Senior Data Engineer

Woolworths Financial Services; Cape Town; On-site; ZAR 800,000 - 1,000,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading financial services provider in Cape Town is seeking a Senior Data Engineer responsible for designing, implementing, and maintaining robust data pipelines and infrastructure. The ideal candidate will have more than 5 years of experience in data engineering, with significant AWS expertise. This role requires collaboration with data scientists and DevOps teams, ensuring scalable data systems and compliance with data governance practices. A Bachelor's degree in a related field is required, with advanced financial sector knowledge preferred.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience as a data engineer, including 2+ years in a senior role.
• Extensive experience with AWS technologies/services, specifically AWS Redshift.
• Proven expertise in DevOps practices including CI/CD pipelines and infrastructure-as-code.

Responsibilities

• Design and develop scalable data pipelines using various AWS tools.
• Implement data warehousing solutions for high-performance analytics.
• Ensure data quality and integrity through validation and cleaning techniques.

Skills

Data architecture

AWS technologies

DevOps practices

SQL and NoSQL databases

Data governance

Analytical skills

Problem solving

Education

Bachelor’s degree in computer science or related field

Majors in mathematics and statistics

Tools

Airflow

AWS Glue

AWS Redshift

Terraform

CloudFormation

Job description

Woolworths Financial Services | Full time

Cape Town, South Africa | Posted on 09/15/2025

Woolworths Financial Services, or WFS as it is better known, is a joint venture with Absa Bank, that supports the Woolworths retail business by providing in-store credit in the form of the Woolworths StoreCard and offering value-added services including credit cards, personal loans and short-term insurance as well as life insurance linked to other products.

Job Description

Main Purpose

The Senior Data Engineer will be responsible for designing, implementing, and maintaining robust data pipelines and infrastructure. This role requires a deep understanding of data architecture, cloud platforms, and DevOps practices to ensure scalable and efficient data systems. The ideal candidate will collaborate closely with data scientists, machine learning engineers, analysts, and DevOps teams to enable data-led decision making across the organization.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and optimize scalable data pipelines using tools and technologies like Airflow, AWS Glue, AWS Redshift, AWS DataZone, etc.
• Build and maintain ETL processes for data ingestion, transformation, and integration from various sources.
• Design and implement data warehousing solutions (e.g. Redshift) for high performance analytics.
• Ensure data quality and integrity through robust data validation, cleaning, and transformation techniques.
• Architect and manage cloud-based data platforms using AWS.
• Develop infrastructure-as-code (IaC) using tools like Terraform, CloudFormation and using our Cloud Native Data Platform.
• Implement CI/CD pipelines for automated deployment of data pipelines and infrastructure updates.
• Monitor and optimize cloud resources for performance, cost efficiency, and scalability.
• Work closely with data scientists, analysts and enterprise architects to align data architecture with business needs.
• Mentor junior data engineers and provide technical guidance on best practices and emerging technologies.
• Collaborate with DevOps and IT teams to ensure secure, scalable and high-availability data systems.

Data Governance and Security

• Implement data governance practices, including data lineage, cataloging and role-based access control. Ensure compliance with data privacy regulations (e.g. POPIA) and internal security policies.
• Perform regular audits and optimize data storage and processing for cost and efficiency.

Requirements

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, data science, engineering or a related field.
• Majors in mathematics and statistics (an advantage).

Experience

• 5+ years of experience as a data engineer, with at least 2 years in a senior role.
• A minimum of 5+ years of experience in AWS technologies/services (AWS Redshift).
• Proven experience in DevOps practices including CI/CD pipelines, IaC, and cloud automation.
• Appropriate exposure and experience in Data Mesh (theoretical and practical).
• Proficiency in SQL and NoSQL databases.
• Excellent problem solving, analytical and communication skills.

Preferred

• Experience in the financial, banking, fintech or retail industry in a senior data engineering role.
• Experience in Agile work practices.
• Certified AWS professional.
• Knowledge of stream processing frameworks.