Data Engineer - Contractor

Yaqeen Institute; Malaysia; On-site; MYR 140,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

Yaqeen Institute seeks a seasoned Data Engineer to join our Engineering team for a 6-month contractor role. You will design, build, and operate the data platform powering analytics, research, and product decisions across the organization.

This hands-on position requires data modeling, resilient pipelines, and managing cloud infrastructure. You will own ingestion through to the warehouse, set data standards, and collaborate with analytics, product, and platform teams to improve reliability,

Qualifications

• Experience working with financial and payment data.
• Exposure to payment APIs and automated reconciliation.
• Proficient in SQL and Python for data pipelines.

Responsibilities

• Model and structure data for analytics and operational use, owning the transformation layer.
• Design data models that are clear, well documented, and easy for downstream teams to build on.
• Define and enforce data contracts and schema standards with upstream and downstream teams.
• Design and build scalable batch and streaming pipelines across ETL, ELT, and CDC patterns.
• Orchestrate and schedule workflows with Airflow, Dagster, or Prefect.
• Ensure pipelines are observable, recoverable, and instrumented with data quality checks.

Skills

Advanced SQL

Advanced Python

Data modeling

Data governance

Data quality checks

ETL/ELT development

Cloud concepts

Tools

Airflow

Dagster

Prefect

dbt

Snowflake

BigQuery

Databricks

Redshift

Terraform

Kubernetes

Job description

Yaqeen is a nonprofit on a mission to pioneer Islamic research in creative, cutting-edge formats tailored to meet people where they are. We work to dismantle doubts through well-researched truths, nurture conviction by strengthening belief with practical, spiritual guidance, and inspire contribution by reviving our tradition of faithful changemakers, insha’Allah. We’re seeking like-minded professionals who embody Islamic values including sincerity, excellence, and compassion, and want to make a difference in the faith of people worldwide.

Role Overview

We are seeking a seasoned Data Engineer to join our Engineering team for 6 months as a contractor. You will design, build, and operate the data platform that powers analytics, research, and product decisions across the organization. This is a hands‑on role for someone who is equally comfortable modeling complex datasets, engineering resilient pipelines, and managing the underlying cloud infrastructure. You will own systems from ingestion and transformation through to the warehouse layer, and you will set the standards that keep our data trustworthy. Beyond building, you will partner closely with analytics, product, and platform teams to define how data moves through the organization and to raise the bar for reliability, quality, and governance.

Key Responsibilities

• Model and structure data for analytical and operational use, owning the transformation layer and its tooling, including dbt
• Design data models that are clear, well documented, and easy for downstream teams to build on
• Define and enforce data contracts and schema standards in collaboration with upstream and downstream engineering teams
• Design and build scalable batch and streaming data pipelines across ETL, ELT, and change data capture patterns
• Orchestrate and schedule workflows using tools such as Airflow, Dagster, or Prefect
• Ensure pipelines are observable, recoverable, and well instrumented, with monitoring and data quality checks that catch issues before they reach consumers

Data Warehousing & Infrastructure

• Architect and optimize our modern data warehouse, including storage layer design, table formats, and compute and query engine integration
• Provision and maintain cloud infrastructure using infrastructure as code, and manage deployment and container orchestration
• Implement privacy, anonymization, and governance controls to keep sensitive data protected and compliant
• Participate in planning and requirements discussions to raise data quality and modeling concerns before development starts
• Translate requirements from analysts, researchers, and product engineers into robust data models and reliable delivery
• Keep engineering and the wider organization connected through transparent, timely communication

Qualifications

• Experience in working with financial and payment data
• Exposure to payment APIs and automated reconciliation
• Advanced SQL, including performance tuning and complex analytical query design
• Advanced Python for pipeline development, tooling, and automation
• Familiarity and hands‑on experience with AWS, Azure, GCP, AliCloud, or an equivalent
• Data warehousing: expert knowledge of one modern platform (Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks, or Redshift), including architecture, storage layer design, table formats, and compute and query engine integration
• Experience developing and orchestrating data pipelines across ETL, ELT, CDC, and stream processing
• Data modeling and tooling expertise, including dbt
• Experience with modern orchestration tools like Airflow, Dagster, or Prefect
• Working knowledge of cloud infrastructure tooling, including Terraform, Helm, and Kubernetes or equivalent
• Experience defining and enforcing data contracts or schema standards in collaborative engineering environments
• Exposure to privacy and anonymization implementations
• Background in a SaaS, startup, or product‑led environment is a plus
• Familiarity with data observability and lineage tooling such as Sentry or Datadog is a plus

Assignment

• Technical assessment assigned after candidate screening.

Yaqeen Institute embraces a philosophy that values and promotes diversity. Our goal is to attract, develop, retain, and advance a talented and diverse workforce within a culture where all employees are empowered to reach their fullest potential.

Please note that all career opportunities at Yaqeen Institute are subject to a three-month probationary period, during which we assess performance, alignment with our values, and mutual fit to ensure long‑term success in the role.