Location: South Africa

What will you do?

The successful candidate will join the organisation in the role of a Data Engineer. You will be part of a dynamic team working in an agile environment. Guided by a Development Manager you will be responsible for sourcing and loading a wide range of data across our business into the data lake so that it can be used by analysts and developers to develop data solutions for the business. You will develop and enhance the data ingestion framework using specified toolsets and will need to understand and continuously seek techniques to ingest data, as well as ensure a high degree of quality and confidence. In addition to this, you should be able to use the technology and make use of the features therein to deliver value to the business.

You will not only be responsible to design and develop but will also be required to coordinate with security and infrastructure to investigate issues, troubleshoot and devise solutions in line with best practice. A high degree of problem-solving capability is therefore essential to the delivery of this role. You should be able to communicate technical information to technical teams, as well as be competent in communicating challenges and solutions to project and operational leadership. An understanding of data management solutions and a keen sense of the strategic value of information to an organisation will be of importance. It is essential that the candidate exhibit and maintain a positive attitude in a highly agile, technical business environment where information forms the foundation to gain a competitive edge in the market.

What will make you successful in this role?

The following are the key outcomes expected from this position:
- Delivering the required services as per the service catalogue of the team.
- Coordinate service requests with security and infrastructure teams when required.
- Load large, complex data sets to and make data available for data engineers.
- Source data from internal and external data sources, engaging with technical subject matter experts.
- Build the infrastructure required for optimal Extraction, Transformation, and Loading (ETL) of data from a wide variety of data sources using various ‘big data’ technologies.
- Help build the platform for a better data supply chain for advanced analytics that goes from experimentation into production.
- Identify, design, and implement internal process improvements: automating manual processes, optimising data delivery, re-designing models for greater scalability.
- Engage with a wide range of technical stakeholders including data scientists, business analysts, data engineers, and solutions architects.
- Work with data analysts and data engineers to understand the dynamic nature that is required to support the solution that needs to be built.
- Support data stewards to establish and enforce guidelines for data collection, quality improvements, integration, and processes.The following areas of expertise are key to the successful delivery of the above outcomes:

- A solid background in SQL, information architecture and ETL procedures is required.
- Experience working on SAP Data Services, Sap Hana and/or Hadoop is preferred and highly advantageous.
- Previous scripting language experience e.g. Unix Shell scripting.
- Agile Development.
- Ability to comply with and manage reusable data assets under a governance framework.
- Advanced SQL skills.
- Ability to do effort estimations.
- Extensive working knowledge and experience in development methodologies.
- The ability to configure and build solutions in various ETL toolsets would be advantageous.
- Ability to build ETL solutions in a Hadoop environment.

The complexity and variety of the most common challenges and problems:

- Delivering in a complex analytic environment.
- Working with a high need for information security.
- The diligence required when resolving data and technical issues and interacting with other support teams.
- Demanding business community.

How the job will typically impact the business and where the impact will be felt.

Information is an asset and it can be used strategically to gain a competitive edge in the market.

- Timely delivery required – information is key to business decisions
- Accurate delivery required – information is key to business decisions
- Access to information – information is key to business decisions

Qualification & Experience

Qualifications:
- National Diploma in an Information Technology related discipline.
- Matric

Experience:
- 5+ years' experience as a data engineer in a BI environment
- A strong data engineering background with a specific focus on staging high quality data.
- A solid background in SQL, information architecture and ETL procedures is required.
- Experience working on SAP Hana, Teradata as well as Hadoop is preferred and highly advantageous.
- Experience with object-oriented/object functional scripting languages: Python, Java, Scala or related is preferred but not essential.
- Understanding of Data warehousing principles based on Kimball and Data Vault patterns is preferred.
- Development using SQL and procedural extensions is required.

Knowledge and Skills

Development of data warehousing blueprints.
Data warehouse management
Translates business needs into long-term architecture solutions
Defines, designs and builds dimensional databases
Object and data models

Personal Attributes

Interpersonal savvy - Contributing through others
Decision quality - Contributing through others
Plans and aligns - Contributing through others
Optimises work processes - Contributing through others
Communicates effectively - Contributing through others
Situational adaptability - Contributing through others

Build a successful career with us

We’re all about building strong, lasting relationships with our employees. We know that you have hopes for your future – your career, your personal development and of achieving great things. We pride ourselves in helping our employees to realise their worth. Through its business clusters – Sanlam Personal Finance, Sanlam Emerging Markets, Sanlam Investments, Sanlam Corporate, Santam, Miway, as well as the Group Office – the group provides many opportunities for growth and development.

Core Competencies

Cultivates innovation - Contributing through others
Customer focus - Contributing through others
Drives results - Contributing through others
Collaborates - Contributing through others
Being resilient - Contributing through others

Turnaround time

The shortlisting process will only start once the application due date has been reached. The time taken to complete this process will depend on how far you progress and the availability of managers.

Our commitment to transformation

The Sanlam Group is committed to achieving transformation and embraces diversity. This commitment is what drives us to achieve a diverse, inclusive and equitable workplace as we believe that these are key components to ensuring a thriving and sustainable business in South Africa. The Group's Employment Equity plan and targets will be considered as part of the selection process.