Specialist Data Engineer

1001 Absa Bank; South Africa; On-site; ZAR 900,000 - 1,300,000; Full time

Job summary

Absa Bank in South Africa is seeking an experienced Data Architect/Engineer to design and implement data solutions across the bank's architecture and data platforms. You will translate business requirements into scalable designs and deliver robust data pipelines for retrieval, storage and distribution.

You will build analytics tools for data science teams, ensure security and governance, and contribute to automated deployments and CI/CD practices using Jenkins, Ansible and Chef across multi-site

Qualifications

• Understand bank-wide data architecture to design data solutions.
• Translate business requirements into data solution designs.
• Design data retrieval, storage, and distribution solutions.
• Create and maintain CI/CD pipelines and automated deployments.
• Ensure security and governance per group standards.

Responsibilities

• Coach & mentor other engineers.
• Develop high quality data processing, retrieval, storage & distribution design.
• Build analytics tools for data science teams that use data pipelines.
• Monitor performance and optimize data solutions.

Skills

Data architecture

Data engineering

CI/CD pipelines

Jenkins

Ansible

Chef

SQL

NoSQL

Kafka

Hadoop

Education

Bachelor's Degree: Information Technology

Job description

Empowering Africa’s tomorrow, together...one story at a time. With over 100 years of rich history and strongly positioned as a local bank with regional and international expertise, a career with our family offers the opportunity to be part of this exciting growth journey, to reset our future and shape our destiny as a proudly African group.

Belonging at Absa Absa is committed to creating an inclusive workplace where everyone can thrive.

We are an equal opportunity employer and welcome applications from suitably qualified individuals from diverse backgrounds.

In support of our Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB) commitments and Employment Equity objectives, preference may be given to candidates from underrepresented designated groups, including persons with disabilities.

We encourage applicants who may require reasonable accommodation during the recruitment process to let us know so that appropriate support can be provided.

Job Summary

Work embedded as a member of squad OR; across multiple squads to produce, test, document and review algorithms & data specific source code that supports the deployment & optimisation of data retrieval, processing, storage and distribution for a business area.

Job Description

Data Architecture & Data Engineering

• Understand the technical landscape and bank wide architecture that is connected to or dependent on the business area supported in order to effectively design & deliver data solutions (architecture, pipeline etc.)
• Translate / interpret the data architecture direction and associated business requirements & leverage expertise in analytical & creative problem solving to synthesise data solution designs (build a solution from its components) beyond the analysis of the problem
• Participate in design thinking processes to successfully deliver data solution blueprints
• Leverage state of the art relational and No-SQL databases as well integration and streaming platforms do deliver sustainable business specific data solutions.
• Design data retrieval, storage & distribution solutions (and OR components thereof) including contributing to all phases of the development lifecycle e.g. design process
• Develop high quality data processing, retrieval, storage & distribution design in a test driven & domain driven / cross domain environment
• Build analytics tools that utilize the data pipeline by quickly producing well-organised, optimized, and documented source code & algorithms to deliver technical data solutions
• Create & Maintain Sophisticated CI / CD Pipelines (authoring & supporting CI/CD pipelines in Jenkins or similar tools and deploy to multi-site environments - supporting and managing your applications all the way to production)
• Automate tasks through appropriate tools and scripting technologies e.g. Ansible, Chef
• Debug existing source code and polish feature sets.
• Assemble large, complex data sets that meet business requirements & manage the data pipeline
• Build infrastructure to automate extremely high volumes of data delivery
• Create data tools for analytics and data science teams that assist them in building and optimizing data sets for the benefit of the business
• Ensure designs & solutions support the technical organisation principles of self-service, repeatability, testability, scalability & resilience
• Apply general design patterns and paradigms to deliver technical solutions
• Inform & support the infrastructure build required for optimal extraction, transformation, and loading of data from a wide variety of data sources
• Support the continuous optimisation, improvement & automation of data processing, retrieval, storage & distribution processes
• Ensure the quality assurance and testing of all data solutions aligned to the QA Engineering & broader architectural guidelines and standards of the organisation
• Implement & align to the Group Security standards and practices to ensure the undisputable separation, security & quality of the organisation’s data
• Meaningfully contribute to & ensure solutions align to the design & direction of the Group Architecture & in particular data standards, principles, preferences & practices. Short term deployment must align to strategic long term delivery.
• Meaningfully contribute to & ensure solutions align to the design and direction of the Group Infrastructure standards and practices e.g. OLA’s, IAAS, PAAS, SAAS, Containerisation etc.
• Monitor the performance of data solutions designs & ensure ongoing optimization of data solutions
• Stay ahead of the curve on data processing, retrieval, storage & distribution technologies & processes (global best practices & trends) to ensure best practice

People

• Coach & mentor other engineers
• Conduct peer reviews, testing, problem solving within and across the broader team
• Build data science team capability in the use of data solutions

Risk & Governance

• Identify technical risks and mitigate these (pre, during & post deployment)
• Update / Design all application documentation aligned to the organization technical standards and risk / governance frameworks
• Create business cases & solution specifications for various governance processes (e.g. CTO approvals)
• Participate in incident management & DR activity - applying critical thinking, problem solving & technical expertise to get to the bottom of major incidents
• Deliver on time & on budget (always)

Added advantage

Danodo, Spark/PySpark, Kafka, Hadoop, cloud, APIs and CI/CD.

Education

Bachelor's Degree: Information Technology

At Absa, our story is not a single narrative. It's thousands of individual journeys unfolding across Africa and beyond. From colleagues serving customers in local communities to teams shaping financial solutions across borders, Absa is built on people who bring their lived experiences, ambitions and perspectives into the workplace every day. Whether you’re starting your career, a seasoned leader or somewhere in between, your contribution is seen, valued and connected to something bigger. Our presence across Africa – which spans personal and business banking, corporate and investment banking, wealth and investment management, and insurance – exists because of the people who show up in their roles with purpose. Across Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Mozambique, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia, our colleagues are shaping what Absa becomes in each market. Beyond the continent, teams in global offices and a technology hub support and extend the stories that prove that African talent can lead, influence and innovate on the global stage. At Absa, your story matters because progress is driven by human experience, not hierarchy. When people are enabled to bring their whole selves to work, they don’t just build careers. They help shape the future of Africa’s financial services landscape.