Principal, Data Engineer at Cellulant Nigeria Limited

Cellulant is Africa’s no.1 company in the payments & transfers category - FIntech Awards 2016. We are a PPISP (Payment Platform Infrastructure Service Provider) regulated by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and insured by Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC).

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Principal, Data Engineer

Location: Lagos
Job type: Full time
Department: Technology

Job Description

• As the Principal Engineer in the Database & Data Engineering Department, you will be responsible for building and maintaining Cellulant's rapidly expanding Data Infrastructure.
• You will be responsible for architecting, implementing, and maintaining our data infrastructure while ensuring high availability, performance, and security of our databases. 
• The ideal candidate will have deep expertise in database design, data pipelines, ETL processes, AWS data solutions, on-prem database setups, and cloud-native architectures.

Core Responsibilities

• Build different types of data warehousing solutions to meet Cellulant's data needs.
• Lead the design, implementation, and successful delivery of large-scale data solutions involving multiple data sources.
• Build scalable data infrastructure and understand distributed systems concepts from a data storage perspective.
• Utilize expertise in SQL, ETL, and data modeling.
• Ensure the accuracy and availability of data and understand how technical decisions impact analytics and reporting.
• Deploy and maintain relational and NoSQL databases, including MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, and Redis.
• Optimize database performance, indexing, partitioning, and query tuning.
• Manage database migrations and upgrades,
• Implement high availability, clustering, replication strategies, and disaster recovery solutions for on-prem and cloud databases.
• Work closely with networking and security teams to ensure secure database access.
• Develop and manage ETL pipelines using tools like AWS Glue and Lambda.
• Ensure data quality, governance, and compliance with standards like GDPR, HIPAA, and SOC 2.
• Mentor and coach junior data engineers and DBAs, fostering a culture of automation and DevOps best practices.
• Leverage AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) for seamless data replication and migration.
• Utilize data streaming platforms like Kafka.
• Monitor and analyze database performance using Datadog and other observability tools.
• Implement infrastructure as code (IaC) using tools like Terraform and Ansible for database provisioning and automation.
• Establish data security and encryption best practices across database environments.
• Develop strategies for cost optimization and resource efficiency across cloud-based and on-prem data infrastructure.
• Define SLAs, performance benchmarks, and monitoring standards for data services.
• Collaborate with product and analytics teams to ensure scalable data solutions align with business goals.

Key Relationships

• Software Engineers.
• Infrastructure Engineers.
• CI/CD Engineers.
• Data Warehouse Team.
• Customer Success Teams.
• Service Operations Team.

Qualifications

• Having obtained a Degree in a relevant Computer Science.
• Qualified to ISEB/ISTQB Foundation Level or better.
• You've got a working knowledge of Docker.
• You're interested in growing your knowledge and skills in Test Environment Provisioning and Configuring using technologies like Terraform, Ansible, Kubernetes, GCP, or AWS.h
• Knowledge Continuous Integration systems (e.g., Jenkins, Travis, GitLab), Programming languages and tools: Python, Selenium, Java, XML, SQL, JavaScript and REST API testing tools such as Postman, SOAP UI, JMeter.

Experience:

• 8+ years of experience in database administration and data engineering.
• Expertise in SQL database administration, tuning, and optimization.
• Experience with AWS RDS, Aurora, and DynamoDB.
• Vast experience deploying large-scale SQL databases and data warehouse platforms.
• Experience deploying services on Managed Databases & Data Warehouses using cloud providers like AWS, GCP, and Azure.
• Proven experience with on-prem database architecture, high availability, and disaster recovery strategies.
• Familiarity with security best practices and compliance frameworks.
• Strong experience with IaC tools like Terraform, Ansible, or CloudFormation.
• Experience with deploying Non-relational (NoSQL/NewSQL) databases will be an added advantage
• Solid Experience in the administration of Linux environments.
• Solid Experience in the administration of data streaming platforms eg Kafka
• Experience with data programming/scripting languages eg Python, R is desirable.
• A solid understanding of Internet-based technologies (TCP/IP, DNS, Security, HTTP/HTTPS)
• Strong security awareness for cloud and on-prem databases.
• Ability to document key design and operational practices.
• Experience with Machine Learning model creation, training & operationalisation
• Familiarity with data lake architectures and big data frameworks.

Skills:

• Database Administration for SQL and NoSQL environments.
• Linux Administration.
• Proficiency in Data Streaming Platforms (Kafka).
• Programming/scripting languages (Python, R) desirable.
• Infrastructure as Code (IaC) proficiency (Terraform, Ansible, CloudFormation).
• Database security and encryption best practices.
• Performance tuning and capacity planning.

Application Closing Date
Not Specified.