Job Title

Data Engineer / Data Architect

South Africa, Gauteng
Back to jobs
Market Related
Area: South Africa, Gauteng
Sector: VAS
Posted: 22 January 2026

Job Details

You will play a pivotal role in enabling data-driven decision-making, supporting analytics and AI initiatives, and ensuring our data systems meet the highest standards of reliability, security, and compliance.

This role combines hands-on engineering with architectural leadership, working closely with product, analytics, and compliance teams to deliver scalable, secure, and future-proof data solutions.

You will:
Design and maintain scalable, secure, high-performance data architectures
Build robust ETL/ELT pipelines for batch and streaming data
Enable analytics, BI, and AI workloads through reliable data platforms
Ensure regulatory compliance and data governance for sensitive financial data

Core Technical Competencies

  • Data Architecture & Modelling – Scalable, resilient designs for transactional and analytical workloads
  • Data Engineering & Pipelines – Reliable batch and streaming pipelines with strong data quality
  • Cloud & Platform Engineering – Proficient in AWS, GCP, or Azure with IaC and CI/CD
  • Programming & Querying – Advanced SQL and Python/Scala/Java expertise
  • Data Security & Governance – Encryption, access control, compliance readiness

Preferred Qualifications

  • Experience in fintech, banking, payments, or financial services
  • Familiarity with regulatory frameworks (PCI DSS, SOC 2, GDPR)
  • Experience supporting analytics, BI, and machine learning workloads
  • Knowledge of event-driven and real-time data architectures
  • Prior experience leading architectural decisions or data platform migrations

Minimum Requirements

5+ years of experience in data engineering, data architecture, or related roles
Strong proficiency in SQL and data modelling (dimensional and/or normalized)
Experience building data pipelines using tools such as Airflow, dbt, Spark, or similar
Strong programming skills in Python, Scala, or Java
Hands-on experience with cloud data services (BigQuery, Redshift, Snowflake, Databricks)
Experience with both batch and streaming data systems (Kafka, Kinesis, Pub/Sub)
Solid understanding of data security, privacy, and governance principles

Responsibilities

Data Architecture & Design

  • Design and maintain scalable, secure, and high-performance data architectures
  • Define data models, schemas, and standards across transactional and analytical systems
  • Architect data lakes, data warehouses, and real-time data pipelines
  • Ensure alignment with fintech regulatory and compliance requirements

Data Engineering

  • Build and maintain ETL/ELT pipelines for batch and streaming data
  • Integrate data from internal systems, third-party APIs, and financial data providers
  • Optimize data processing for performance, reliability, and cost efficiency
  • Ensure data quality, consistency, and availability

Cloud & Infrastructure

  • Develop and manage cloud-based data platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure)
  • Implement infrastructure-as-code and CI/CD for data pipelines
  • Monitor and troubleshoot data systems in production

Security & Governance

  • Implement data security, access controls, encryption, and monitoring
  • Support data governance, lineage, and metadata management
  • Collaborate with compliance and risk teams on audits and regulatory needs

Collaboration & Leadership

  • Work closely with product managers, analysts, and ML engineers
  • Provide technical guidance and best practices for data usage
  • Document architectures, workflows, and standards
  • Mentor junior data engineers (if applicable)