Specialist: Data Engineering

Job Description

We’re Hiring: Specialist: Data Engineering | Data and Analytics

Are you an experienced data engineering professional with a passion for building reliable data pipelines and contributing to scalable data platforms?

Lesaka Merchant is looking for a Specialist: Data Engineering to join our Merchants Operations Division. This role is ideal for a highly analytical individual who can build and maintain data pipelines, ensure data quality, and contribute to the stability and performance of the group’s data platform.

Job Purpose

Responsible for building and maintaining data pipelines and contributing to the group’s central data platform within an established technical framework, executing defined engineering workstreams, maintaining high standards, and producing reliable, well-tested, and maintainable pipeline components that ensure data integrity, performance, and operational stability.

Key Responsibility Areas

Pipeline Developed and Maintained

• Build and maintain data ingestion pipelines from source systems to the Merchant data warehouse within defined architecture and engineering standards.
• Develop and maintain orchestration workflows ensuring reliable execution, failure handling, and appropriate alerting.
• Implement data quality tests across assigned pipeline components and respond to data quality issues in a timely and professional manner.
• Produce and maintain clear, complete documentation for all developed or modified pipeline component.

Operational Delivery and Data Quality Checked

• Ensure assigned pipelines run reliably in production with effective monitoring, error handling, and recovery processes.
• Support timely resolution of pipeline failures and data quality alerts to maintain trusted and available data.
• Apply consistent data quality checks to ensure accuracy, integrity, and completeness of data outputs.

Data Engineering Improvement suggestions and standards adherence

• Communicate progress, blockers, and data issues clearly and promptly, contributing to effective team delivery.
• Develop a solid understanding of the end-to-end data platform and how individual work fits within the broader data lifecycle.
• Contribute to improving engineering standards, documentation, and processes by identifying and raising opportunities for enhancement.

Qualifications & Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related technical discipline is mandatory.
• 4+ years of experience in data engineering or a closely related role involving production pipeline development.
• Solid Python skills and proven SQL experience against a cloud data warehouse.
• Hands-on experience with at least one orchestration tool (Airflow, Prefect, or equivalent) in a production setting.
• Sound understanding of core data engineering concepts: incremental loading, idempotency, schema management, and error handling.
• Ability to work independently on defined workstreams and communicate issues to the team proactively.
• Strong attention to detail and a professional approach to testing and documentation.

Key Competencies

• Analysing and forming opinions
• Accuracy
• Devotion to Quality
• Results Oriented
• Cooperation
• Creativity
• Personal Development
• Data Engineering and Pipelines – Ability to build, maintain, and optimise scalable data ingestion and transformation pipelines
• SQL and Data Manipulation – Strong proficiency in querying, transforming, and validating structured datasets
• ETL/ELT Tools and Orchestration – Experience with workflow scheduling and data pipeline orchestration tools to ensure reliable data processing
• Data Quality and Testing – Competence in implementing data validation checks, monitoring data integrity, and resolving data issues
• Data Platform and Cloud Awareness – Understanding of modern data warehouse environments and cloud-based data processing systems

Ready to build reliable data pipelines at Lesaka Merchant?

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