Parvana - Senior Data Engineer

Data Engineer is needed in Cape Town, South Africa.

Client: Parvana

Location: Cape Town, WC, za

Contract: Freelance

Job Description

Location: Cape Town | Work Type: Hybrid | Job ID: J107087

Our client is a global investment advisory firm focusing on long-term value creation through investment strategies. They work with a diverse group of institutional partners and pride themselves on their collaborative, sustainable, inclusive culture and performance. You are welcome to go into the office daily or to take advantage of their hybrid in-office / remote benefit. This company places significant investment in employee wellness, with industry-leading benefits on top of generous basic salaries. Our client is large, offering fantastic career development opportunities and is very dynamic, tracking numerous metrics to continuously improve. They emphasize Automation, AI, and R&D to ensure employees do not fall behind or get stuck using outdated software. The cultural environment is cosmopolitan and diverse, working with some of the best professionals globally.

Requirements

• 6+ years of hands-on experience in complex query development, stored procedures, execution plan analysis, and comprehensive query optimization and troubleshooting.
• Deep expertise in indexing strategies, partitioning, transaction management, and resolving performance bottlenecks related to locking, blocking, deadlocks, and IO/memory optimization, especially with large-scale data.
• Strong experience designing both normalized relational models (3NF/OLTP) and dimensional models (star/snowflake schemas), focusing on data integrity, scalability, and historical data tracking.
• Proven ability to design solutions separating transactional and reporting workloads, diagnose and resolve performance issues through index tuning, query refactoring, and data access optimization.
• Experience in ETL/ELT processes and data pipeline design, utilizing tools like Azure Data Factory (ADF), SSIS, dbt, Informatica, and integrating various data sources (APIs, flat files, JSON/XML).
• Familiarity with Azure SQL, Synapse Analytics, Microsoft Fabric, Data Lake architectures, Git, Azure DevOps, CI/CD pipelines, engineering standards, and beneficial familiarity with BI tools like Power BI/Tableau.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and optimize complex SQL Server database solutions, writing efficient, scalable, and maintainable T-SQL code, including stored procedures, views, functions, and queries.
• Analyse execution plans, troubleshoot performance issues, and implement indexing, partitioning, and optimization strategies to resolve bottlenecks related to large datasets and high-volume workloads.
• Design scalable relational and analytical data models, building structures optimized for both operational and reporting workloads.
• Build and maintain data ingestion and transformation processes, developing reliable ETL/ELT pipelines and integrating data from internal and external systems.
• Ensure solutions are scalable, reliable, and maintainable, optimizing data access patterns and reducing the impact on transactional systems.
• Define standards for naming conventions, database design, and documentation; contribute to code reviews and enforce SQL/database best practices.
• Mentor developers and engineers on SQL optimization and data engineering practices, and work closely with application developers, BI teams, analysts, and stakeholders.
• Support backend application data requirements and reporting needs, promote high-quality, testable solutions, and contribute to ongoing improvements in data architecture and engineering practices.

Other Information

Keywords: Data Engineering / Science, Azure Data Factory (ADF), ETL/ELT, Data Pipelines, SQL Queries, SQL Server, Data Modelling, BI Teams, Investment Advisory