Senior Data Engineer

dotdigital; Cape Town; On-site; ZAR 200 000 - 300 000; Full time

Job summary

A global marketing solutions provider in Cape Town is seeking a Senior Data Engineer to enhance their data platform. Responsibilities include designing scalable data pipelines, collaborating with analytics teams, and optimizing data processes with Python and SQL. The ideal candidate will have experience with cloud platforms and be proficient in both SQL and NoSQL databases, ensuring secure data movement and storage across the organization. Join a flexible work environment that promotes personal and professional growth.

Benefits

Parental leave

Medical benefits

Paid sick leave

Wellbeing Days

Qualifications

• Significant experience delivering Python-based projects for data engineering.
• Experience building spark pipelines that run at scale.
• Strong hands-on experience with SQL and NoSQL databases.

Responsibilities

• Design and build scalable, reliable, and secure data pipelines.
• Collaborate with Data Science teams to build scalable Pyspark workloads.
• Implement and optimise data models and storage solutions in a cloud environment.

Skills

Python

SQL

Data Engineering

Spark

NoSQL Databases

Tools

Airflow

Kafka

Cloud Platforms (Azure, AWS, GCP)

Job description

About Us

The Company: Dotdigital is a thriving global community of passionate, dedicated professionals, committed to the collective success of the organization and its clients. Our core principles of innovation, teamwork, and client-focused solutions drive us to approach challenges with a growth mindset and take ownership of our work. At Dotdigital, collaboration and curiosity pave the way for meaningful connections and learning opportunities with diverse peers. Our work environment encourages knowledge sharing, fosters exploration, and cherishes creative ideas. Combined, these guide us towards a shared vision in which brands around the world exceed customer expectations through the adoption of responsible marketing practices.

The Product: Dotdigital is an all-in-one customer experience and data platform (CXDP) that empowers marketing teams to exceed customer expectations with highly personalized cross-channel journeys. With Dotdigital, marketers can seamlessly unify, enrich, and segment customer data. Breaking down data silos, Dotdigital streamlines decision-making and paves the way for marketing creativity that delivers customer engagement at scale. With powerful AI capabilities, Dotdigital makes it easy to automate deeply personalized experiences across web, email, SMS, WhatsApp, chat, push, social, ads, and more.

About the Role

We are seeking a Senior Data Engineer to help evolve and enhance our data platform and capabilities. You’ll work on building robust, scalable, and intelligent data systems that power real-time services, insights, and decisions across Dot Digital.

As a Senior Data Engineer, you will be responsible for delivering key data platform features, designing and building data pipelines, and collaborating with product, analytics, and data science teams to unlock the value of data. You will have the opportunity to influence technology choices, optimise processes, and ensure the consistent, reliable, and secure movement and storage of data across the organisation.

Responsibilities

• Design and build scalable, reliable, and secure data pipelines for streaming, batch, and real-time processing.
• Work in partnership with the Data Science teams to build scalable Pyspark workloads that can be leveraged to generate advanced models.
• Implement and optimise data models and storage solutions using Python and SQL with orchestration tools in a cloud environment.
• Leverage AI to automate both data processing and engineering processes.
• Advocate and uphold best practices for data governance, security, and monitoring.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with engineers, analysts, and data scientists to deliver impactful data solutions.
• Mentor and support junior engineers in data engineering principles and practices.
• Evaluate and recommend new tools and technologies to strengthen data services.

About You

Technical Expertise

• Significant experience delivering Python-based projects for data engineering.
• Experience building and tuning spark pipelines that run at scale across large quantities of data.
• Strong hands-on experience with SQL and NoSQL databases (e.g. SQL Server, MongoDB, Cassandra).
• Proven experience with modern data warehousing and large-scale processing (e.g. Snowflake, DBT, BigQuery, Clickhouse).
• Proficient with data orchestration tools such as Airflow, Dagster, or Prefect.
• Experience with cloud platforms (Azure, AWS, or GCP) for data processing and storage.
• Practical experience with Kafka or equivalent event-driven architectures (e.g. AWS SQS, Azure EventHubs, AWS Kinesis).
• Good understanding of data modelling for OLAP and OLTP workloads.
• Familiar with agile methodologies and CI/CD processes in the context of data solutions.

Engineering

• Experienced as a senior team member on complex data engineering projects.
• Able to design and optimise data structures for high-volume systems.
• Experienced in assisting with data platform modernisation or migration to the cloud.
• Takes initiative to solve challenging data issues and drive projects forward.

Bonus

• Experience with Clickhouse in data pipelines and analytics solutions.
• Experience with Databricks or similar data platforms.

Why Us

Don’t just take our word for it - hear what your future colleagues have to say about working in our team:

“As a member of the Data Engineering team I have had the opportunity to work on a wide variety of data platforms, which not only broadens my knowledge base but also keeps me constantly engaged with evolving technologies. The team I work with is highly skilled team and truly inspiring. We motivate each other to innovate and excel in solving complex, large-scale problems with multi-terabyte datasets and high throughput rates. Moreover, Dotdigital embraces a relaxed and flexible work culture, ensuring the great balance between productivity and well-being. If you seek an environment that fosters personal and professional growth, Dotdigital's data team is the perfect match.”

Interview Process

• 15 min Screening Call with Talent Team
• Stage 1: Role deep dive with hiring manager(s)
• Stage 2: Technical interview with data team

Some of Our Global Benefits

• Parental leave
• Medical benefits
• Paid sick leave
• Dotdigital day
• Share reward
• Wellbeing reward
• Wellbeing Days
• Loyalty reward

DEI commitment

As an equal opportunities employer we are committed to equality in all its practices with regard to race, religion, national origin, age, sex, marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, veteran status, or sexual orientation. If you have any additional requirements or adjustments to assist an application then please don't hesitate to contact us and advise us how we can best support you.

Legal statement

No agencies/recruiters please. We are only accepting applications directly from the applicants. If you are a recruiter, please refrain from reaching out to our staff about this position. Anything contrary will be treated as unsolicited approach under the applicable data protection law.