Senior Specialist: Data Engineering and Analytics

Purpose of Role: To drive the development and implementation of an analytics enabled business to create value through the field of data engineering and analytics for the Online Domain. To design, develop and optimize business intelligence DataMart’s for analytics and reporting that focus on generating insights that will ensure continuous business improvements. Assist in solving business problems and exploit untapped opportunities using advanced analytics, machine learning and deep-learning through the development of models, algorithms and software. Performance Areas: Data Engineering • Define and implement data marts based on system requirements and business requirements • Perform ad-hoc analyses of data from organization database technologies, write SQL scripts, procedures, packages, functions, and views. • Work with the team in the designing of databases and data models to ensure interoperability. • Enable and drive data migrations across different data lake platforms and different servers, for example Oracle and Big data. • Troubleshoot data issues within the business systems and across the business source systems and provide guidance and/or presents solutions to these issues. • Review the impact that possible code changes may have on system performance. • Design and develop programs to deliver project requirements or enhancements to existing programs. • Collaborate with assigned business units to understand their analytics needs and devise possible solutions. • Asist the testing team to develop test plans to verify logic of new or modified programs. • Build efficient and re-usable services that can be reused to deliver requirements from different business units or projects. • Provide input on the improvement system maintenance, performance and support initiatives. • Mentor junior staff to ensure get opportunities to apply the developer skills that they have learnt. • Maintain organizational intellectual property through documenting of solutions on the organization’s wiki platform. • Knowledge Sharing through forum presentations and internal training • Participate in sprint meetings and be willing to adopt agile. Customer • Understand the business intelligence requirements of the assigned business unit • Collate all inputs necessary to support Business requirements • Collect, monitoring and analyse large volumes of fast-changing data to support operational processes • Partner with the business and ensure in-depth understanding of key drivers in order to drive quality data analytics • Ensure that EIS (recruiting department) and data quality initiatives are implemented in the relevant business units • Educate the business on BI, champion and drive BI self service • Arrange regular sessions with customers to inform, educate and facilitate feedback • Be the single point of contact for Business intelligence for the assigned business unit, ensuring liaison between business, enterprise information and BI centre of excellence • Adopt a proactive approach to prevent problems from arising in the future • Build and maintain solid relationships with business unit stakeholders Quality Management • Work consistently according to standard operating procedures • Understand and communicate the consequences of not maintaining data quality • Identify areas where the quality of reporting and analytics may be improved • Analyse situations and take necessary action to ensure quality is maintained • Seek feedback from clients/ stakeholders and continuously seek ways of improving on quality • Monitor daily trends to ensure data quality is sufficient to ensure accurate reporting and analytics. Advanced Analytics and Data Science: • Good understanding of all machine learning fundamentals • Enjoy coding in one of or all of SAS or Python • Work with both SQL and NoSQL databases • Work with Big-data stores such as Hadoop via Hive, Spark etc. • Implement deep-learning algorithms to solve real business problems • A data storyteller, you are happy communicating your findings via dashboarding (Tableau, Power BI) or through presentation (Excel, PowerPoint) • Strong written and verbal communication skills Analytics and Reporting • Analyse functional requirements and translate them into task specifications for the development process. • Design and develop programs using to deliver project requirements or enhancements to existing programs. • Collaborate with assigned business units to understand their analytics needs and devise possible solutions. • Support project teams using the required data analysis skills and analytics technologies • Build efficient and re-usable services that can be reused to deliver requirements from different business units or projects. • Provide support in identifying, evaluating and deploying solutions that meet business requirements. • Assist the testing team to develop test plans to verify logic of new or modified programs. • Knowledge Sharing through forum presentations and internal training. • Maintain organizational intellectual property through documenting of solutions on the organization’s wiki platform. • Follow Agile methodology and participate in SCRUM meetings. Strategic Input • Continuously review and improve processes in order to optimize outputs. • Continuously assess risk and implement mechanisms and