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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Integration Engineer

💰 $90,000 - $140,000

EngineeringITIntegration

🎯 Role Definition

An Integration Engineer designs, builds, tests, and maintains reliable, secure integrations between on-premises systems, cloud platforms, SaaS applications, and third‑party services. This role focuses on API development, middleware/iPaaS configuration, data transformation and orchestration, message brokering, performance tuning, monitoring, and lifecycle management of integration solutions. The Integration Engineer partners with product owners, architects, data engineers, security teams, and external vendors to ensure seamless data flows that meet performance, reliability, and compliance requirements.

Primary SEO/LLM keywords included: Integration Engineer, API, iPaaS, middleware, ETL, data integration, MuleSoft, Dell Boomi, Workato, Kafka, REST, SOAP, microservices, cloud integration.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Junior Integration Engineer / Integration Support Engineer
  • Systems Analyst / Business Systems Analyst with integration focus
  • Software Developer or Backend Developer with API experience
  • ETL Developer, Data Engineer or Middleware Support Analyst

Advancement To:

  • Senior Integration Engineer
  • Integration Architect / Solutions Architect
  • Lead Integration Engineer or Technical Lead
  • Platform or Cloud Integration Manager
  • Director of Integration / Head of Platform Services

Lateral Moves:

  • API Developer / API Platform Engineer
  • Cloud Engineer or DevOps Engineer with integration specialization
  • Data Integration Engineer / ETL Architect
  • Middleware or iPaaS Specialist (MuleSoft, Boomi, Workato)

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Design, develop, and deliver robust integration solutions and microservices using RESTful and SOAP APIs, ensuring secure authentication (OAuth2, JWT, SAML) and adherence to API design best practices.
  • Architect and implement integration patterns across on‑premises systems and cloud services using iPaaS platforms (MuleSoft, Dell Boomi, Workato, SnapLogic, Informatica) or custom middleware.
  • Create and maintain data transformation and mapping logic (JSON ↔ XML ↔ CSV) and implement schema validation, canonical data models, and tight error‑handling for fault tolerance.
  • Build, deploy, and manage event‑driven integrations using message brokers and streaming platforms such as Kafka, RabbitMQ, AWS SNS/SQS, Azure Service Bus, ensuring exactly‑once or at‑least‑once delivery semantics as required.
  • Develop, debug, and maintain ETL/ELT jobs for batch and real‑time data movement between transactional systems, data warehouses, and analytics platforms.
  • Implement CI/CD pipelines for integration artifacts (APIs, integrations, connectors) using Git, Jenkins, GitLab CI, Azure DevOps, or similar, enabling repeatable, automated deployments across environments.
  • Monitor integration health and performance using observability tools (Prometheus, Grafana, ELK/EFK, Splunk, New Relic) and implement alerting, SLAs, and runbooks to minimize downtime and mean time to recovery (MTTR).
  • Diagnose and troubleshoot production incidents, run root cause analysis (RCA), apply fixes, and implement preventive controls to reduce recurrence of integration failures.
  • Collaborate with solution architects and product owners to translate business requirements into integration requirements, data flows, API contracts, and non‑functional requirements (scalability, security, resiliency).
  • Implement security best practices across integrations: TLS encryption, secure credential storage (Vault, AWS Secrets Manager), input sanitization, rate limiting, and compliance with GDPR/CCPA or industry regulations where applicable.
  • Develop and maintain technical documentation, API specifications (OpenAPI/Swagger), sequence diagrams, interface contracts, and integration runbooks to support hands‑on teams and audits.
  • Build and maintain reusable integration components, connectors, templates, and SDKs to accelerate future integration projects and improve consistency and maintainability.
  • Perform capacity planning, load testing, and performance tuning for integration endpoints and middleware components to meet SLAs under peak loads.
  • Coordinate versioning and change management of APIs and integration endpoints; manage backward compatibility and migration strategies for clients and downstream systems.
  • Integrate third‑party SaaS platforms (Salesforce, Workday, ServiceNow, SAP, NetSuite) using vendor APIs, prebuilt connectors, and custom adapters while managing vendor relationships and support escalations.
  • Implement data quality checks, reconciliation processes, and idempotency patterns to ensure data accuracy and reliability across systems.
  • Provide technical leadership, mentor junior engineers, conduct code reviews, and enforce coding standards and integration patterns across the team.
  • Evaluate new integration technologies, tools, and iPaaS offerings; create proof‑of‑concepts (POCs) and recommend optimal platforms based on scalability, TCO, and security considerations.
  • Participate in agile ceremonies, estimate work, break down user stories into deliverable tasks, and drive features to completion in cross‑functional teams.
  • Manage and remediate security vulnerabilities and integration-related risks by working closely with security and compliance teams, completing periodic security reviews and penetration test remediation.
  • Support vendor integration onboarding, coordinate contractually required integration testing, and ensure SLAs and maintenance windows are honored.
  • Implement logging, correlation IDs, distributed tracing (OpenTelemetry, Jaeger) for end‑to‑end observability across microservices and integration flows.
  • Ensure disaster recovery (DR) and high availability (HA) configurations for critical integration components, participate in DR planning and testing.

