Data Engineer at Standard Bank Group
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Nairobi, Kenya
Job summary
Data Engineer at Standard Bank Group
About this role
Data Engineer Job in Nairobi: A Senior Opportunity in Enterprise Data and AI
Data has become an important part of how organizations understand their customers, products, transactions and wider business operations. But before data can be used for reporting, analytics or artificial intelligence, there has to be a reliable foundation underneath it. Databases need to work properly, information needs to move between systems, data pipelines need to perform efficiently and the resulting information needs to remain accurate and trustworthy.
That is the environment surrounding this Data Engineer opportunity. The position is designed for an experienced technology professional who can contribute at a senior level to enterprise data architecture, data platforms and AI engineering capabilities.
Rather than focusing on one narrow aspect of data work, the position brings together data engineering, architecture, integration, performance optimization and support for advanced analytics, machine learning and generative AI. The successful professional will therefore need to understand not only how data is processed, but also how it supports wider organizational objectives.
Building the Foundation Behind Data-Driven Work
A major part of the position involves providing technical leadership in the design and development of enterprise data architecture and platforms.
This means the successful candidate will be working with the underlying structures that allow an organization to collect, organize, integrate and use information effectively. The goal is to establish data foundations that can scale while remaining secure, governed and reliable.
The role also focuses on the creation of high-quality data products. These foundations are expected to support advanced analytics, machine learning and generative AI use cases, meaning the data engineering work must be capable of supporting more than traditional reporting.
Data solutions will also need to remain aligned with enterprise architecture standards, governance requirements, security controls and wider technology objectives. Reliability and interoperability are therefore important themes within the position.
For an experienced data professional, this creates a role where technical decisions have an impact beyond individual databases or pipelines. The work contributes to how data functions across an organization.
Experience With the Full Data Journey
The experience requirements point toward a professional who has already worked across several areas of enterprise data.
Candidates should have experience building databases, data warehouses, reporting solutions and data integration environments. This indicates that the role requires an understanding of how different components of a data environment connect rather than experience limited to a single tool.
Big data pipelines are another important area. The successful candidate should have experience developing and optimizing pipelines, architectures and datasets capable of handling substantial amounts of information.
Performance matters here. A data platform can contain large volumes of information, but its value is reduced if users and systems cannot access or process that information efficiently. The role therefore calls for someone who understands how to improve the performance of data pipelines and related processes.
The position also requires experience with data principles and an understanding of how information fits into an organization, including customer, product and transactional data.
That broader perspective is important because data engineering is not simply about moving information from one technical location to another. The engineer needs to understand what the information represents and how different categories of organizational data relate to each other.
Integration Is a Central Part of the Work
Modern organizations rarely operate using a single isolated system. Data can move between different applications, databases and platforms, which makes integration an important part of enterprise technology.
The successful candidate is expected to have experience creating and integrating APIs. This adds another dimension to the role because APIs can provide connections between different systems and allow information to be exchanged in structured ways.
The position also calls for knowledge of integration patterns, styles, protocols and systems theory. These requirements point toward a professional who can look at data movement from an architectural perspective rather than approaching every integration as an isolated technical task.
Root cause analysis is another important responsibility within the required experience. The candidate should be able to examine internal and external data and processes to answer specific business questions and identify opportunities for improvement.
This requires analytical thinking. When something goes wrong with data, the problem may not always be immediately visible. The professional needs to investigate the underlying process, identify where an issue originates and use the available information to understand what needs to change.
Programming Skills That Support Data Engineering
The role also expects experience with database programming languages and appropriate data tools.
SQL and PL/SQL are specifically identified, alongside Spark or other suitable data tooling. These technologies form part of the technical foundation expected from someone working with enterprise databases and large-scale data processing.
The requirement does not simply point toward familiarity with programming syntax. An experienced data engineer needs to use these tools to work with information efficiently, develop solutions and support the wider data environment.
Spark experience is particularly relevant to the big-data side of the position because the role includes building and optimizing large data pipelines and datasets.