processes to overcome these risks. • Drive the development of goals, tactical strategies, and plans needed to achieve the portfolio’s vision and build the capabilities to enable optimal delivery with input from relevant stakeholders. • Assist in the enablement of a self-service philosophy • Provide input to the technology roadmap defined by Group Technology and help Enterprise Information Systems within IS to define standards Tactical Planning and Operations • Devise, share, and execute annual EIS plans • Work closely with EIS Solution Architects to ensure solutions are aligned to Infrastructure Architecture. • Provide operational leadership to the team, in line with business requirements, technology standards and best practices within the business intelligence function. • Engage with other operations to extract potential benefits and efficiencies achieved at a technical implementation and/or process layer. • Ensure that vendor and 3rd party developers are developing applications that comply with business specifications and implemented according to approved quality standards. • Provide consultation for all applications related projects so that decisions can be made as to the most appropriate delivery methodology • Provide a quick reaction task force to attend to major EIS incidents with a view to improving on systems design and stability • Continuously review, improve and integrate processes, in order to optimize outputs and overcome fragmentation. • Ensure that Capacity planning for special events or increasing traffic volumes happens with documentation Financial • Work closely with Infrastructure Architecture to ensure that licensing is optimally consolidated. • Provide input to CAPEX Plans for the area • Provide input to compile and manage CAPEX and OPEX budgets relating to functional activities • Support the creation of the business case for initiatives and projects in functional areas Job Requirements Education (Essential): • 3+ year Degree / Diploma in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Statistics or related quantitative field Education (Preferred): • 4+ year, MSc or PhD degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Statistics or related quantitative field Experience: • At least 5+ years programming and analytics experience in the BI environment • At least 2 years of leadership experience • Good understanding of all aspects of BI and Information Management processes. • Experience in a telecommunications environment highly preferred • Project management and business optimisation experience would be advantageous • Exposure to managing external vendor/supplier relationships and service level agreements • Track record of self-development and improvement Skills • Programming experience in BI programming Languages (PL/SQL, SAS, Python, Scala) • Unix Scripting • Documentation • Advanced Analytics • Data Visualisation (tools such as Power BI, Tableau etce • Data Science (Machine Learning Models) • Big Data Competencies • Ability to take clear and economically sound decisions in a fast moving competitive environment • Strong “can-do“ attitude combined with an ability to take a step back and articulate the implications of key decisions • Robust, conceptual and integrative thinking – pull together multiple strands from many perspectives across the organisation and make sense of them • Business Acumen – a deep understanding of the business as a whole • Planning skills, with the ability to prioritise important issues • Customer centricity • Analytically inclined • Networking skills – the ability to build relationships internally that foster the flow of work • Excellent communication skills – the ability to translate strategy into actions and drive implementation • People skills – creating and nurturing the tone of the internal culture • Flexibility – the ability to adapt and change in the light of changing circumstances / new information • Ability to handle uncertainty • Influencing skills • Ability to manage growth • Cultural sensitivity • “Big picture” vision / strategic thinking • Conflict management skills • Facilitation skills • Process management skills • Coaching skills • Time management Behavioural qualities: • Presence and conviction to set objectives and drive the achievement • Influential • Resilience • Innovative • Decisive • Action-oriented • Customer centricity • Diplomacy and tact • Assertive • Relationship builder – strong people focus • Comfortable working with abstracts and concepts • Operate with integrity • Pressure tolerance • Focused and priority driven • Attention to detail • Risk aversion • Consultative • Self-starter • Innovative • Flexible and adaptable • Perseverance General You will be working with in a high paced field within a high paced industry. The need to continuously improve one's practical and theoretical skill sets will be paramount to both the team and organizational success. The ideal candidate is a constructive troublemaker, a realistic dreamer and unconstrained innovator. They constantly seek the best solutions to the hardest problems and pursues them avidly. They do not accept that the round peg won’t fit into the square hole but rather perceive that the problem statement was just badly positioned. And most importantly, want to have some fun doing some hard work with broad impact at a great company.