Forward Deployed Data Specialist

Equiti Group; Abu Dhabi; On-site; AED 360,000 - 600,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary package

Performance-based bonus

Medical insurance for you and family

Smart working options

Employee wellness initiatives

Company lunch in the office

Regular company events

Job summary

Equiti Group in Abu Dhabi seeks a Forward Deployed Data Specialist to drive data products across CFD, cash equities, and wealth lines. You will translate trading and brokerage needs into data requirements, and lead end-to-end data delivery from ingestion to analytics.

The role requires hands-on Azure data stack work, Power BI modelling, and strong collaboration with Business, Product, and Data teams. This is a hands-on leadership position in a dynamic fintech environment.

Qualifications

• Must have hands-on experience translating business needs into data requirements.
• Experience with data modelling, data contracts, and analytics deliverables.
• Strong communication with business and technical stakeholders.
• Experience working in fintech or brokerage data domains is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Act as dedicated data lead for a specific business line, building deep functional knowledge.
• Serve as primary conduit between Business, Product, Data Engineering, and Data Analytics teams.
• Capture data requirements from stakeholders and translate into BRDs, user stories, and data contracts.
• Own end-to-end delivery from data ingestion to analytics consumption.
• Design target data model and pipeline architecture; work with engineers to implement.
• Review data models and dashboards for quality and performance.
• Maintain a live backlog and roadmap for data requirements.
• Represent the business line in data platform forums.
• Ensure designs meet governance, security, and regulatory needs.

Skills

Power BI data modelling

SQL

Python/PySpark

Dimensional modelling

Medallion architecture

Data governance

Stakeholder communication

Delivery leadership

Forecasting & analytics

BRDs & user stories

Tools

Azure Data Lake Storage

Azure Data Factory

Azure Event Hubs

Azure Databricks

Git

CI/CD for data pipelines

Job description

Equiti is a pioneering fintech firm and world-class provider of multi-asset fintech products - from liquidity solutions to in-house tech hubs to online trading platforms. With over 400 global specialists in 9 languages, Equiti provides clients with access to individual, professional, and institutional brokerage services in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

At Equiti, we believe that financial opportunities can unlock potential for everyone, everywhere. We’re on a mission to deliver accessible online trading products around the world through education and accessibility.

Think finance is stuffy? Think again.

At Equiti, we’re building fintech with a purpose: making wealth tools accessible to everyone. As we continue to grow, we’re seeking talented individuals who thrive in innovative environments. , and we are on the lookout for talented individuals who can perform and excel in a dynamic and innovative working environment. Our Data department would like to welcome a detail-oriented

Forward Deployed Data Specialist in our office in Abu Dhabi

The Forward Deployed Data Lead acts as the single point of accountability and conduit between the Business, Product, Data Engineering, and Data Analytics functions for a dedicated business line (e.g. CFDs, Cash Equities, Wealth). Operating at the intersection of business context and technical delivery, the role translates trading, wealth, and brokerage business needs into well-formed data requirements, and then drives their end-to-end delivery as data products — spanning data engineering, modelling, and analytics — by orchestrating the extended data engineering and analytics team. The Forward Deployed Data Lead is expected to be a hands-on technologist as well as a trusted business partner, capable of sitting in a requirements conversation.

Responsibilities

Business & Requirements Partnership

• Act as the dedicated data lead for a specific business line (CFD, Cash Equities, Wealth, or similar), building deep functional knowledge of that line's products, trade lifecycle, client journeys, and regulatory/reporting needs.
• Serve as the primary conduit between Business, Product, Data Engineering, and Data Analytics teams — ensuring no requirement is lost in translation between commercial intent and technical build.
• Proactively engage business stakeholders (trading desks, RMs, product managers, risk/compliance where relevant) to capture new and evolving data requirements as they arise.
• Formalize requirements into clear, structured artifacts (business requirement documents, user stories, data contracts, source-to-target mappings) that both engineering and analytics teams can execute against.
• Prioritize and sequence requirements in partnership with Product and Business, balancing quick wins against long-term data platform integrity.