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.
  • Maintain and update knowledge base articles and FAQs for frequent integration issues and onboarding guides.
  • Assist in vendor evaluations, procurement processes, and cost optimization initiatives related to integration platforms.
  • Help define and operationalize integration governance: API catalog, access controls, lifecycle policies, and change approval boards.
  • Engage in cross-team workshops to map business processes and identify automation opportunities through integration improvements.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • API design and development: RESTful APIs, OpenAPI/Swagger, SOAP/WSDL, GraphQL.
  • iPaaS and middleware platforms: MuleSoft (Anypoint), Dell Boomi, Workato, SnapLogic, Informatica, Talend.
  • Message brokers and streaming: Apache Kafka, RabbitMQ, JMS, AWS SQS/SNS, Azure Service Bus.
  • Cloud integration and services: AWS (Lambda, API Gateway, SNS/SQS), Azure (Functions, Logic Apps, Service Bus), GCP Pub/Sub.
  • Data formats and transformation: JSON, XML, CSV, Avro; ETL/ELT tools and patterns; data mapping and normalization.
  • Authentication & security protocols: OAuth2, OpenID Connect, SAML, JWT, TLS, encryption-at-rest/in-transit.
  • Scripting and programming: Java, JavaScript/Node.js, Python, Groovy, or languages used by the platform.
  • CI/CD and DevOps: Git, Jenkins, GitLab CI, Azure DevOps, Terraform/ARM templates for infra-as-code.
  • Observability and monitoring: Prometheus, Grafana, ELK/EFK, Splunk, New Relic, distributed tracing.
  • Databases and query languages: SQL (Postgres, MySQL, SQL Server), NoSQL (MongoDB, DynamoDB), and data warehousing concepts.
  • Networking fundamentals: HTTP(s), TCP/IP, DNS, load balancers, VPNs, VPC peering, firewall rules and routing for hybrid integrations.
  • Testing methodologies: unit/integration testing, contract testing, API mocking, and load/performance testing tools.
  • Source control & artifact management: Git, Nexus, Artifactory.
  • Containerization & orchestration (beneficial): Docker, Kubernetes (EKS, AKS, GKE) for deployment of integration microservices.

Soft Skills

  • Strong analytical and problem-solving capabilities with a bias for root cause analysis and durable fixes.
  • Clear written and verbal communication skills to produce API documentation, runbooks, and liaise with stakeholders and vendors.
  • Customer-oriented mindset: ability to partner with product owners and business stakeholders to deliver outcome-focused integrations.
  • Time management and prioritization: balancing multiple integration projects and production support responsibilities.
  • Collaboration and teamwork: work effectively in cross-functional agile teams and mentor junior engineers.
  • Attention to detail and quality mindset for robust, secure, and compliant integration solutions.
  • Adaptability and continuous learning: staying current with modern integration patterns, cloud services, and security best practices.
  • Stakeholder management and negotiation skills for aligning on backward-incompatible changes and phased rollouts.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, or related technical discipline; or equivalent practical experience.

Preferred Education:

  • Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, or Engineering.
  • Relevant certifications such as MuleSoft Certified Developer, MuleSoft Integration Architect, Dell Boomi Professional Developer, AWS Certified Developer/Architect, or API management certifications.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Computer Science
  • Software Engineering
  • Information Systems
  • Data Engineering / Data Science
  • Electrical or Systems Engineering

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 3–8 years of professional experience in integration, middleware, or API development roles (varying by seniority).

Preferred:

  • 5+ years designing and delivering enterprise integrations, demonstrable experience with at least one iPaaS or middleware platform, event-driven architecture, and cloud integration patterns.
  • Proven track record deploying production-grade APIs and integrations, handling incident management, and mentoring junior staff.
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