Data Solutions Architect / Senior Data Engineer

Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa

Job Description

We're seeking a Data Solutions Architect / Senior Data Engineer to join a growing Data and AI team working on an innovative cloud-based data warehousing and AI solution. The team is developing a client-facing platform that integrates data warehousing with a RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) system -- transforming unstructured and structured data into organized, summarized, and insightful information for business use.
You'll play a leading role in building out the production-ready environment, ensuring compliance, scalability, and performance, while contributing to the development of advanced AI-driven insights and automation capabilities.
High-Level Project Overview
The platform focuses on the aggregation, synthesis, and summarization of unstructured data through a secure, scalable Azure-based architecture.
A proof of concept has already been built (a chatbot web app hosted on Azure), and the next phase involves expanding this into a fully integrated production solution.
Your work will involve:

  • Designing and developing scalable data pipelines, storage, and processing components in Azure.
  • Supporting the integration of RAG systems with AI models and vector databases.
  • Enabling robust data flow between AI, search, and warehousing layers.
  • Contributing to architectural decisions on performance, governance, and scalability.
Tech Stack
  • Framework / Orchestration: Azure AI Foundry (for AI workflow orchestration and management)
  • LLM Provider: Azure OpenAI Service (designed to be model-agnostic for future extensibility)
  • Storage: Azure Blob Storage Gen 2 (for documents and source data)
  • Vector Store / Search: Azure AI Search (vector + hybrid search capabilities)
  • App Hosting: Azure App Service (chatbot web app interface integrated with RAG)
  • Embedding Model: Azure OpenAI text-embedding-3-large
  • Data Warehousing: Azure Data Factory for data extraction, transformation, and integration between AI Foundry, AI Search, and Blob Storage
Key Responsibilities
  • Architect and implement end-to-end data pipelines and data warehousing solutions in Azure.
  • Design and optimize ETL/ELT workflows using Azure Data Factory or equivalent.
  • Collaborate with AI developers and cloud engineers to connect data pipelines to AI/RAG systems.
  • Implement data models to support text retrieval, embedding, and summarization processes.
  • Ensure compliance with data governance and security best practices.
  • Mentor and support junior team members as the data capability scales.
Required Skills & Experience
  • 7+ years' experience as a Data Engineer or Data Architect in enterprise environments.
  • Strong proficiency in Azure Cloud (Data Factory, Blob Storage, Synapse, AI Foundry, OpenAI).
  • Advanced SQL and Python development experience.
  • Proven experience with cloud data migration and modern data warehousing.
  • Knowledge of vector databases, AI model integration, or RAG frameworks highly advantageous.
  • Understanding of data orchestration, governance, and security principles.
  • Experience in insurance or financial services preferred.
Why Join
This is a greenfield opportunity to help build a Data & AI capability from the ground up. The team currently consists of four engineers and is expected to grow rapidly in 2026. You'll be working on cutting-edge Azure and AI technologies, shaping an intelligent platform that makes sense of large, messy datasets and transforms them into business-ready insights.
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Job Detail

  • Job Id
    JD1549380
  • Industry
    Not mentioned
  • Total Positions
    1
  • Job Type:
    Full Time
  • Salary:
    Not mentioned
  • Employment Status
    Permanent
  • Job Location
    Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa
  • Education
    Not mentioned