Airflow
DAG designschedulerpoolsparallelismsensors and deferrable operators
Data platforms · screened by AceMQ
Hire Airflow developers vetted by an Airflow practitioner
Conntal places Apache Airflow engineers who can explain why tasks are not running, not just write DAGs. Every candidate is screened by an AceMQ practitioner who supports production Airflow, using a real scheduling incident. Available on contract, contract-to-hire or direct hire, including Astronomer, MWAA and Cloud Composer estates.
Indicative rate: from $80/hr nearshore or offshore and $120/hr onshore. See what moves it.
Contract, contract-to-hire or direct · onshore, nearshore, offshore · reviewed 31 October 2026
- Screen owner
- Data and search platform lead · AceMQProduction support for Elasticsearch.
- Titles we place
- Airflow engineer · Airflow developer · Data orchestration engineer · Data engineer
- Platforms we screen on
- DAG designschedulerpoolsparallelismsensors and deferrable operators
Rates
What a contract Airflow engineer costs
Senior contract Airflow engineer rates start at $80/hr nearshore or offshore and $120/hr onshore. These are indicative from-rates, last reviewed 31 October 2026.
| Location model | From (USD per hour) | Where engineers are based |
|---|---|---|
| OnshoreHighest rate | $120/hr | US-based, on client time zones, cleared where the engagement requires it. |
| NearshoreOur default recommendation | $80/hr | Latin America and Canada, four hours or less of overlap loss, same working day. |
| OffshoreLowest rate | $80/hr | Europe, India and South East Asia. |
What moves the number
- Platform scarcity. The fewer engineers who have run Airflow in production, the higher the rate.
- Seniority. The figures are for senior engineers; staff and principal levels cost more.
- Clearance and residency. Cleared or on-site work narrows the pool and sits in the onshore column.
- Term. Length, hours and the engagement model change the rate; contract-to-hire and direct placement are priced differently.
Indicative from-rates for senior contract engineers, USD per hour. The final rate depends on platform scarcity, seniority, clearance and term.
The screen
How we vet Airflow engineers: the published screen
Every Airflow engineer is screened on the scenario below by the Data and search platform lead at AceMQ. The senior and mid answers are published so you can judge our bar before you engage us, and candidates know what they are walking into.
The screen · Airflow engineer
Conntal Vetting Standard
Scenario put to the candidate
After an Airflow upgrade, DAG runs are created on time but their tasks sit in the scheduled state and never start. What do you check?
Vetted by
Data and search platform lead · AceMQ
A senior answer contains
- Checks whether workers are consuming the executor's queue — with Celery, whether the broker and workers are healthy and listening to the right queue.
- Checks pools and their open slots, and the parallelism and per-DAG concurrency limits.
- Reads the scheduler logs rather than restarting components blind.
- Asks what changed in the upgrade — configuration keys, executor settings, provider versions — before assuming a bug.
Where a mid answer stops
- Clears and re-runs the tasks repeatedly.
- Restarts the scheduler and hopes.
- Raises parallelism without checking pools or workers.
What we screen on
Airflow skills we screen for
Airflow candidates are screened on airflow, executors and managed, among others, against the stack you actually run rather than a generic checklist.
Executors
CeleryExecutorKubernetesExecutorLocalExecutor
Managed
AstronomerAmazon MWAAGoogle Cloud Composer
Ecosystem
dbtSnowflakeSparkAirbyte
Titles this covers
Airflow job titles we place
We place 4 titles in this area, from Airflow engineer to Data engineer. They overlap and are used inconsistently between companies, so tell us the outcome you need and we will tell you which title actually fits it.
- Airflow engineer
- Airflow developer
- Data orchestration engineer
- Data engineer
The platforms, run in production by our network
Engagement
Ways to hire Airflow engineers
Platform work usually starts with a defined piece of change and becomes ongoing ownership, which is why most Airflow engineers engagements begin on contract. All three models are available, in any location model.
Contract
A vetted engineer embedded in your team for a defined term.
Hourly, billed against an approved SOW. Most common for migrations, upgrades and capacity surges where the work has an end date.
Contract staffingContract-to-hire
Work together first, convert when it is obviously working.
A defined conversion window and a pre-agreed fee, so the decision to hire is a business decision rather than a negotiation.
Contract-to-hire staffingDirect placement
A permanent hire, screened to the same standard.
One-time fee against first-year base. Used where the role is a long-term platform owner rather than project capacity.
Direct placement staffingNot a fit if
When to look elsewhere for Airflow engineers
We are the wrong choice if any of these describe your role, and we would rather say so on the first call.
- You only need a handful of DAGs written, with no scheduler operations.
- You want Airflow supported rather than staffed; AceMQ provides support directly.
- Your orchestrator is a vendor scheduler other than Airflow.
How it works
How hiring Airflow engineers through Conntal works
- 01
Scope
A practitioner scopes the role
An engineer who runs this technology reads your brief and tells you what is missing from it. Most briefs we receive ask for the wrong seniority or the wrong title. - 02
Screen
We screen, then shortlist
Sourcing is ours; the technical decision belongs to the vetting practitioner. You only see candidates who passed the scenario on this page. - 03
Start
Start, convert or replace
Contract, contract-to-hire or direct. If the fit is wrong we say so first and replace rather than defend the placement.
Screen owner
Who vets our Airflow engineers: Data and search platform lead, AceMQ
Production support for Elasticsearch, OpenSearch, MongoDB, PostgreSQL, Cassandra, Snowflake, Databricks, Spark, Flink, NiFi and Airflow estates under AceMQ's 24/7 support practice.
FAQ
Airflow engineers: what buyers ask
Something not covered here? Send the requirement and a practitioner answers it, not a sales queue.
How much does a contract Airflow engineer cost per hour?
Indicative senior contract from-rates are $80/hr nearshore or offshore and $120/hr onshore (USD, reviewed 31 October 2026). The final rate depends on platform scarcity, seniority, clearance and term. Contract-to-hire and direct placement are priced differently, and the delivery models page sets out how.
How fast can a Airflow engineer start?
We do not promise a start date before we have seen the brief. A practitioner reads it, usually within one business day, and tells you whether we can staff it. Timing after that depends on the stack, the seniority and the location model.
Do your Airflow engineers know managed Airflow?
Yes: Astronomer, Amazon MWAA and Google Cloud Composer. Managed hosting removes servers, not DAG design, pools or executor behaviour.
Can you staff an Airflow upgrade?
Yes. Major-version Airflow upgrades are a common bounded contract, and the screen above is built from one.
Who vets your Airflow engineers?
An AceMQ practitioner who supports production Airflow, using the scheduling scenario on this page.
Can we convert a contractor to full time, and what does it cost?
Yes. Contract-to-hire sets a conversion window and a pre-agreed fee at the start, so converting is a business decision rather than a negotiation. The fee is agreed per engagement; ask for it with your brief.
What if the placement does not work out?
If the fit is wrong we say so first and replace the engineer rather than defend the placement. Replacement terms are agreed per engagement, so ask for them with your brief.
Do you also deliver Airflow consulting or support?
Not through Conntal. We place individual engineers into your team on contract, contract-to-hire or direct hire. If you want a project delivered or the platform supported as a service, AceMQ does that directly at acemq.com.
Related
Related roles
Need Airflow delivered as a project or supported as a service instead of staffed? AceMQ does that directly.
Need Airflow engineers? Start with the brief.
Send the requirement and an engineer who runs this technology will tell you what is missing before we source anyone.