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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Upload Consultant

💰 $70,000 - $140,000

Data OperationsConsultingData EngineeringSaaS Implementation

🎯 Role Definition

An Upload Consultant is a cross-functional technical consultant responsible for designing, implementing, validating, and operationalizing data ingestion, upload, and migration processes. This role combines hands-on engineering (ETL/ELT, scripting, API integration, secure file transfer) with client-facing consulting (requirements gathering, data mapping, testing, training). The Upload Consultant ensures timely, accurate, auditable ingestion of client data into target systems while optimizing throughput, reliability, and compliance with data governance policies.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Data Analyst with strong ETL or upload experience
  • ETL/Integration Developer or Data Engineer
  • Implementation / Onboarding Consultant for SaaS products

Advancement To:

  • Senior Upload / Migration Consultant
  • Data Migration Lead or Integration Architect
  • Principal Data Engineer or Solutions Architect
  • Professional Services Manager / Technical Account Manager

Lateral Moves:

  • Customer Success or Implementation Manager
  • Business Analyst focusing on data projects

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Lead end-to-end data onboarding and upload projects for new clients: gather upload requirements, produce formal data mapping and transformation specifications, and own delivery milestones until data is accepted into production.
  • Design and implement robust, repeatable ETL/ELT workflows using SQL, Python, or platform-native tools to transform source files and load them into target databases or SaaS endpoints with full traceability.
  • Architect and build secure file transfer solutions (SFTP/FTPS/AS2) and cloud-based file ingestion (AWS S3, Azure Blob, GCP Storage) including lifecycle, retention, and encryption best practices.
  • Implement RESTful API integrations and batch API loaders to support incremental and bulk uploads, including authentication mechanisms (OAuth, API keys) and rate-limit handling.
  • Create and maintain data validation and quality-check frameworks that automatically reconcile record counts, check referential integrity, and detect data anomalies prior to final ingestion.
  • Develop idempotent upload processes and retry logic to ensure safe, repeatable replays of failed or partial uploads without producing duplicates or corrupting historical data.
  • Configure and maintain automated scheduling and orchestration for upload jobs using tools like Airflow, cron, Jenkins, or platform task runners, and ensure jobs are resilient to transient failures.
  • Perform performance tuning and capacity planning for large-file and high-throughput uploads, including optimized batch sizing, parallelism, and resource allocation.
  • Troubleshoot complex ingestion failures by analyzing logs, stack traces, and error payloads; identify root causes; propose and implement fixes; and document incident resolutions.
  • Build comprehensive logging, monitoring, and alerting around upload pipelines (CloudWatch, Stackdriver, Prometheus, ELK) to provide SLA-attainment visibility and fast incident response.
  • Prepare and execute rigorous test plans (unit, integration, and user acceptance testing) to validate mapping rules, data transformations, and downstream system behavior before Go-Live.
  • Lead data reconciliation activities between source and target systems, prepare variance reports, and work with stakeholders to remediate mismatches and close open items.
  • Produce clear technical documentation and runbooks (upload specifications, mapping spreadsheets, transformation logic, rollback procedures) for internal teams and client administrators.
  • Serve as the primary technical point-of-contact for client onboarding, conduct discovery workshops to capture schema differences and business rules, and translate business requirements into technical tasks.
  • Train client teams and internal stakeholders on upload procedures, data validation steps, and ongoing maintenance, enabling clients to perform future uploads autonomously where appropriate.
  • Enforce data governance and compliance requirements during upload activities, including PII handling, data masking, consent checks, and audit trail generation to meet regulatory needs (GDPR, HIPAA where applicable).
  • Coordinate cross-functional activity with Product, Engineering, Security, and Support teams to resolve product limitations, influence roadmap items for upload reliability, and escalate systemic issues effectively.
  • Create and manage tickets in issue-tracking systems (Jira, ServiceNow) with well-defined acceptance criteria and collaborate through agile ceremonies to prioritize upload-related backlog items.
  • Execute ad-hoc large-scale migrations and cutover plans: develop migration runbooks, coordinate cutover windows, monitor live loads, and validate completeness and correctness post-migration.
  • Standardize and publish reusable upload templates, mapping libraries, and transformation modules to reduce time-to-onboard and increase consistency across clients.
  • Evaluate and recommend third-party tools and managed services for complex file transfer, mapping, or migration scenarios, and lead vendor POC and selection when required.
  • Maintain and improve security posture for upload processes by enforcing least privilege, rotating credentials, auditing access, and applying patches or updates to transfer infrastructure.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
  • Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
  • Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
  • Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.
  • Assist with pricing and scoping of upload and migration projects for presales and proposals.
  • Help develop training materials and onboarding playbooks for new consultants and client admins.
  • Monitor and periodically review historical uploads for data drift and recommend corrective ETL jobs.
  • Participate in postmortems and continuous improvement initiatives to reduce recurring upload incidents.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Advanced SQL: writing complex joins, window functions, set operations, and performance-tuned queries for data reconciliation and transformations.
  • Scripting and programming: strong experience with Python, Bash, or another scripting language to implement transformation pipelines and automation.
  • ETL/ELT tools and frameworks: hands-on with tools such as Apache Airflow, Informatica, Talend, Matillion, Fivetran, or bespoke ingestion frameworks.
  • API integrations: design and implement RESTful API clients, handle pagination, authentication (OAuth2, API keys), and error handling for bulk and incremental uploads.
  • Secure file transfer: configuration and operation of SFTP, FTPS, AS2, or managed transfer services, including key management and automation.
  • Cloud storage & services: familiarity with AWS (S3, Lambda, Glue), Azure (Blob, Functions), or GCP (Cloud Storage, Cloud Functions) for staging and processing files.
  • Data validation & quality tooling: building checks for schema validation, checksums, record counts, deduplication logic, and business-rule validation.
  • Version control & CI/CD: Git-based workflows, automated deployments for ingestion code, and familiarity with CI tools (Jenkins, GitHub Actions).
  • Monitoring and observability: implementing logging, metrics, and alerting with tools like ELK, CloudWatch, Prometheus, or Datadog.
  • Relational and NoSQL databases: working knowledge of PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redshift, Snowflake, BigQuery or similar warehouses for loading and validation.
  • Performance optimization and capacity planning for batch and streaming uploads.
  • Data governance and security best practices: encryption at rest/in transit, access controls, PII handling, and audit logging.
  • Familiarity with large file handling and chunked upload strategies and resume-capable transfers.
  • Experience building idempotent processes and safe rollback mechanisms for data ingestion.

