Senior Java Engineer (Data Engineering)

AES Global; Cape Town; Hybrid; ZAR 1,200,000 - 1,800,000; Full time

Job summary

AES Global in Cape Town is seeking a Senior Java Engineer with strong data-engineering expertise to lead large-scale migration and ETL projects. You will architect and implement data pipelines, ensure data quality, and mentor engineers across multiple data platforms.

The role combines hands-on development with technical leadership in a hybrid Cape Town setup, offering exposure to petabyte-scale datasets and modern cloud data platforms.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in software/data engineering with leadership experience.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement large-scale data migration and transformation strategies across very large datasets.
• Build data-lineage, validation and testing frameworks to keep migrations accurate.
• Develop scalable batch and streaming pipelines with parallel orchestration.
• Implement monitoring and observability for pipeline performance and system health.
• Provide technical leadership—mentoring engineers, code reviews, and design discussions.

Skills

Advanced Java

Data Engineering

Technical Leadership

Kubernetes

ETL Pipelines

Data Migration

Batch & Streaming

Cloud Platforms

Education

Degree in CS / Engineering

Tools

Gradle / Maven

Hadoop Ecosystem

Kafka / Kinesis

Spark / PySpark

Iceberg / Parquet / ORC

Job description

We’re working with an established software consultancy that partners with everyone from startups to global brands, and they’re looking for a Senior Java Engineer with strong data-engineering expertise.

You’ll join an expert team delivering large-scale, production‑grade data projects — data retention, migration and privacy work at petabyte scale — combining hands‑on engineering with technical leadership.

What you’ll do

• Design and implement large‑scale data migration and transformation strategies across very large datasets
• Build data‑lineage, validation and testing frameworks that keep migrations accurate and data intact
• Develop scalable batch and streaming pipelines with parallel orchestration
• Implement monitoring and observability for pipeline performance and system health
• Provide technical leadership — mentoring engineers, running code reviews, leading design discussions and removing blockers

What you’ll bring

• 8+ years in software / data engineering, including several years of technical leadership
• Advanced Java with modern build systems (Gradle or Maven)
• Proven experience with large‑scale data migration and ETL pipeline development
• Distributed storage (HDFS, S3 or GCS) and a cloud data platform (AWS, GCP, Azure or Databricks)
• Hands‑on Kubernetes for containerised data processing
• A degree in Computer Science, Engineering or equivalent experience

Advantageous

• Scala or Python for data processing, and Apache Spark / PySpark
• Hadoop ecosystem, Kafka or Kinesis streaming, and modern data formats (Iceberg, Parquet, ORC, Avro)
• Observability tooling (Prometheus, Grafana), and data‑privacy / compliance experience (e.g. GDPR)

Working model
Hybrid in Cape Town — around two days a week in the office.