orchestration, APIs, data integration, warehouse, and lakehouse solutions.
• Strong knowledge of dimensional modeling, data warehousing, data quality, metadata, lineage, governance, and data security.
• Experience with Git-based source control, CI/CD, testing, release management, monitoring, and production support.
• Excellent analytical, documentation, communication, leadership, and stakeholder-management skills.

Preferred:

• 10+ years of relevant professional experience in data engineering, business intelligence, analytics engineering, or enterprise data platform leadership.
• Advanced experience leading Fabric and Power BI governance, capacity management, workspace strategy, deployment pipelines, and enterprise adoption.
• Experience modernizing on-premises SQL Server, ETL, warehouse, and reporting workloads for Azure and Microsoft Fabric.
• Experience with Azure Data Factory, Azure Synapse Analytics, Dataverse, Microsoft Purview, APIs, and data virtualization.
• Experience supporting master data management, financial or operational reporting, and cross-functional data governance programs.
• Experience with AI-assisted analytics, Azure AI services, Copilot capabilities, or intelligent document and workflow processing.
• Experience in regulated, financial services, real estate, affordable housing, or audit-focused environments.
• Relevant Microsoft certifications in Fabric, Power BI, Azure Data Engineering, Azure Database, or Azure Architecture.

Core Competencies:

• Microsoft Fabric: Fabric, Data Lake, Warehouse, Data Factory, pipelines, notebooks, semantic models, capacity and workspace management
• Power BI: Reports, dashboards, semantic models, DAX, Power Query, gateways, refresh, RLS/OLS, deployment pipelines, governance
• Azure Data Platform: Azure SQL Database, SQL Managed Instance, SQL Server, Azure Data Factory, Synapse, storage and secure connectivity
• Data Engineering: ETL/ELT, APIs, orchestration, scheduling, logging, monitoring, restorability, batch and near-real-time integration
• Warehouse & Modeling: Dimensional modeling, star schemas, relational modeling, lakehouse, warehouse, incremental processing, performance tuning
• Data Management: Quality, metadata, lineage, cataloging, stewardship, master/reference data, retention, access and lifecycle management
• Development & DevOps: T-SQL, Python or notebooks, Git, CI/CD, testing, deployment automation, environment promotion
• Security & Governance: RBAC, row-level security, managed identities, data classification, privacy, auditability and compliance controls

Our Values:

• We work as a family, investing in each other, worthy causes, and the communities we serve.
• We have integrity in all that we do; we embrace differences and treat others with kindness and respect.
• We believe that, with teamwork, we can accomplish anything and pursue inventive solutions for our clients.

Compensation

Compensation for this position is determined based on factors such as education, qualifications, relevant experience, and geographic location.

• Boston, MA: $130,000 – $160,000
• Indianapolis, IN: $110,000 – $130,000

Notice of AI Use in Job Application Review

As part of our commitment in creating a fair, efficient, and consistent hiring process we may use artificial intelligence (AI) to help our recruiting teams organize, summarize, and analyze information provided by candidates, including resumes, application responses, and other materials submitted during the application process. AI may be used to identify patterns, highlight relevant skills and experience, and assist in comparing a candidate’s qualifications with the requirements of a specific role. These tools are to improve efficiency and consistency while supporting more informed hiring decisions, which will ultimately be made by the hiring team.