Senior Data Engineer

Synergia Ltd; Auckland; Hybrid; NZD 100,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Synergia Ltd in Auckland is seeking a Data Engineer to strengthen our analytics backbone, designing, building, and maintaining ETL/ELT pipelines across diverse client sources and the data warehouse. You will scope pipelines from ambiguous starting points, communicate trade-offs to non-technical stakeholders, and balance multiple projects while staying close to client work.

Office-based with some work-from-home days, we value collaboration and practical problem-solving in a multidisciplinary,

Qualifications

• Degree in data science, computer science, statistics, or related field.
• 3+ years of relevant data engineering experience.
• Strong SQL skills and ETL/ELT pipeline experience.
• Experience with cloud data platforms and data warehousing.
• Python and/or R for data processing; Git version control.
• Ability to explain technical decisions to non-technical stakeholders.
• Prior consulting or client-facing experience.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain ETL/ELT pipelines from diverse sources into the data warehouse.
• Automate data quality checks and documentation.
• Collaborate with client data managers to resolve data issues.
• Support data prep for analysis and reporting.
• Contribute to scoping documents and client proposals.
• Manage multiple projects across clients and data maturities.

Skills

SQL

ETL/ELT pipelines

Cloud data infrastructure

Python or R

Polars / pandas / tidyverse

Git

Explaining decisions to non-technical

Consulting / client-facing

Data governance basics

Education

Degree in data science / CS / stats

Tools

AWS

Snowflake

Terraform

Airflow

Job description

Jora New Zealand will close on 9th September 2026. Thank you for being with us, we are cheering you on as you continue your career journey.

Synergia is a consulting firm specialising in data analytics, evaluation, service design, and social investment. For more than 25 years, we've supported organisations across New Zealand | Aotearoa to make informed, evidence-based decisions that improve health, social, education, and justice outcomes.

We're a close-knit, multidisciplinary team of data scientists, evaluators, service designers, and clinicians. We value collaboration, intellectual curiosity, and a commitment to meaningful work. Our office is based in central Auckland next to the Karangahape CRL station.

About the role

We're looking for a Data Engineer to strengthen the technical backbone of our analytics offering: building, automating, and maintaining the data pipelines that feed our client work. You'll sit at the intersection of engineering and consulting, developing ETL/ELT processes across our data infrastructure while staying close enough to client projects to understand what the data actually needs to do.

Requirements rarely arrive fully specified. Client data sources are often messy or undocumented, and priorities shift as projects evolve; you'll need to scope pipelines from ambiguous starting points, communicate trade-offs to non-technical stakeholders, and move between several projects at different stages of maturity.

Work is predominantly office-based, reflecting our commitment to in-person collaboration, with work-from-home days also available.

Job tasks and responsibilities

Design, build, and maintain ETL/ELT pipelines that validate, standardise, and integrate data from diverse client sources into our data warehouse.

Automate data quality checks and documentation so pipelines stay reproducible and maintainable by others.

Work with client data managers to resolve data issues, understand system constraints, and translate business requirements into technical solutions.

Support the wider quantitative analysis cycle when required: cleaning, structuring, and preparing data for analysis and reporting.

Contribute technical input to client-facing conversations, scoping documents, and funding or sales proposals.

Manage your own workload across multiple concurrent projects, each with a different client, data maturity, and level of ambiguity.

Skills and experience

The below are not all mandatory; we're as interested in your ability to learn and adapt as your existing toolkit.

Degree in data science, computer science, statistics, or a related quantitative field, with around three or more years of relevant experience.

Strong SQL skills; practical experience building and maintaining ETL/ELT pipelines.

Experience with modern cloud-based data infrastructure and data warehousing.

Proficiency in Python and/or R for data processing; familiarity with Polars, pandas or the tidyverse is a plus.

Knowledge of version control (Git).

Confidence explaining technical decisions to non-technical audiences, including clients.

Prior consulting or client-facing experience

A track record of managing shifting priorities and incomplete specifications without losing momentum.

Our preferred candidate may also have:

Knowledge of AWS and Snowflake.

Experience with health, social or government sector data, where privacy and data governance carry particular weight

Exposure to infrastructure-as-code tools (e.g. Terraform) or workflow orchestration.

Personal attributes or interests

Self-motivated and comfortable operating with a degree of ambiguity.

A pragmatic problem-solver: someone who'll flag a data issue and propose a fix.

Strong communicator, able to build trust with clients and colleagues alike.

Genuine interest in the health and social sectors.

Alignment with, and commitment to, Synergia's values.

Additional information

You must have full rights to work in New Zealand.

Referees will be requested prior to appointment.

Police vetting will be required.