Soft Skills

  • Client-facing communication: clear, structured communication for technical and non-technical audiences, including workshops and executive updates.
  • Stakeholder management: ability to coordinate cross-functional teams, prioritize conflicting requirements, and drive consensus.
  • Problem solving: methodical root-cause analysis and pragmatic engineering solutions under time pressure.
  • Attention to detail: meticulous approach to mapping, validation, and documentation to avoid downstream data issues.
  • Project management: ability to manage timelines, dependencies, and risk during complex migration projects.
  • Collaboration: strong team player who works closely with product, engineering, support, and customers.
  • Adaptability: comfortable working with varied client environments, data formats, and evolving product constraints.
  • Training and coaching: capability to onboard and upskill clients and internal staff on upload workflows and tools.
  • Documentation skills: produce concise, searchable runbooks and technical specs that support automation and handoffs.
  • Customer empathy: focus on delivering a smooth onboarding experience and responsive support during critical loads.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Data Science, Engineering, or a related technical field; or equivalent practical experience.

Preferred Education:

  • Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Data Analytics, or Information Systems; and industry certifications (AWS/GCP/Azure, data engineering, or security-related certs).

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Computer Science
  • Information Systems
  • Data Science / Analytics
  • Software Engineering
  • Business Administration with strong technical coursework

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 2–7 years working in data ingestion, ETL/ELT, data migration, or integration roles; 3+ years recommended for client-facing consultant roles.

Preferred:

  • 5+ years implementing production data upload/migration pipelines for enterprise SaaS or large on-prem systems, with demonstrable project ownership, cross-functional collaboration, and successful Go-Live experience.
  • Experience in regulated industries (finance, healthcare) or large-scale data migrations is a strong plus.
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