Manager – Data & Analytics (Core Wallet & Banking Platform Delivery)

AXIAN Group; Islamabad; On-site; PKR 3,200,000 - 6,400,000; Full time

Job summary

AXIAN Group is seeking a senior Data Architect/Engineer to own end-to-end data for the Core Wallet and Core Banking Transformation program, including customer master, KYC, balances, transactions, and regulatory reporting.

You will design current and target state data architectures across OPCOs, plan migrations, enforce data protection standards, and stand up analytics and BI on the new platform, with handover to BAU Data teams.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Data Engineering, Statistics, Mathematics, or related field.
• Experience leading data architecture and migration projects in fintech or digital banking is preferred.
• Strong SQL, data modelling, and governance capabilities required.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end data agenda for Core Wallet and Banking Transformation program including master data, KYC, balances, history, and regulatory data.
• Design current and target state data architectures across OPCOs and D&F group level with data lineage.
• Plan and lead data migrations for greenfield deployments, upgrades, and supplier swaps with minimal customer impact.
• Define data protection, retention, backup, DR standards and ensure regulatory compliance across markets.
• Lead analytics and reporting stack including regulatory reports, dashboards, reconciliation and analytics inputs; hand over to BAU teams.

Skills

SQL

ETL/ELT

Cloud (AWS/Azure)

Data governance

BI dashboards

Data modelling

Data quality

Education

Bachelor's or Master's in Computer Science / Information Systems

Tools

Informatica

Talend

dbt

Airflow

Power BI

Tableau

Job description

PURPOSE OF THE ROLE

1. Own the end-to-end data agenda for the Core Wallet and Core Banking Transformation program: customer master, KYC, wallet balances, transaction history, agent and merchant data, GL and reconciliation data, regulatory reporting data, and supporting reference data.

2. Create, maintain, and evolve the current-state and target-state data architectures for each OPCO and at D&F group level — including conceptual, logical, and physical data models, data flows, and data lineage across source platforms the new core wallet platform

3. Plan and lead all data migration activities for greenfield deployments, legacy upgrades, and supplier swaps — covering source profiling, mapping, transformation, cleansing, reconciliation, cutover, and post-migration validation, with zero or near-zero customer impact.

4. Define and enforce data protection, retention, backup, and disaster recovery standards for in-flight and target data; ensure regulatory compliance (data protection, data residency, AML/KYC, central bank reporting) across all African markets in scope.

5. Lead implementation of analytics and reporting layer on the new platform — including regulatory reports, operational dashboards, reconciliation reporting, and analytics data inputs — with clean transition ownership to BAU Data teams.

Data architecture (current & target state)

• Own and maintain the current-state data architecture across legacy wallet and banking platforms including data models, data flows, interfaces, and lineage.
• Design and maintain the target-state data architecture on selected core wallet platform and the surrounding ecosystem (LMS, payment gateways, card management, agent management, KYC/AML, GL, reporting).
• Produce and govern conceptual, logical, and physical data models; integration data contracts; data definitions; and authoritative source-of-truth mappings.
• Define and enforce data architecture standards, naming conventions, master and reference data approach, and reuse patterns across OPCOs.
• Maintain transition architectures showing how data moves from current to target state across each program phase.
• Partner with the Solutions Architect on overall system architecture alignment; act as the design authority for the data domain.

Data migration planning & execution

• Define the end-to-end data migration strategy for each deployment: profiling, extraction, mapping, transformation, cleansing, load, reconciliation, parallel run, cutover, and rollback.
• Plan migration of customer master, KYC and identity data, wallet balances and ledgers, transaction history, agent and merchant hierarchies, fees and commissions, GL mappings, and regulatory reporting data.
• Lead source-system data profiling and gap analysis; quantify data quality issues and define remediation plans pre-migration.
• Build and govern mapping documents between source platforms and landing core platform at entity level; manage exceptions and edge cases.
• Design and orchestrate ETL/ELT pipelines and migration tooling; oversee rehearsals, dry runs, and mock cutovers.
• Define and execute reconciliation across balances, ledgers, agent float, and in-flight transactions — both pre-cutover (parallel run) and post-cutover (sign-off).
• Coordinate with the Implementation Manager, Technical Project Manager, and core platform migration teams on cutover sequencing and rollback readiness.

Data quality, governance & integrity

• Establish data quality framework, KPIs, and tooling — completeness, accuracy, consistency, timeliness, uniqueness, and validity — across migration and target platforms.
• Define data ownership, stewardship, and accountability across D&F and OPCOs; embed data governance into the program operating model.
• Manage master data and reference data (customer, agent, product, fees, GL) to prevent fragmentation across OPCOs.
• Track data quality through migration; reject or remediate non-conforming data; report data health to program governance.
• Maintain a data dictionary, business glossary, and data lineage repository for the program.