Delivery Ownership (Engineering + Analytics)

• Own end-to-end delivery of formalized requirements — from data source identification and ingestion, through modelling and transformation, to analytics consumption (dashboards, self-serve datasets, AI-ready data marts).
• Design the target data model and pipeline architecture and work hands-on with data engineers to build/validate ingestion (batch and streaming) and transformation logic.
• Partner with data analysts to design analytics use cases, metrics definitions, and semantic layers that are accurate, reusable, and aligned to business language.
• Review code, data models, and dashboards produced by the extended team to ensure quality, performance, and consistency with platform standards.
• Manage delivery timelines, risks, and dependencies for the business line's data roadmap, escalating proactively where needed.
• Coordinate daily with the Head of Data Platform and Head of Data Analytics on design decisions, delivery status, and resourcing for the business line.
• Ensure designs align with the firm's broader data architecture, governance standards, data quality frameworks, and security/compliance requirements (critical in a regulated brokerage environment).
• Maintain a live backlog and roadmap for the business line's data requirements, visible to both business and data leadership.
• Represent the business line in data platform forums, ensuring the line's priorities are reflected in broader platform planning.

Ad-hoc & Business-as-Usual Support

• Remain available to respond to ad-hoc business requests — urgent data pulls, one-off analyses, regulatory or client queries, incident troubleshooting — for the assigned business line(s).
• Triage ad-hoc asks against the planned roadmap, deciding what can be absorbed by the extended team versus handled directly.
• Act as an escalation point when data issues (quality, latency, discrepancies) impact business operations or reporting for the line.

Hands-on Technical Execution

• Design and, where needed, personally build data pipelines and models on the Azure data stack (Data Lake, Data Factory, Event Hubs, Databricks).
• Build and review Power BI datasets, semantic models, and reports/dashboards, ensuring performance, row-level security, and a single source of truth for business metrics.
• Set data modelling standards (dimensional modelling, medallion architecture, naming conventions) for the business line and ensure the extended team adheres to them.

Experience Requirements

Technical

• Strong hands-on experience with the Azure data ecosystem: Azure Data Lake Storage, Azure Data Factory, Azure Event Hubs, and Azure Databricks (Spark/PySpark, Delta Lake, notebooks, job orchestration).
• Proven experience in data engineering design and modelling — dimensional modelling, medallion/lakehouse architecture, batch and streaming pipeline design, data quality and lineage practices.
• Strong hands-on experience with Power BI — data modelling (star schemas), DAX, report/dashboard design, workspace and security (RLS) management, and performance tuning.
• Working knowledge of SQL and at least one programming language commonly used in data engineering (Python/PySpark preferred).
• Familiarity with CI/CD for data pipelines, version control (Git), and basic DevOps practices for data platforms is a strong plus.

Analytics & Business Use-Case Design

• Good grounding in building analytics use cases — from defining business metrics and KPIs to designing self-serve reporting and analytical marts.
• Ability to translate ambiguous business asks into well-scoped, testable analytics deliverables.
• Exposure to advanced analytics concepts (forecasting, segmentation, risk/exposure analytics) is an advantage, particularly for CFD/trading-related lines.

Domain / Brokerage Industry Knowledge (preferred)

• Understanding of brokerage business lines such as CFDs, Cash Equities, and Wealth/Investment Management — trade lifecycle, order/execution data, positions and P&L, client onboarding and KYC, portfolio and holdings data.
• Awareness of relevant regulatory and reporting considerations in brokerage/capital markets (e.g. trade/transaction reporting, client reporting, audit trails) and their implications for data design.
• Prior experience working in or with fintech, brokerage, asset management, or capital markets data teams is highly valued.

Stakeholder & Delivery Skills

• Strong stakeholder management and communication skills — comfortable presenting to both business heads and technical leadership.
• Experience formalizing requirements (BRDs, user stories, data contracts) and running delivery in an agile or hybrid delivery model.
• Demonstrated ability to operate autonomously as an embedded “forward deployed” resource, balancing business proximity with technical rigor.
• Typically 7–12+ years of experience spanning data engineering and/or analytics roles, with at least a few years in a lead, tech lead, or forward-deployed/embedded capacity.

Each of our offices has its special perks; be it ‘no ties’, free lunches, charity events, or a hybrid work policy – but whenever you walk into an Equiti office, you’re sure to see a friendly face. We encourage international collaborations and always keep our eyes open to how we can do more.

The benefits you can expect at your Equiti workplace include:

• Competitive salary package
• Performance-based bonus
• Medical insurance coverage for employees and family members
• Smart working options
• Employee wellness initiatives
• Company lunch in the office
• Regular company events

With energy, drive, and imagination, there’s no limit to where your career can go at Equiti. With a diverse workforce and geographical spread of offices, we strongly support career development initiatives as well as provide a range of opportunities for professional and life experiences.

Equiti is an equal opportunity employer.

“Equiti” refers to a group of companies consisting of seven regulated financial services companies licensed to operate in the respective jurisdictions of their incorporation, in addition to our tech and marketing hubs. Equiti has presence in Africa, Europe, and the Middle East.