Data Engineer

Guardrisk; Johannesburg; On-site; ZAR 750,000 - 1,050,000; Full time

Job summary

Guardrisk is a leading cell captive insurer in South Africa, seeking a Data Engineer – Data Acquisition to build and operate external data ingestion pipelines. You will work hands-on with data from cells, binder holders, system providers, administrators, and partners to ensure complete, accurate, timely data for risk, underwriting and regulatory reporting.

Collaborating with the Data Architect, Data Analysts and Data Stewards, you will design validation rules, data contracts, and remediation

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in CS/IS/Engineering or related field.
• 5+ years’ data engineering experience with external data ingestion.
• Experience with file- and API-based data exchange.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain data ingestion pipelines for external data sources.
• Engage with external providers to define data requirements and formats.
• Ensure data conforms to schemas, validation, and delivery schedules.
• Drive remediation of data quality issues and align with architecture.

Skills

Data ingestion

Data integration

APIs

Data validation

Bordereaux data

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science / Information Systems / Engineering

Job description

Guardrisk is the undisputed market leader in cell captive insurance and risk solutions. We are renowned for our innovative approach to cell captive structures and other alternative risk transfer solutions for our clients. Guardrisk offers clients custom designed cover and is registered in South Africa as an insurer for all statutory classes of non-life and life insurance business.

Role Purpose

The Data Engineer – Data Acquisition at Guardrisk is a hands‐on integration and data enablement role responsible for ensuring that external data providers (cells, binder holders, system providers, administrators, and partners) deliver complete, accurate, timely, and technically compliant data that Guardrisk can reliably ingest and process.

The role exists to design, implement, and operationalise external data ingestion pipelines, with a primary focus on premium bordereaux, and secondary responsibility for master and transactional data exchanged with third parties.

This role works directly with external parties, engaging them on data structures, formats, validation rules, delivery mechanisms, and remediation of issues. It partners closely with the Data Architect (to align to target architecture and data models), Data Analysts (to ensure analytical usability), and Data Stewards (to ensure operational data quality once data is live).

The role is delivery‑oriented and externally facing, bridging business requirements, technical standards, and partner capabilities to ensure Guardrisk can confidently process and rely on third‑party data.

Duties and Responsibilities

External Data Acquisition & Integration (Primary Accountability)

• Design, build, and maintain data ingestion pipelines for external data sources, with a primary focus on:
• Policy and transactional feeds
• Supporting master data where required
• Implement ingestion patterns aligned to Guardrisk’s data architecture (batch, file-based, API, secure transfer).
• Ensure external data conforms to agreed:
• Schemas
• Validation and reconciliation rules
• Delivery frequency and cut‑offs
• Enable scalable and repeatable onboarding of new external data providers

External Partner Engagement & Enablement

• Act as the technical data interface between Guardrisk and external providers.
• Engage directly with:
• Cells
• Administrators
• System providers
• Explaining Guardrisk data requirements and standards
• Assisting with mapping, formatting, and transformation logic
• Advising on delivery mechanisms and error handling
• Drive remediation where partner data does not meet required standards
• Travel to partner and provide onsite support
• Implement robust ingestion and validation of premium bordereaux, including:
• Structural validation
• Completeness checks
• Reconciliation against expected volumes and values
• Ensure BDX data is fit for:
• Finance and premium recognition
• Underwriting performance analysis
• Regulatory and internal reporting
• Work with Data Analysts and Finance to resolve discrepancies early in the pipeline

Data Quality & Issue Resolution (Engineering Perspective)

• Build and Support automated validation and control checks into ingestion pipelines.
• Support the Data Validator and the rollout in the external data provider space.
• Partner with Data Stewards when operational data quality issues are detected.
• Perform root cause analysis across:
• Source systems
• Ingestion and transformation logic
• Implement durable fixes rather than manual workarounds

Alignment with Data Architecture & Analytics

• Work closely with the Data Architect to ensure:
• External data aligns to Guardrisk canonical models
• Integration patterns support the target architecture
• Collaborate with Data Analysts to ensure:
• External data is usable for analytical and reporting purposes
• Key business metrics can be reliably derived
• Ensure ingestion design balances technical correctness and business usability

Documentation & Data Contracts

• Maintain practical technical documentation for external data integrations, including:
• Mapping specifications
• Known constraints or caveats
• Support the definition and enforcement of data contracts with external providers.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or related field.
• Strong emphasis on practical data engineering experience over theoretical qualifications.

Experience

• 5+ years’ experience as a data engineer, with demonstrable focus on:
• External data ingestion and integration
• File- and API-based data exchange
• Data validation and reconciliation
• Strong experience working with:
• Bordereaux or high‑volume transactional data
• Financial or insurance datasets
• Proven experience engaging directly with external data providers.
• Insurance domain experience strongly preferred, especially where data impacts:
• Finance
• Reporting and regulatory submissions

Soft Skills

• Strong analytical and problem‑solving ability, with a focus on diagnosing data designs, patterns and solutions under operational pressure
• High attention to detail, particularly when working with data used in critical business processes
• Clear, confident communicator able to explain data issues and solutions in business‑friendly language
• Comfortable working across business and technical teams to drive resolution
• Accountable and outcomes‑focused, with a bias toward action rather than escalation

Should you not hear from us within 21 days, kindly consider your application unsuccessful.