CDAO - War Data Platform - Data Engineering Project Manager
Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering · Arlington, Virginia, United States · onsite
Job Title: Data Engineering Project Manager Directorate: War Data Platform (WDP) – Data OperationsJOA: CDAO-2026-000117
Pay Scale: $139,395-$197,200
Open Date: 9 October 2026Close Date: 23 October 2026About the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office The Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO) mission is to accelerate the adoption of data, analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI) across the Department of War (DoW). The CDAO works across the Military Departments and Services, Joint Staff, Combatant Commands (CCMDs), Office of the Secretary of War (OSW), and other DoW Components to design, develop, field, and scale technologies, capabilities, strategies, policies, and other guidance related to data, analytics, and AI in support of DoW's warfighting and business functions, including responding to crises and emerging challenges. The CDAO has three broad goals of enabling, speeding, and scaling adoption of AI in the DoW.
The CDAO’s role in facilitating the rapid adoption of frontier AI and autonomy will enable the DoW’s national security objectives by informing future investments into policies, partnerships, and infrastructure, enabling the adoption of AI at scale throughout the department. The Data Engineering Project Manager will provide senior project and product leadership for the War Data Platform, scaling the core data engineering capabilities that underpin modern warfighter analytics and AI systems. They will define and execute the WDP's product vision, strategy, and multi-year data roadmap that spans data ingestion, cross-domain data movement, pipeline orchestration, data cataloging, API management, and migration from legacy systems to a unified, modern architecture.
The incumbent will act as the crucial bridge connecting mission operators, data scientists, analytics teams, and platform infrastructure engineers. By balancing cutting-edge data operations practices with rigorous data governance and security compliance, they will ensure the reliable delivery of high-quality, decision-ready data to joint warfighters and senior leadership across all operational domains. This position is covered by the Department of War (DoW) Civilian Acquisition Workforce Personnel Demonstration Project (AcqDemo). The position is located in Washington, DC. The pay plan for this role is NH-1550-IV, which is equivalent to the GS-14/15 grade level. This role will close for submissions at 11:59pm on October 23rd, 2026. - Serve as a senior project manager for enterprise data engineering on the War Data Platform (WDP).
- Develop and maintain the WDP’s product vision, strategy, and multi-year roadmap for data engineering capabilities, including automated data ingestion; connection onboarding; pipeline orchestration and observability; API delivery; data cataloging and lineage; self-service data movement; and legacy-pipeline migration to modern cloud architectures.
- Define, prioritize, and manage the capability backlog; approve epics, user stories, technical specifications, and acceptance criteria while balancing new capability development against operational reliability, technical debt reduction, and legacy decommissioning milestones.
- Supervise the architecture, efficiency, and reliability of data movement across the enterprise analytics platform, encompassing batch and streaming pipelines, database replication, managed file transfers, and connections to authoritative data sources across Military Services, Defense Agencies, Combatant Commands, and mission partners.
- Oversee complex data flows spanning multiple security classification levels and cloud impact levels, ensuring secure, compliant transfer via approved cross-domain solutions.
- Review and approve solution designs for ETL/ELT pipelines, orchestration, storage, and data serving, ensuring strict alignment with DoW enterprise architecture standards, national defense data strategies, and organizational roadmaps.
- Evaluate complex architectural patterns (e.g., data warehouse, data lake, centralized vs. federated/mesh designs, batch vs. event-driven streaming) to deliver authoritative recommendations balancing performance, security, scalability, and total cost of ownership.
- Establish, monitor, and report on Service-Level Objectives (SLOs) and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs); direct root-cause analyses of pipeline outages and data quality degradations; and enforce robust monitoring, alerting, data lineage tracking, and automated recovery mechanisms.
- Leverage hands-on expertise in data engineering practices, including continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD), infrastructure as code (IaC), workflow orchestration, and DoW-authorized cloud data services, to assess contractor proposals, challenge technical assumptions, and validate levels of effort.
- Partner closely with data science, analytics, and AI teams to guarantee that data connections satisfy mission requirements for feature engineering, model training, business intelligence, data freshness, granularity, and historical retention.
- Serve as the primary liaison between mission owners, cybersecurity, platform operations, enterprise architecture, and external data providers/consumers across the DoW.
- Prepare and present decision memoranda, executive briefings, and status reports to General Officers, Flag Officers, members of the Senior Executive Service (SES), and high-level governance boards.
- Develop and continuously refine engineering standards, processes, templates, and implementation guidance adopted across the broader enterprise data engineering community.
- U.S. Citizenship is required.
- Candidate is encouraged to provide e-portfolio, project samples, Github, etc. to their submission package.
- Males born after 12-31-59 must be registered or exempt from Selective Service
- This position is subject to provisions of the WHS/OSW Priority Placement Program (please see details below)
- A three-year trial period may be required if not previously completed a trial or probationary period in the excepted or competitive service
- Must be determined suitable for federal employment.
- Required to participate in the direct deposit program.
- This position is subject to pre-employment and random drug testing.
- We may use this announcement to fill additional vacancies within 90 days of the closing date.
- Recruitment, relocation, or retention incentives may be authorized based on the availability of funds.
- This position requires a Top Secret/ Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) security clearance.
- If you are a veteran claiming veteran's preference, as defined by Section 2108 of Title 5 U.S.C., you must submit documents verifying your eligibility with your application package.
- This position may require work other than normal duty hours, which may include evenings, weekends, and/or holidays and/or mandatory overtime.
- This position may occasionally require travel away from the normal duty station via military or commercial aircraft.
Priority Placement Program Details Military Spouse Preference (MSP) Eligible: Military Spouse Preference applicants, must be selected and placed at the highest grade level for which they have applied and been determined best qualified up to and including the full performance level. You must include a completed copy of the Military Spouse PPP Self-Certification Checklist dated within 30 days along with the documents identified on the checklist to verify your eligibility for Military Spouse Preference. Military Reserve (MR) and National Guard (NG) Technicians PPP Eligible: MR and NG technicians PPP applicants must be selected and placed at the full performance level if determined well qualified. You must include a completed copy of the Military Reserve and National Guard Technician PPP Self-Certification Checklist to verify your eligibility for Military Reserve and National Guard Technician preference. Military Reserve (MR) and National Guard (NG) Technicians R