Data Engineer – Banking / Financial Services

SUMMARY:
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POSITION INFO:

Our client, a leading organisation within the banking and financial services sector, is looking for a highly skilled Data Engineer to join a specialist Loyalty & Rewards technology environment.

This is a senior, engineering-focused opportunity for a data professional who enjoys working with large-scale data platforms, complex integrations, enterprise data warehouses, cloud environments, and high-volume transactional data.

The successful candidate will be responsible for building, optimising, automating, and maintaining data pipelines and data infrastructure that support analytics, machine learning, artificial intelligence, customer behaviour insights, digital engagement, and rewards-related platforms.

Key Responsibilities

The successful candidate will be responsible for:

• Designing, building, and maintaining scalable ETL and data engineering pipelines
• Developing and optimising complex SQL processes and data integrations
• Building and supporting data ingestion, provisioning, streaming, and API-related data solutions
• Working with enterprise databases, data lakes, data warehouses, and large-scale data platforms
• Supporting automation, monitoring, and performance improvement of data pipelines
• Managing and improving data quality, data accuracy, consistency, security, and governance
• Collaborating with data analysts, software engineers, data modellers, data scientists, scrum masters, architects, and business stakeholders
• Supporting batch, real-time, streaming, and API-driven data processing environments
• Contributing to technical design, engineering decisions, and data modernisation initiatives
• Ensuring data solutions are scalable, reliable, secure, and fit for business purpose

Minimum Requirements

• Matric / Grade 12
• Relevant tertiary qualification, ideally in BCom, BSc, BEng, Information Technology, Computer Science, Data Engineering, or a related field
• Approximately 7–10 years’ relevant experience
• Minimum 5 years’ development experience
• At least 3–5 years focused on data engineering / data-related delivery
• Strong experience working independently within a technical squad or agile delivery team
• Experience designing, building, and maintaining data warehouses and data lakes

Technical Skills Required

Strong experience in the following is essential:

• Advanced SQL — non-negotiable
• Ab Initio — highly important
• ETL pipeline development
• Data warehousing
• Data modelling and schema design
• Enterprise database environments
• Data ingestion, provisioning, streaming, and API integration
• Cloud data engineering exposure, ideally AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud
• Big data technologies such as Hadoop, Spark, Hive, or similar
• Programming exposure such as Python, Java, and SQL
• Relational and NoSQL databases, including technologies such as PostgreSQL, MS SQL, IBM DB2, HBase, MongoDB, or similar
• Data pipeline and ETL tools such as Ab Initio, Azure Data Factory, Azure Databricks, SAS ETL, or similar

Advantageous Experience

Experience in any of the following will be beneficial:

• Banking or financial services environments
• Loyalty, rewards, customer analytics, or behavioural data platforms
• Highly transactional or data-intensive environments
• Real-time or near real-time data processing
• Messaging queues, APIs, and large-scale data orchestration
• Enterprise data governance and data quality frameworks
• Cloud certifications, DevOps certifications, or data engineering certifications
• Exposure to modernisation, automation, or innovation projects

Ideal Candidate Profile

The ideal candidate is a technically strong and delivery-focused Data Engineer who combines deep data engineering capability with strong problem-solving skills, sound communication, and the ability to work effectively with both technical and business stakeholders.

This role will suit someone who is analytical, innovative, quality-driven, and comfortable operating in a complex enterprise banking environment where data accuracy, performance, security, and scalability are critical.

Behavioural Competencies

• Strong communication skills
• Decision-making ability
• Influencing and stakeholder engagement
• Innovation and continuous improvement mindset
• Strong problem-solving ability
• Ability to build effective partnerships
• Continuous learning and technical curiosity

Why Apply?

This is an excellent opportunity for an experienced Data Engineer to contribute to enterprise-scale data engineering initiatives within a high-performance financial services environment. The role offers exposure to complex data platforms, cloud-based infrastructure, automation, modernisation, and customer-driven digital transformation.