Lead Data & ML Platform Architect

OutsideCapital; Wes-Kaap; On-site; ZAR 1,000,000 - 1,700,000; Full time

Job summary

OutsideCapital is seeking a hands-on technical leader to shape foundational data architecture across our growing data-engineering team in Cape Town. You will define ingestion, integration, modeling and governance, creating reusable patterns and guiding production decisions.

The role emphasizes setting direction, explaining trade-offs and solving the hardest problems while remaining close to delivery work and mentoring engineers at earlier career stages.

Qualifications

• Degree in computer science, information systems, engineering, mathematics or related technical discipline.
• Typically 7–10 years in senior or lead data engineering/platform development.
• Proven ownership of data-platform or enterprise-integration architecture across multiple products.
• Strong Python, SQL, ETL/ELT, data-modelling and database-engineering foundations.
• Strong ML-system and MLOps architecture depth: reproducibility, deployment, monitoring, lifecycle controls.
• Evidence of defining CI/CD, testing, release, rollback and reliability patterns.
• Mentor engineers at earlier career stages; distinguish personal ownership from delegated work.
• Azure or Microsoft-stack exposure is useful; experience with AVEVA PI/Asset Framework or Airflow is advantageous.

Responsibilities

• Define how data is ingested, integrated, modeled and governed across products.
• Create reusable patterns and raise engineering discipline for production changes.
• Lead architecture decisions, explain trade-offs, and guide difficult cross-team problems.
• Stay close to the work to solve hard technical problems while setting direction.
• Mentor engineers and foster ownership and review processes.

Skills

Python

SQL

ETL/ELT

Data modelling

CI/CD

MLOps

ML-system architecture

Azure

Airflow

Prefect

TensorFlow/PyTorch

Education

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

Tools

Airflow

Prefect

Azure Data Factory

TensorFlow

PyTorch

Job description

OutsideCapital is seeking a hands-on technical leader to shape foundational data architecture across our growing data-engineering team in Cape Town. You will define ingestion, integration, modeling and governance, creating reusable patterns and guiding production decisions.

The role emphasizes setting direction, explaining trade-offs and solving the hardest problems while remaining close to delivery work and mentoring engineers at earlier career stages.