Senior Associate, Azure Data Engineer

PwC; Toronto; Hybrid; CAD 84,000 - 135,000; Full time

Job summary

A global consulting firm in Toronto is seeking an experienced Azure Data Engineer to design and maintain data platforms on Azure. This role involves creating scalable data pipelines, working with Azure services like Data Lake and Databricks, and collaborating with stakeholders to ensure data quality and governance. Ideal candidates will have strong experience with SQL, Python, and cloud solutions, along with a Bachelor's degree in a related field. This position supports a hybrid work environment and offers a competitive salary package.

Benefits

Competitive salary

Flexible work environment

Inclusive benefits

Qualifications

• Microsoft Azure Data Engineer Associate (DP-203) certification is required.
• 5-7 years of experience in data engineering roles.
• Experience with healthcare data and interoperability standards.

Responsibilities

• Architect and design robust data pipelines.
• Lead the design of data models in Azure Data Lake.
• Proactively troubleshoot and optimize data solutions.

Skills

Azure Data Factory

SQL

Python

PySpark

Data modeling

ETL/ELT processes

Data governance

Education

Bachelor’s degree in computer science

Tools

Azure Databricks

Azure Synapse Analytics

Job description

Job Description & Summary

At PwC, our people in infrastructure focus on designing and implementing robust, secure IT systems that support business operations. They enable the smooth functioning of networks, servers, and data centres to optimise performance and minimise downtime. In infrastructure engineering at PwC, you will focus on designing and implementing robust and scalable technology infrastructure solutions for clients. Your work will involve network architecture, server management, and cloud computing experience.

As an Azure Data Engineer, you will play a crucial role in designing, building, and maintaining our enterprise data platform on the Microsoft Azure cloud. Your primary responsibility will be developing scalable, reliable, and efficient data pipelines to ingest, transform, and serve data to business analysts, data scientists, and operational systems. This role demands a deep understanding of modern data architecture, a passion for automation, and hands‑on expertise with the Azure data stack.

Meaningful work you’ll be a part of

As a Senior Associate, Azure Data Engineer, you’ll work as part of a team of problem solvers, helping to solve business issues, deliver high‑quality client service and operational efficiency. Responsibilities include but are not limited to:

• Architect, design, and own the development of robust, end‑to‑end data pipelines for our production environment, utilizing Azure Data Factory, Azure Databricks, and Azure Synapse Analytics.
• Lead the design and implementation of advanced data models within our Azure Data Lake. Champion the Medallion Architecture (Bronze/Silver/Gold) and build complex business logic into scalable, efficient transformations using PySpark and Delta Lake.
• Develop ETL/ELT processes to ingest data from a wide variety of sources, including relational databases (SQL, Oracle), APIs and streaming data feeds.
• Implement data models, transformations, and cleansing routines to prepare data for analytics.
• Automate data workflows and implement CI/CD practices for data pipelines using Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions to ensure quality and rapid deployment.
• Monitor, troubleshoot, and optimise data solutions for performance, scalability, and cost‑effectiveness.
• Proactively identify and resolve performance bottlenecks in data pipelines. This includes hands‑on Spark job tuning, query optimisation, data partitioning strategies and implementing cost‑control measures across our Azure data services.
• Work closely with data analysts, data scientists and business stakeholders to understand their data requirements and deliver high‑quality data solutions.
• Mentor junior data engineers through code reviews, paired programming and technical guidance. Establish and document coding standards, best practices and reusable frameworks to elevate the entire team’s technical capabilities.
• Partner directly with data scientists, analysts and business leaders to translate complex business requirements into robust, scalable and reliable technical solutions.
• Ensure data quality, integrity and governance by implementing best practices, data validation checks and robust documentation.

Experiences and skills you’ll use to solve

• Microsoft Azure Data Engineer Associate (DP‑203) certification is required, or the ability to obtain it within the first 2 months.
• 5‑7 years of dedicated, hands‑on experience in a data engineering role, with a proven track record of delivering complex projects to production.
• Deep, hands‑on expertise and production experience with core Azure data services: Azure Data Factory (ADF), Azure Databricks and Azure Data Lake Storage (ADLS Gen2).
• Advanced proficiency in Azure Data Factory, including creating dynamic, metadata‑driven pipelines, managing complex control flows and triggers and configuring Self‑Hosted Integration Runtimes for hybrid data movement.
• Expert‑level proficiency in SQL and Python. You must have extensive, production‑level experience with PySpark for large‑scale, distributed data processing.
• Proven experience ingesting data from diverse and complex sources, including real‑time streaming data from Kafka or Azure Event Hubs, REST APIs and files from SFTP servers.
• Proven experience designing and implementing end‑to‑end data solutions on Azure, demonstrating a strong grasp of modern ELT patterns, data warehousing (star schema) and data lake architectures (e.g. Medallion).
• Deep understanding of data storage optimisation within ADLS Gen2, including file format selection (e.g. Delta, Parquet), partitioning strategies and data lifecycle management for cost and performance.
• Demonstrated ability to troubleshoot and solve complex, ambiguous data problems in a production environment, including performance tuning and root cause analysis.
• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, engineering, information technology or a related field.
• Significant hands‑on experience with Azure Synapse Analytics (dedicated and serverless SQL pools).
• Experience in the healthcare or life sciences domain, with a strong understanding of healthcare data standards and interoperability protocols such as HL7 v2.x and FHIR. This includes experience parsing, transforming and modelling complex clinical or claims data.
• Experience integrating with specialised or legacy data sources using protocols such as HTTP and MLLP for healthcare data feeds.
• Experience building and managing CI/CD pipelines for data engineering projects using Azure DevOps.
• Proficiency with Infrastructure as Code (Bicep preferred, Terraform is a plus).
• Strong understanding of Azure security best practices (managed identities, Azure Key Vault, private endpoints).
• This role does not require professional engineering licensure and is not classified as a formal engineering position under provincial regulatory definitions. While individuals with a P.Eng designation are welcome to apply, the responsibilities of this role do not involve the practice of professional engineering as defined by applicable legislation.
• PwC Canada is committed to cultivating an inclusive, hybrid work environment. Exact expectations for your team can be discussed with your interviewer.

Why you’ll love PwC

We’re inspiring and empowering our people to change the world. Powered by the latest technology, you’ll be a part of diverse teams helping public and private clients build trust and deliver sustained outcomes. This meaningful work, and our continuous development environment, will take your career to the next level. We reward your impact, and support your wellbeing, through a competitive compensation package, inclusive benefits and flexibility programmes that will help you thrive in work and life.

The salary range for this position is $84,700 - $134,700. The posted salary range represents the expected hiring range for PwC locations in major city centres. Given our national recruiting approach, ranges may vary for positions in other locations. At PwC Canada, base salary is determined by your skills, experience, qualifications and work location. In addition to base salary, eligible employees may have opportunities to participate in variable incentive‑pay programmes designed to reward individual and firm‑wide achievements. We are committed to offering competitive compensation and adhere to all relevant pay‑transparency legislation. During the hiring process, our Talent Acquisition team will provide details about our comprehensive total rewards package.

PwC Canada acknowledges that we work and live across Turtle Island, on the land that is now known as Canada, which are the lands of the ancestral, treaty and unceded territories of the First Nations, Métis and Inuit Peoples. We recognise the systemic racism, colonialism and oppression that Indigenous Peoples have experienced and still go through, and we commit to allyship and solidarity.