Job Description
Location: Washington, DC or Montgomery, AL preferred; remote candidates considered
Reports to: Chief Data Science and Innovation Officer
Salary: $120,000-$150,000 total compensation, commensurate with experience
About Impact Research
Impact Research is a Democratic polling and strategic research firm with a team of about 40 people split between offices in Washington, DC and Montgomery, AL. We work with campaigns, progressive organizations, and corporate clients to understand and move public opinion—combining rigorous research methodology with modern data techniques to deliver actionable strategic advice.
About the Role
We're hiring our first dedicated data engineer, a high-ownership role where you'll shape our data infrastructure from the ground up and directly impact how we deliver research for years to come.
You'll work closely with our Chief Data Science and Innovation Officer and broader research teams to build the pipelines, data warehouse, and automation systems that power our polling operations. This is a role for someone who wants to build, not just maintain, and who's comfortable bringing modern data engineering practices to a fast-moving environment.
What You'll Do:
• Design, build, and maintain data pipelines that support polling operations and client deliverables
• Manage and optimize our data warehouse in Google BigQuery
• Build orchestration workflows to automate data ingestion, transformation, and quality checks
• Collaborate with analysts and data scientists to understand their needs and build infrastructure that supports their work
• Establish best practices for data quality, documentation, and security
• Help develop best practices for how Impact uses AI to improve the quality and efficiency of our work.
• Support integrations with external data sources, including voter files and vendor platforms
Qualifications we’re looking for:
• 5+ years of experience in data engineering, analytics engineering, or a similar role
• Advanced SQL skills
• Experience managing cloud data warehouses (BigQuery preferred)
• Hands-on experience with dbt
• Experience with pipeline orchestration tools (e.g., Airflow, Astronomer, Google Workflows, Dagster, Prefect)
• Experience with CI/CD, GitHub Actions pipelines
• Proficiency in Python; familiarity with R is a plus
• Familiarity with Git/GitHub for version control
• Comfort working independently and making technical decisions with high autonomy
• Excellent communication skills and enthusiasm for teaching and training coworkers on technical skills
• Familiarity and comfort with AI-powered coding agents, such as (but not limited to) Claude.
Preference given to candidates who possess a mix of the following:
• Experience in Democratic politics, campaigns, or advocacy organizations
• Familiarity with voter files (Catalist, L2, TargetSmart, etc.) or political data vendors
• Experience with polling or survey data pipelines
• Experience building data infrastructure at a small or growing organization
Impact offers a competitive salary and benefits package that includes employer-paid health, vision and dental insurance, paid parental leave, profit sharing, hybrid in-office/work from home schedule and a remote work stipend. Email resumes to cfarmer@impactresearch.com. Open until filled.
Impact is an equal opportunity employer. We value a diverse workforce and an inclusive culture. Impact encourages applications from all qualified individuals without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, national origin, marital status, citizenship, disability, and veteran status. Women, people of color, and LGBTQ individuals are strongly encouraged to apply.