Technical Team Lead: Azure Data Management - 6 month contract

Location: Bryanston, Johannesburg (Hybrid/Remote)

Contract: 6 month project starting asap/1 July 2025

Overview:
A leading digital consulting and delivery company is seeking an experienced Technical Team Lead to guide a team of Azure Data Engineers, Data Scientists, and BI Developers. The successful candidate will architect and oversee end-to-end Azure data solutions, ensuring delivery excellence, governance, and innovation across projects.

Key Responsibilities

Architecture & Design

• Define and implement end-to-end data pipelines using Azure Data Factory (ADF).

• Architect scalable data platforms using Azure Databricks (Spark), Azure SQL Database, and Synapse.

• Design and govern semantic models and datasets in Power BI, including workspace access and dataset governance.

Leadership & Team Management

• Lead and mentor a cross-functional team of data engineers, scientists, and BI developers.

• Manage task allocation, sprint planning, code reviews, and ensure timely delivery.

• Facilitate Agile ceremonies including daily stand-ups, retrospectives, and sprint reviews.

Development & Delivery

• Develop and manage complex ADF pipelines with mapping data flows and custom activities.

• Write and optimize T-SQL for stored procedures, transformations, views, and performance.

• Build scalable Databricks notebooks (PySpark/Scala) for large-scale processing.

• Design and deploy Power BI dashboards, reports, and implement row-level security (RLS).

Quality & Governance

• Enforce code quality and maintain CI/CD pipelines using Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions.

• Implement data validation, monitoring, and alerting via Azure Monitor and Log Analytics.

• Ensure compliance with data security and privacy standards (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA).

Collaboration & Stakeholder Engagement

• Gather and translate business requirements into scalable, technical data solutions.

• Collaborate with cloud architects and security/network teams on infrastructure alignment.

• Deliver demos, status reports, and maintain solution documentation.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or related field.

• 5+ years’ experience in data engineering, including 2+ years in a leadership or architecture role.

• Expert in Azure Data Factory: pipelines, data flows, triggers, and runtimes.

• Advanced SQL skills, including query tuning and indexing in Azure SQL DB and Synapse.

• Proficient in Azure Databricks (PySpark/Scala) and Delta Lake.

• Strong Power BI skills: DAX, data modeling, deployment pipelines.

• Experience with CI/CD tools and branching strategies (Azure DevOps, Git).

• Solid understanding of data warehousing (star schema, normalization, CDM).

• Familiarity with Azure security: RBAC, AD integration, managed identities.

Advantageous Skills

• Experience with Azure Synapse Analytics or dedicated SQL pools.

• Knowledge of Data Lake Gen2, ADLS, and formats like Parquet and Avro.

• Experience with Databricks Delta, Unity Catalog, or Lakehouse architecture.

• Programming experience with Python, Scala, or .NET for ADF custom activities.

• Microsoft certifications (e.g., Azure Data Engineer Associate, Solutions Architect).

Ideal candidates will combine strong technical leadership with deep expertise in Azure data platforms and a passion for building high-performance, enterprise-grade solutions.