Data Engineer

Role Summary

We are seeking a hands‑on Data Engineer to take ownership of our data warehouse environment, currently built on SQL Server and in the process of migrating to ClickHouse. The role covers the full data lifecycle: ingesting and transforming raw data, designing clean and intuitive access layers, and enabling analysts and business users to self‑serve insights through tools such as Metabase or LLM‑based query interfaces.

Location: La Lucia, Durban
Role: 1-year fixed term contract

Salary: Up to R95k per month, depending on experience.

1-year fixed term contract to work via Avatar International onsite in La Lucia, fixed monthly contract fee and the same access to the onsite facilities and the same leave / holidays as the permanent Client employees.

Key Responsibilities

• Maintain and migrate the existing data warehouse from SQL Server to ClickHouse, ensuring a smooth and reliable transition
• Design and manage ingestion pipelines that land data accurately and on schedule
• Apply appropriate transformations, naming conventions, and indexing strategies to ensure data is performant and analytics‑ready
• Build and maintain views, materialized views, and data access layers that abstract raw storage from end users
• Structure data with self‑service in mind — schema naming, hierarchies, and documentation that make BI and LLM tools intuitive to use
• Collaborate with stakeholders to understand reporting needs and translate them into durable, scalable data models.

Required Skills & Experience

• Strong SQL skills: query writing, schema design, indexing, and performance tuning
• Hands‑on experience with a columnar or analytical database (ClickHouse, BigQuery, Redshift, Snowflake, etc.)
• Solid understanding of data modelling principles, star/snowflake schemas, dimensional modelling, naming conventions
• Experience building and maintaining ETL/ELT pipelines
• Familiarity with at least one BI or self‑service analytics tool (Metabase, Tableau, Power BI, etc.)
• Comfortable working in Python or a dbt‑based transformation environment.

Nice to Have

• Direct ClickHouse experience (MergeTree engines, materialized views, query optimisation)
• Experience enabling LLM‑based data access (semantic layers, text‑to‑SQL tooling)
• Exposure to data cataloguing or documentation tools.

Level Expectation

This is a strong intermediate role. The successful candidate should work independently on well‑scoped problems, make sound technical decisions around data modelling and access patterns, and challenge requirements that would lead to poor data design. Senior support will be available for large‑scale architectural decisions, but day‑to‑day autonomy is expected.

Pay: R95 000,00 per month

Work Location: In person