Lead Data Engineer Global Grade 12

Barloworld Equipment; South Africa; On-site; ZAR 900,000 - 1,300,000; Full time

Job summary

Barloworld Equipment seeks a Lead Data Engineer to deliver complex, production-grade data engineering solutions while providing technical leadership across the team. You will ensure scalable, secure pipelines, platforms, and models aligned with governance and enterprise strategy.

You will mentor engineers and drive engineering excellence. You will also translate requirements into high-level designs, build detailed technical specs, and enforce standards and best practices.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience in a relevant field.
• Extensive hands-on experience in production data engineering environments.
• Proven experience designing and supporting data warehouses, lakehouses, or analytics platforms.
• Strong experience with Azure Synapse and Snowflake, with a preference for Snowflake.
• Experience with CI/CD, Git, and automated data pipelines.

Responsibilities

• Lead design, development, and optimisation of scalable data pipelines and platforms.
• Provide technical leadership and act as final escalation point for complex data engineering decisions.
• Define, document, and enforce data engineering standards, patterns, and best practices.
• Ensure high quality, reliable, and cost-efficient data solutions.
• Mentor data engineers through code reviews, design sessions, and technical guidance.
• Ensure data solutions comply with security, governance and architectural standards.
• Collaborate closely with analytics, BI, platform, and business stakeholders.
• Translate functional requirements to high level design and build technical specifications documents.
• Develop robust, scalable Azure Synapse and Snowflake-based data pipelines.
• Maintain high-quality SQL, Python, and Spark code.
• Document engineering standards and architectural patterns.
• Improve platform stability, performance, and cost efficiency.
• Elevate data engineering capability and consistency across the team.
• Provide trusted, production-ready datasets supporting analytics and decision-making.

Skills

Advanced SQL

Python

Technical leadership

Architectural thinking

Problem solving

Stakeholder communication

Quality and governance

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or related field

Equivalent practical experience considered

Tools

Azure Synapse

Snowflake

Job description

Position outputs

The Lead Data Engineer is responsible for the hands‑on delivery of complex, production grade data engineering solutions, while providing technical leadership, standards, and quality assurance across the data engineering team. The role ensures that all data pipelines, platforms, and models are scalable, secure, well architected, and aligned to enterprise data strategy and governance, while mentoring engineers and driving engineering excellence.

• Lead the design, development, and optimisation of scalable data pipelines and platforms
• Provide technical leadership and act as the final escalation point for complex data engineering decisions
• Define, document, and enforce data engineering standards, patterns, and best practices
• Ensure high quality, reliable, and cost‑efficient data solutions
• Mentor and coach data engineers through code reviews, design sessions, and technical guidance
• Ensure data solutions comply with security, governance, privacy, and architectural standards
• Collaborate closely with analytics, BI, platform, and business stakeholders
• Translate functional requirements to high level design and build technical specifications documents
• Robust, scalable Azure Synapse and Snowflake‑based data pipelines
• High‑quality, maintainable SQL, Python, and Spark code
• Documented engineering standards and architectural patterns
• Improved platform stability, performance, and cost efficiency
• Uplifted data engineering capability and consistency across the team
• Trusted, production‑ready datasets supporting analytics and decision‑making.

Minimum Required Qualification:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related field
• (Equivalent practical experience considered)

Minimum Required Experience:

• Extensive hands‑on experience in production data engineering environments.
• Proven experience designing and supporting data warehouses, lakehouses, or analytics platforms.
• Strong experience with Azure Fabric and/or Snowflake with a preference towards Snowflake.
• Experience with CI/CD, Git, and automated data pipelines.

Minimum Required Competencies:

• Advanced SQL and strong Python skills.
• Strong data modelling and performance optimisation capability.
• Technical leadership and mentoring skills.
• Architectural thinking and problem‑solving ability.
• Strong stakeholder communication and collaboration skills.
• High standards for quality, reliability, and governance.