(736) Data Engineer – BSTD

Brief description

The main purpose of this position is to build, maintain and optimise business intelligence (BI) data pipelines 

that feed from various data systems across the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) and enable the support 

of Data as a Service (DaaS) to the SARB.

Detailed description

The successful candidate will be responsible for the following key performance areas:

• Implement data service standards and frameworks across the SARB to ensure optimised solutions and adherence to best practice, that is, data operations, development and operations as well as machine learning and operations.
• Take responsibility for BI data pipelines and flows for domain specific analytic implementations across the SARB.
• Ensure understanding of client’s data requirements in order to drive continuous development of data services and address evolving business needs.
• Design and build data pipelines that are robust, modular, scalable, deployable, reproducible and versioned for analytics and reporting purposes.
• Continually monitor and optimise domain specific data pipelines to ensure data availability and optimal long-term performance of data pipelines.
• Implement new data engineering features.
• Implement data sharing technology services for the SARB, in alignment with the BI and Business Solutions and Technology Department (BSTD) Strategy.
• Diagnoses, manage and enhance the performance of BI data marts and warehouses across the SARB by applying data engineering techniques such as distributed computing and data optimisation.
• Resolve data issues across BI data marts, data warehouses and data lakes.
• Implement initiatives to ensure compliance and adherence to security and application standards with respect to all BI data services.
• Identify and manage the mitigation of risks relating to domain-specific BI data services.
• Proactively engage and problem-solve with cross functional stakeholders ‒ from technical data teams to managers ‒ to address their data needs in order to build impactful analytics solutions.
• Provide reporting and recommendations on data service performance, improvements and data availability for domain-specific solutions to management.
• Keep abreast of industry best practices and technologies and lead implementation thereof to optimise effective and efficient data pipelines and services.
• Impart knowledge of the technical environment to other data engineers, systems development, database administrator, infrastructure and enterprise architecture and enterprise information management teams.

Job requirements

To be considered for this position, candidates must be in possession of: 

• a Bachelor’s degree (NQF 7) in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Information Management, Technology or an equivalent qualification; and
• five to eight years’ experience in building, maintaining and optimising data pipelines and services.

Additional requirements include:

• ability to write clean, maintainable, scalable, and robust code in object-oriented language, e.g., Python, Scala, Java, in a professional setting;
• proven experience building data pipelines in production for advanced analytics use cases;
• experience working across structured, semi-structured and unstructured data;
• experience with database technologies such Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle Database, MySQL, PostgreSQL, IBM Db2 and NoSQL;
• familiarity with distributed computing frameworks (e.g. Spark, Dask) cloud platforms (e.g. AWS, Azure, GCP, containerization, and analytics libraries (e.g. pandas, NumPy, matplotlib);
• familiarity with time-series and graph database types and related technologies (Druid, InfluxDB, Neo4J, etc.) would be considered a plus;
• practical knowledge of software engineering concepts and best practices, including DevOps, Development Security and Operations and Data Operations, would be considered a plus;
• ability to scope projects, define workstreams and effective lead, and mentor more junior colleagues;
• continuous improvement knowledge and skill;
• industry, organisational and business awareness, knowledge and skill;
• quality assurance knowledge and skill;
• business continuity planning knowledge and skill;
• information technology (IT) enablement planning knowledge and skill;
• IT transformation and innovation knowledge skills;
• release management knowledge and skill;
• infrastructure design and development knowledge and skill;
• workload estimation knowledge and skill;
• technical analysis knowledge and skill;
• systems integration knowledge and skill;
• IT governance knowledge and skill; and
• continued learning and/or professional development knowledge and skill.

In line with the SARB’s commitment to diversifying its workforce, preference will be given to suitable candidates from designated groups. People with disabilities are welcome to apply.

The SARB offers remuneration and benefits commensurate with the level of the position and in line with the market. The level at which the successful applicant will be appointed will depend on his/her competence and experience. 

About SARB

Primary mandate of the SARB

Section 224 of the Constitution of South Africa states the mandate of the SARB as follows:

The primary object of the South African Reserve Bank is to protect the value of the currency in the interest of balanced and sustainable economic growth in the Republic.

The South African Reserve Bank, in support of its primary objective, must perform its functions independently and without fear, favour or prejudice.

WHAT WE DO

Monetary Policy

The Constitution gives the SARB the mandate to protect the value of the rand. We use interest rates to keep inflation low and steady.

Financial Stability

The SARB has a mandate to protect and enhance financial stability. We identify and mitigate systemic risks that might disrupt the financial system.

Prudential Regulation

The Prudential Authority regulates financial institutions and market infrastructures to promote and enhance their safety and soundness, and support financial stability.

Financial Markets

Open market operations are the main tool we use to implement monetary policy. We manage South Africa’s gold and foreign exchange reserves.

Financial Surveillance

The SARB is responsible for regulating cross-border transactions, preventing the abuse of the financial system and supporting the regulation of financial institutions.

Payments and Settlements

The SARB is responsible for ensuring the safety and soundness of the national payment system, which is the backbone of South Africa’s modern financial system.

Statistics

The SARB provides important economic and financial statistics that present an overview of the economic situation in South Africa.

Research

Research conducted by the SARB focuses on economics, financial stability, banking and emerging trends in finance. Our research supports policy decision-making.

Banknotes and Coin

The SARB has the sole right to make, issue and destroy banknotes and coin in South Africa.