Data protection, backup, DR & resilience

• Define and enforce data protection standards: encryption at rest and in transit, key management, masking and tokenization, secure handling of PII and financial data.
• Own backup, retention, and archival strategy for in-flight migration data and target-platform data; ensure auditable, restorable backups across all environments.
• Define disaster recovery (DR) for data: RPO/RTO targets, replication topology, failover and failback procedures, DR rehearsals, and evidence for audit.
• Ensure compliance with country-level data protection regimes across Africa (data residency, cross-border transfer, breach notification) and with central bank, GSMA, AML/CFT, and PCI DSS requirements where applicable.
• Partner with Security on threat modeling, access controls, and audit logging for data assets.
• Validate that business continuity scenarios (platform outage, data corruption, regional failure) are tested and survivable.

Analytics, reporting & BI on the new platform

• Stand up the analytics and reporting stack on core platform: regulatory reports, operational dashboards, reconciliation outputs, transaction monitoring feeds, and inputs to customer and business analytics.
• Define data marts / warehouse extensions and event streams that surface wallet and banking data to downstream consumers (Risk, Finance, Marketing, Product, BU Operations).
• Ensure regulatory and central-bank reporting on the new platform is accurate, timely, and audit-ready from day one.
• Configure dashboards and KPIs for transaction monitoring, AML/CFT, reconciliation breaks, and operational performance.
• Hand over BI / analytics tooling and runbooks cleanly to BAU Data and Operations teams.

Program governance, stakeholders & handover

• Provide structured, evidence-based reporting on the data workstream to the Programme Director and Steering Committee — progress, data quality, migration readiness, risks, and decisions required.
• Manage core platform data migration teams and third-party data vendors against SOW deliverables, SLAs, and quality gates.
• Coordinate with Solutions Architect (system architecture), Implementation Manager (platform delivery), Technical Project Manager (workstream execution), and OPCO Data / Tech teams.
• Engage Risk, Compliance, Audit, and regulators where data, reporting, or migration approvals are required.
• Run hyper-care for the data layer post go-live; close out with a documented handover to BAU Data and Operations teams (architecture, models, pipelines, runbooks, DR procedures, dashboards).

Any additional or related activities requested by Management and/or the supervisor within the holder's competence and expertise.

LEVEL OF EDUCATION:

Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Data Engineering, Statistics, Mathematics, or related field. Certifications in data architecture (CDMP / TOGAF data architecture), cloud data (AWS / Azure data certifications), or project management (PMP, PRINCE2, SAFe) are strongly preferred.

LEVEL OF EXPERIENCE:

• Minimum 8 years in data engineering, data architecture, or data delivery roles, with at least 3 years in fintech, mobile money, digital banking, or telecom.
• Demonstrable hands‑on experience owning data architecture (current and target state) across enterprise‑grade platforms, including conceptual, logical, and physical data modelling.
• Proven track record leading data migration as workstream lead on at least one large‑scale platform deployment or swap — ideally a core wallet or core banking platform
• Strong experience designing and operating data quality, master / reference data, and data governance frameworks at scale.
• Hands‑on experience defining backup, retention, archival, and disaster recovery for financial data, including evidence‑of‑recovery and audit readiness.
• Experience standing up analytics, BI, and regulatory reporting on a new core platform and handing it over to BAU teams.
• Experience working across African markets, ideally multi‑country, with exposure to local data protection and reporting regulations.

TECHNICAL SKILLS:

• Strong SQL; comfortable with relational and dimensional modelling and with high‑volume transactional data.
• Hands‑on experience with ETL / ELT tooling (Informatica, Talend, dbt, Airflow, or equivalent) and pipeline orchestration.
• Working knowledge of cloud data platforms (AWS / Azure) — storage, warehousing, streaming, and data security primitives.
• Familiarity with data quality and profiling tooling, data catalogs, and lineage tooling.
• Working knowledge of data protection and privacy techniques: encryption, masking, tokenization, access control, audit logging.
• BI tooling (Power BI / Tableau / Qlik) for dashboards, reconciliation reports, and operational analytics.

REGULATORY & COMPLIANCE KNOWLEDGE:

• Working understanding of African data protection regimes (data residency, cross‑border transfer, breach notification) and of financial/telecom regulations relevant to mobile money and digital banking (AML/KYC, central bank reporting, GSMA Mobile Money, PCI DSS).
• Experience securing data‑related approvals from regulators and supporting external and internal audit on data assets.

INTERPERSONAL SKILLS REQUIRED:

• Strong communicator; able to explain data architecture and migration trade‑offs to engineers, executives, regulators, and vendors.
• Disciplined and detail‑oriented under pressure; relentless on data quality and reconciliation.
• Pragmatic problem‑solver; able to choose the simplest solution that protects integrity.
• Comfortable holding third‑party data teams to account against SOWs and SLAs.
• Comfortable working with diverse, multicultural, multilingual teams across Africa.