ETL / ELT Developer Recruiters
No postings. No stacks of resumes. No chasing. You interview a short list.
No upfront fee. You pay only if you hire.
Need someone now? Call 305-306-4829.
This is what we do all day: recruit technology and IT professionals.
When source data changes without warning, the ETL hire needs a plan for detecting the change before incorrect records reach reporting.
No upfront fee. You pay only if you hire.
No upfront fee. You pay only if you hire. We offer a candidate replacement guarantee on standard search agreements. The applicable period and exact terms are set out in the signed client recruiting agreement.
What happens next
- Do I pay upfront?
- No upfront fee. You pay only if you hire.
- Must I give you exclusivity?
- We do not promise or require exclusivity here. Any terms are in the recruiting agreement we refer you to.
- Will you reveal my company?
- Not without your explicit consent before we disclose anything.
- What if I do not hire?
- No hire, no fee.
- No upfront fee
- Pay only if you hire
- Technology only
- We reach engineers who aren't on job boards
- Replacement guarantee on standard searches
Need someone now? Call 305-306-4829.
What this hire really comes down to
When source data changes without warning, the ETL hire needs a plan for detecting the change before incorrect records reach reporting. You need someone who writes pipelines that fail gracefully and report errors clearly. If the pipeline breaks at 3 AM, your team should know why before the morning dashboard update. Avoid candidates who treat data ingestion as a one-time script. You need an engineer who builds repeatable patterns for moving data from operational stores into your warehouse.
Look for engineers who prioritize cost and idempotency. A poor developer will re-process every row of a million-record table because they lack a proper change data capture strategy. This wastes compute cycles and doubles your cloud bill. A strong candidate understands partition strategy and incremental loading. They define clear boundaries for data quality and stop bad data from reaching the production environment before it corrupts your core business metrics.
Prioritize people who view infrastructure as code. Manual configuration in cloud interfaces is a risk. Your developer should use Terraform or similar tools to define the environment. This ensures that the production, staging, and development environments match perfectly. If the code is not in version control, the pipeline does not exist for the business. This approach minimizes configuration drift and makes disaster recovery a simple matter of redeploying the environment configuration.
What we check before you see anyone
SQL proficiency
Ask them to explain the difference between a window function and a subquery in terms of execution cost. A strong candidate cites specific database engine limitations. Avoid candidates who only use standard SELECT statements without understanding execution plans or join optimization.
Orchestration logic
Discuss their experience with DAG structures. They should explain how to handle retries and backfills without duplicating data. If they say they run jobs on cron schedulers exclusively, they lack experience with modern event-driven orchestration tools like Airflow or Dagster.
Data quality verification
Test their strategy for detecting schema drift. A good developer builds automated checks to catch type changes before they break downstream reporting. They should explain how they implement circuit breakers to stop pipelines when data anomalies appear.
Cloud warehouse constraints
Ask how they manage warehouse credit usage. They must describe how they isolate compute clusters for specific jobs. This shows they understand how Snowflake or BigQuery costs accumulate based on warehouse size and uptime.
Where we find them
Look for talent in companies that operate high-volume transactional systems. These engineers have felt the pain of pipeline failures and are cautious about schema changes. They are often found in backend engineering teams that moved into data work. They value system stability and are rarely attracted to flashy new tools that lack clear documentation.
Engineers who prioritize reliability over rapid feature deployment are your best bet. Look for evidence of long-term project ownership on their resumes. They prefer cleaning up existing technical debt over starting fresh on new projects. They enjoy the challenge of making existing systems faster and more resilient to unexpected data inputs.
Mistakes we see
Hiring based on their knowledge of a specific tool like Kafka rather than their core understanding of distributed system architecture.
Ignoring their inability to write clean documentation for the pipelines they build, which forces you to rely on them for every minor change.
Over-prioritizing candidates with heavy front-end visualization experience instead of those who focus on back-end reliability and data integrity.
The search in three steps
Agree the brief
Start the intake by identifying the most fragile part of your current data pipeline. This gives the candidate a real problem to solve during the interview.
Find and speak with people
Conduct a technical session where they whiteboard a schema migration. Watch if they ask about downstream impact and existing dependencies before writing any code.
Introduce the people who fit
Focus the final evaluation on their approach to testing. Ask for an example where a data pipeline failed in production and how they fixed it to prevent recurrence.
Questions about this search
Should I pay for certifications?
Certifications indicate theoretical knowledge but do not prove production experience. Focus your budget on testing their ability to solve your actual pipeline failures.
How do I handle counteroffers?
If they are considering multiple offers, focus on the engineering challenges your environment provides. High-quality developers leave companies where the technical debt becomes unmanageable.
Is remote work feasible?
Data engineering is highly suited for remote work as the output is code and performance metrics. Ensure they have access to the same cloud environment as the rest of the team.
How do I judge technical fit?
Give them a small set of sample data and ask them to build an idempotent pipeline to process it. If the code fails when run twice, they lack the necessary experience.
Are shortlists strictly necessary?
Keep shortlists limited to three candidates who pass the technical barrier. More choice usually leads to slower decision making and increased risk of losing good talent.
No upfront fee. You pay only if you hire. We offer a candidate replacement guarantee on standard search agreements. The applicable period and exact terms are set out in the signed client recruiting agreement.
What happens next
- Do I pay upfront?
- No upfront fee. You pay only if you hire.
- Must I give you exclusivity?
- We do not promise or require exclusivity here. Any terms are in the recruiting agreement we refer you to.
- Will you reveal my company?
- Not without your explicit consent before we disclose anything.
- What if I do not hire?
- No hire, no fee.
Pay snapshot
ETL / ELT Developer
$139,500
Median as published, released May 15, 2026. Matched to Database Architects (SOC 15-1243).
BLS reports Database Architects as a broader occupation. It does not separate ETL / ELT Developer, technology stack, seniority, certifications or employer sector. These figures are not a title-specific offer range.
Source: BLS OEWS May 2025.
See the salary guideHow a search runs
The Six-Step Search
- 1Search Calibration
A call about the work. You get a written search profile.
- 2Market Mapping
We identify the employer backgrounds that fit. You see where we will look.
- 3Professional Contact Intelligence
We identify individual people, not job board applicants.
- 4Persistent Personalized Outreach
Personal outreach and direct follow-through. You get search updates.
- 5Live Candidate Qualification
A recruiter checks stack, scope and motivation in conversation.
- 6Candidate Intelligence and Process Support
You receive a written brief on every person you meet.
Working with Technology Headhunters
When is the recruiting fee due?
There is no upfront fee for our contingency search. You pay only if you hire someone we present, under the terms of the signed agreement.
What are the replacement terms?
We offer a candidate replacement guarantee on standard search agreements. The applicable period and exact terms are set out in the signed client recruiting agreement.
What don't you do in a permanent search?
We do not bill by the hour for permanent search or charge a retainer unless one is agreed. We do not treat reposting your job advertisement as headhunting.