Senior Data Engineer — Remote, Cloud-First Leader

BigTalent; Cape Town; Hybrid; ZAR 950,000 - 1,600,000; Full time

Job summary

BigTalent is seeking a Senior Data Engineer for a mostly remote, hybrid role with occasional in-office rotations. You will design scalable data pipelines, leverage AWS services like Redshift, and drive data governance initiatives across teams.

You’ll collaborate with data scientists, analysts, ML engineers, and DevOps to deliver cloud-native data platforms. The role emphasizes mentoring junior engineers, implementing IaC, and shaping data architecture to support business priorities in a

Qualifications

• 5+ years experience in data engineering, with at least 1 year in a senior capacity.
• Expertise in AWS cloud services, including Redshift.
• Strong DevOps knowledge: CI/CD pipelines, Infrastructure-as-Code, and automation.
• Solid understanding of data governance and regulatory compliance (e.g., POPIA).
• SQL and NoSQL database experience.
• Exposure to Data Mesh concepts (practical or theoretical).

Responsibilities

• Design and maintain high-performance data pipelines and data infrastructure.
• Build ETL frameworks for ingestion and transformation across sources.
• Manage data infrastructure on AWS using Terraform, CloudFormation, and CI/CD.
• Ensure data quality, security, and governance aligned with privacy standards.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to align architecture with business priorities.
• Mentor junior engineers and contribute to data engineering strategy.

Skills

Senior data engineering

Cloud data workflows

Data governance

Tools

Airflow

AWS Redshift

Terraform

CloudFormation

CI/CD

Infrastructure-as-Code

SQL

NoSQL

Job description

BigTalent is seeking a Senior Data Engineer for a mostly remote, hybrid role with occasional in-office rotations. You will design scalable data pipelines, leverage AWS services like Redshift, and drive data governance initiatives across teams.

You’ll collaborate with data scientists, analysts, ML engineers, and DevOps to deliver cloud-native data platforms. The role emphasizes mentoring junior engineers, implementing IaC, and shaping data architecture to support business priorities in a