Data Engineering at U.S. Department of Defense

Roles, Comp & Culture

An L6 staff data engineer at U.S. Department of Defense sits around $186K total comp from 13 verified salary datapoints. The ladder runs from about $115K at entry up to $186K. U.S. Department of Defense pays data engineers slightly below other Technology companies. Reviews put them at 4.0 on Glassdoor, a little above the middle of the pack. U.S. Department of Defense employees are stressed and employee happiness is trending down over the past year. Layoff risk scores low for the next 30 days.

Last updated: Proudly published by: Jeff Wahl

U.S. Department of Defense data engineer compensation

Each level's figure is the median of individual U.S. Department of Defense offers at that level, so it reflects a typical outcome rather than an average pulled up by a few large packages. Total comp counts base salary plus equity and bonus annualized over the vest, and the range shown is the middle half of offers, with the top and bottom quarters trimmed off.

L3Entry$115Kmedian
Base$115KRange$93K–$130KReports4 · 0-2 yrsU.S. Department of Defense loop
L4Mid$127Kmedian
Base$125KRange$104K–$166KReports6 · 2-5 yrsU.S. Department of Defense loop
L6Staff$186Kmedian
Base$186KRange$141K–$203KReports3 · 8-15 yrsU.S. Department of Defense loop
Updated 13 verified salary reports

U.S. Department of Defense employee sentiment, tracked weekly

Employee happiness for data engineers over the past year, so you can see which direction it is moving, not just where it sits today.

Stressedtrending down over the past year
20252026
Updated U.S. Department of Defense employee happiness

Preparing for the U.S. Department of Defense loop

The round-by-round process, example questions, and prep plan are on the interview guide.

Compare U.S. Department of Defense with other data engineering employers

How the role, pay, and loop stack up against peer companies.

02 / Why practice

Prepare at U.S. Department of Defense interview difficulty

  1. 01

    Reading a solution is not the same as writing one

    Every engineer who has frozen on a query they had read a dozen times knows the gap. The only preparation that closes it is producing the answer yourself, under time, before the interview does it for you

  2. 02

    76% of hiring managers reject on the coding task, not the resume

    From HackerRank's 2024 Developer Skills Report. Candidates who look strong on paper still fail the live screen if they haven't done timed, executable practice

  3. 03

    5 problem shapes cover 80% of data engineer loops

    Dedup, sessionization, top-N-per-group, slowly-changing dimensions, partition tricks. Writing the shapes by hand turns the unfamiliar into pattern recognition

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