The candidate should also have experience with data pipeline and workflow management tools. This reinforces the expectation that the engineer should understand how data processes are organized and managed rather than focusing only on individual queries or database operations.
Data Quality Cannot Be Treated as an Afterthought
One of the strongest themes in the technical requirements is data quality and integrity.
The organization wants data foundations that can be trusted. That means information needs to remain reliable as it moves through different systems and processes.
Data quality is therefore connected to the wider responsibilities of the role. Building pipelines is only part of the job; those pipelines also need to produce dependable results.
The technical competency requirements specifically include data integrity and data quality. These areas require an engineer to think carefully about the information being processed, how it moves and whether the resulting data remains suitable for its intended purpose.
This becomes even more important when data is eventually used for analytics, machine learning or generative AI. The quality of the underlying information affects the usefulness of the work built on top of it.
Data Engineering Meets Artificial Intelligence
The inclusion of AI engineering capabilities gives this opportunity a broader dimension than a conventional data engineering role.
The position is expected to support advanced analytics, machine learning and generative AI use cases. This means the data environment needs to be designed in a way that can support these forms of technology while still meeting security, governance and architecture requirements.
The role does not describe AI as a separate activity disconnected from data engineering. Instead, data platforms and data products form part of the foundation needed to support AI-related work.
This makes the position particularly relevant to professionals whose experience has expanded from traditional databases and reporting into modern data engineering and AI-related environments.
Professional certifications in cloud data platforms, data architecture, data engineering, data science, machine learning or AI engineering are listed as an advantage. They are not presented as the basic qualification, but they could strengthen an applicant's profile.
The Qualification Behind the Experience
The position requires a First Degree in a relevant field. Acceptable areas of study include Information Technology, Mathematics, Statistics, Business Commerce or another related discipline.
The range of academic backgrounds reflects the multidisciplinary nature of data work. Technology provides one route into the field, while mathematics, statistics and business-related disciplines can also provide relevant foundations when combined with substantial practical experience.
However, academic qualifications are only one part of the profile. The position requires between eight and ten years of experience, making it clearly suited to an established professional.
That level of experience is consistent with the technical and architectural expectations of the position. The employer is looking for someone who has already spent years working with databases, data warehouses, integration, pipelines, APIs and data-processing technologies.
Technical Knowledge Must Be Combined With People Skills
Although much of the vacancy is technically focused, the successful professional will not work in isolation.
Stakeholder management is listed among the technical competencies, while team working is included among the behavioural competencies. This shows that communication and collaboration form part of the expected profile.
The behavioural requirements also include articulating information, developing expertise, interpreting data, managing tasks and producing output.
These qualities matter because senior technical professionals often need to explain complex information to people with different levels of technical knowledge. They also need to organize their own work, continue developing their expertise and turn technical knowledge into useful results.
Being able to interpret data is especially important in a position where root cause analysis and business questions form part of the expected experience.
A Senior Data Role Built Around Reliability and Performance
Taken together, the requirements describe a professional who can operate across the technical layers of an enterprise data environment.
The role combines architecture, data engineering, integration, database development, pipeline management, performance optimization, data quality and support for AI-related applications. It also requires the ability to understand how information connects different parts of an organization.
The eight-to-ten-year experience requirement means this is not an entry-level engineering opportunity. Applicants should be able to demonstrate a substantial history of working with data platforms and solving complex data-related problems.
The strongest candidates will likely be those whose experience covers both the technical and organizational sides of data. They will understand how databases, warehouses, pipelines, APIs and integration processes work while also appreciating the importance of data quality, governance, security and stakeholder needs.
For a data professional who has developed that combination of experience, this opportunity represents a chance to work at the point where enterprise data architecture, engineering and emerging AI capabilities meet.
In an environment increasingly dependent on reliable information, the person responsible for the data foundation plays an important technical role. The work may happen behind the scenes, but the systems and data products created and maintained through this function can support everything from business reporting to advanced analytics and artificial intelligence.
