Software Engineer and Data Automation Specialist

Summary

The Commission is seeking a Software Engineering and Data Automation Specialist who will work within the Information Systems team of the Office of Administration and Technology. The incumbent will design, develop, integrate, and maintain applications, data-processing workflows, data warehouse solutions, and analytics systems, with an emphasis on document and data extraction, processing, transformation, validation, integration, and automation.

Duties

The Software Engineering and Data Automation Specialist will work within the Information Systems team of the Office of Administration and Technology to support the research and operational work of the United States Sentencing Commission. The incumbent will design, develop, integrate, and maintain applications, data-processing workflows, data warehouse solutions, and analytics systems, with an emphasis on document and data extraction, processing, transformation, validation, integration, and automation. The position encompasses both modernization projects and ongoing support of existing systems. Assignments may include leading or supporting document extraction, data transformation, database integration, reporting, and application maintenance, with responsibilities varying according to project priorities, operational needs, and team expertise. The incumbent will collaborate with technical staff and subject-matter experts to develop shared knowledge of the Commission's data, business rules, and systems. The ideal candidate will be passionate about data and technology, possess strong analytical and problem-solving skills, and enjoy developing practical solutions to complex data and automation challenges. The incumbent will: Analyze business and user requirements and design, develop, implement, and maintain software solutions supporting data collection, document processing, data integration, business intelligence, and analytics. Design and develop Python applications and automated pipelines to ingest and process PDFs, scanned documents, databases, and other structured and unstructured data sources. Develop and enhance OCR, text parsing, regular-expression, and document-layout techniques. Segment documents into meaningful sections or chunks while preserving context, document identifiers, and source locations needed for subsequent processing and review. Collaborate with subject-matter experts to define, document, implement, and test coding rules that transform extracted information into standardized data elements. Address exceptions, conflicting information, and ambiguous results through documented validation and review procedures. Develop and maintain SQL and Oracle PL/SQL solutions for data transformation, validation, reconciliation, loading, and integration with operational databases and data warehouses. Design and support end-to-end workflows for ingestion, extraction, transformation, validation, and database loading, including scheduling, monitoring, error handling, restart, and recovery. Evaluate and apply machine learning, natural-language processing, and locally hosted AI models where they improve document extraction, classification, search, or analysis. Compare results with established methods and approved reference data before production use. Develop and integrate secure applications for air-gapped and restricted-network environments, using approved tools, APIs, and locally hosted services as appropriate. Design, maintain, and enhance data models, ETL/ELT processes, and system interfaces as data sources, technologies, and business requirements evolve. Develop, enhance, maintain, and validate reports, dashboards, and data visualizations, ensuring the accuracy and usability of information provided to staff and other authorized users. Maintain and enhance existing applications, data warehouse processes, and analytics platforms, including configurations, integrations, upgrades, and performance tuning. Contribute to application and data architecture by designing secure, maintainable interfaces and processing components that integrate with enterprise systems and support future modernization. Implement automated testing, regression testing, data-quality checks, logging, and monitoring. Maintain traceability from source documents through extraction and transformation to database values, including applicable rule and model versions. Implement and maintain application security, authentication, authorization, and related controls; comply with applicable federal information security, privacy, data governance, and records-management requirements. Monitor production systems, investigate data discrepancies and processing failures, and resolve technical issues to maintain reliable operations. Maintain technical documentation, coding-rule specifications, test cases, and operating procedures. Participate in cross-training and knowledge transfer to support shared responsibility for Commission systems. Provide technical support, consultation, and training to technical staff and end users, and manage assigned projects and operational tasks to meet established requirements, quality standards, and deadlines. Perform other duties as assigned.

Qualifications

Specialized Experience: Software Development: Experience developing and maintaining production Python applications using modular design, source control, testing, documentation, and secure development practices. Data Processing and Transformation: Experience using relational databases to transform, validate, reconcile, and load data, and translating business requirements and documented coding rules into maintainable software. Document Processing: Experience extracting and processing information from PDFs, text documents, or scanned images using text parsing, regular expressions, OCR, or comparable techniques, with attention to document structure, context, and accuracy. Automation and Integration: Experience developing and supporting ETL/ELT or automated data-processing workflows and integrating applications, databases, APIs, or other enterprise systems. Production Reliability: Experience implementing logging, exception handling, automated testing, monitoring, and recovery procedures, and troubleshooting application, database, or data-quality issues. Collaboration and System Design: Experience analyzing user needs, designing maintainable technical solutions, documenting business logic and system behavior, and working with technical staff and subject-matter experts. Competencies: Attention to Detail - Performs work thoroughly and accurately, with careful attention to detail. Customer Service - Assesses customer needs, provides effective assistance, resolves issues, and delivers quality service. Decision Making - Makes sound, objective decisions and takes appropriate action to achieve organizational goals. Information Management - Identifies, gathers, organizes, and maintains information and information systems effectively. Interpersonal Skills - Builds effective working relationships and communicates with courtesy, tact, empathy, and professionalism. Oral Communication - Clearly communicates information, findings, recommendations, and viewpoints and effectively persuades others when appropriate. Problem Solving - Identifies problems, evaluates constraints, and develops practical solutions using available technology and resources. Teamwork - Promotes cooperation, trust, and team commitment while working effectively with others to achieve shared goals. Technical Competence - Applies job-related technical knowledge and experience to perform duties, evaluate technical information, and provide technical guidance. PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS Preference will be given to applicants with the following areas of experience: Oracle databases, SQL and PL/SQL development, data modeling, query optimization, and enterprise data integration. Advanced document processing, including OCR, layout analysis, context-preserving segmentation, and extraction from varied or complex document