Data Engineering Lead

Introduction

We are looking for an experienced
Data Engineering Lead
to join a large enterprise environment on a 12-month contract basis.

This role is ideal for a highly technical and hands-on data engineering professional who can lead the design, development, optimisation, and operational management of scalable enterprise data platforms and pipelines supporting analytics, reporting, and advanced data solutions.

The successful candidate will provide technical leadership across modern data engineering practices, cloud platforms, governance, automation, and engineering delivery while mentoring teams and collaborating with business, analytics, architecture, and technology stakeholders.

• Lead the design, development, and maintenance of scalable and reusable data pipelines for batch and near-real-time processing
• Architect and oversee data ingestion, transformation, and storage solutions across structured and semi-structured data environments
• Build secure, scalable, high-performing, and cost-effective enterprise data solutions
• Define and maintain technical specifications, source-to-target mappings, data models, and pipeline documentation
• Embed strong data quality, lineage, observability, governance, and validation practices into engineering solutions
• Optimise platform performance, scalability, reliability, and cost efficiency
• Lead troubleshooting, monitoring, testing, and incident resolution across data platforms
• Enable reporting, dashboards, analytics, and advanced data use cases through strong foundational engineering

• Collaborate closely with business, analytics, BI, governance, and architecture teams
• Translate business and analytical requirements into scalable engineering solutions
• Clearly communicate delivery progress, technical decisions, and risks to both technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Act as a trusted advisor on enterprise data engineering and platform capabilities

• Lead, mentor, and coach Data Engineers within the team
• Promote engineering excellence, Dev Ops practices, CI/CD, and automation
• Foster a collaborative and high-performance engineering culture
• Drive innovation and continuous improvement across the data engineering landscape

• 8+ years’ experience within Data Engineering or related disciplines
• Proven experience leading or mentoring Data Engineering teams
• Strong experience translating business requirements into enterprise data solutions
• Experience working with cloud-based data platforms and orchestration technologies

Strong hands-on experience with:

• SQL
• Data pipeline development and optimisation
• ETL / ELT frameworks
• Data warehousing and lakehouse architectures
• Data modelling (Dimensional, Data Vault, etc.)
• Dev Ops, CI/CD, and Infrastructure-as-Code
• Data governance, security, and compliance principles

Experience with one or more of the following:

• AWS
• Microsoft Azure
• Snowflake
• Databricks

Exposure to:

• Databricks
• Power BI
• Qlik
• Cloud-native data engineering tools and services

• Degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, Mathematics, or related field
• Cloud or Data Engineering certifications advantageous (AWS, Azure, Snowflake, Databricks, etc.)

• Strong technical leadership and decision-making
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving abilities
• Strong communication and stakeholder engagement skills
  
  Delivery-focused and accountable mindset
• Attention to detail and quality
• Strong collaboration across multidisciplinary teams

Location:Gauteng (Pretoria) / Hybrid
Contract Type:12 Month Contract
Industry:Financial Services / Corporate Environment