Data Platform Engineer

Ninety One; Wes-Kaap; On-site; ZAR 1,000,000 - 1,500,000; Full time

Job summary

Ninety One, South Africa’s leading investment manager with a global footprint, seeks a senior data platform engineer. You will shape the data platform’s Azure-based infrastructure and Databricks environments to enable trustworthy, timely analytics.

This blended role combines data engineering, cloud infrastructure and DevOps practices to keep platforms reliable and well-governed. You will collaborate with cross-functional teams to design, build and automate platform capabilities, drive cost

Qualifications

• BSc Computer Science or equivalent.
• Minimum 7 years technology experience, with at least 3 years in cloud/platform roles.
• Intermediate knowledge of Microsoft Azure infrastructure.
• Proficiency in Python and/or SQL; .NET is a plus.
• Azure DevOps and/or GitHub Actions.
• Terraform (IaC) experience in multi-environment setups.
• Understanding of Platform Governance and Security.
• Experience in Data Modelling and Data Contracts; exposure to FinOps/cost attribution.

Responsibilities

• Design, build and maintain platform-layer solutions across data engineering and infrastructure.
• Develop pipelines/processes for platform management, governance, and cost tracking.
• Implement CI/CD pipelines using DevOps/GitHub Actions for deployments.
• Use Terraform IaC for Azure services and Databricks components.
• Collaborate with data engineers, analysts, security and infra teams to translate requirements.
• Provide platform support to engineering teams and users, addressing issues across code, platform and infra.
• Contribute to platform documentation and best-practice standards.

Skills

Python

SQL

Azure

Terraform

GitHub Actions

DevOps

Data Modelling

FinOps/Cost attribution

Education

BSc Computer Science or equivalent

Tools

Azure Databricks

Azure DevOps

Terraform

GitHub Actions

Job description

Ninety One is South Africa’s largest investment manager and the only one with a global presence. The firm has 22 offices across 15 countries on five continents and manages R4.0 trillion of assets on behalf of clients (as at 30 June 2026).

Established in Cape Town in 1991 as part of the Investec Group, Ninety One demerged and rebranded in 2020, becoming an independent firm dual-listed in London and Johannesburg.

Always an active manager, Ninety One today offers strategies across equities, fixed income, multi-asset and private markets to institutions, advisors and individual investors around the world.

About the team:

At Ninety One, the vision for data is for trustworthy, discoverable and timely information to be at everybody’s fingertips. Data is our number one technology priority and foundational in our journey to become an AI-centred organisation.

The Data Technology team are custodians of Ninety One’s enterprise data platform and the core data domains that drive the firm’s investments and analytics engines. The team comprises several cross-functional, high-performing delivery squads, resourced through a mix of business and technology stakeholders. Their mandate is to deliver high quality, business value solutions, while assuring the highest standards of speed, accuracy, stability and security.

We treat data as a product and subscribe to a modern, customer-centred product development philosophy and as a team our key objectives are:

• Better data - by improving the quality, trustworthiness, traceability and ownership of data
• Faster data - by continuously reducing the time between data sourcing and information delivery
• More data - by expanding the contextual, historical and domain content available and making it discoverable

We believe in the power of technology to enable our vision and are looking for passionate, committed individuals to join us on our journey.

In this role you will have a unique opportunity to work in a blended role requiring Data Engineering, Azure Cloud Infrastructure and DevOps practices to keep Ninety One's Databricks environment reliable, secure and well governed while building automation, common tooling and self-service for platform users.

In this role you will:

• Work across both the data engineering and infrastructure/platform spaces to design, build and maintain solutions at the platform layer:Python solutions for platform and automation.Common shared libraries/modules used by data engineers and analysts across the platform.
• Pipelines/processes that support overall platform management (e.g. for purposes such as cost tracking, governance, provisioning, monitoring).
• CI/CD pipelines (DevOps/GitHub Actions) for platform and application deployments
• Terraform IaC for Azure services and Azure Databricks (e.g. Unity Catalog, workspaces, networking, compute policies)
• Collaborate with a wide ranging scope of teams including data engineers, analysts, security and infrastructure teams to translate requirements into capabilities.
• Provide platform support to engineering teams and platform users including assisting with issues, ranging from code, platform and infrastructure.
• Contribute to platform documentation, patterns and best-practice standards

You should consider applying if you have:

• BSc Computer Science or equivalent
• Minimum 7 years technology experience, with at least 3 years’ experience in the cloud platform/data platform roles
• Intermediate knowledge of Microsoft Azure infrastructure
• Proficiency in Python and/or SQL; .NET is a plus
• Azure DevOps and/or GitHub Actions
• Terraform (IaC) experience, ideally in a multi-environment setup
• Understanding of Platform Governance, Security
• Experience in Data Modelling, Data Contracts and exposure to FinOps/cost attribution practices

Some of the attributes we look for in a person:

• The ability to build and maintain meaningful relationships
• The ability to ‘approach and own’ and continuously look for opportunities to develop
• A client focused and collaborative approach
• High conviction and be comfortable sharing opinions
• A curiosity about technology and its potential to drive innovation