AI Data Engineer
Build the secure, governed data foundations behind a major international AI transformation — making complex enterprise data ready for AI at scale. Open to South Africa-based candidates.
The role
We're looking for a Data Engineer to join a major international enterprise AI transformation programme for one of the Middle East's leading financial institutions.
You'll build the data engineering foundation that powers a series of agentic AI solutions — creating secure, reliable and governed pipelines that take complex enterprise data from source systems through to the AI models and applications consuming it. It's a hands-on role working closely with AI Engineers and client teams across data lakes on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), SQL and Python.
The environment is highly regulated, so strong engineering needs to go hand-in-hand with an understanding of data quality, governance, lineage, security and auditability.
Location: an international client assignment based in Riyadh, working closely with the client and wider delivery team on site. Open to South Africa-based candidates.
What you'll do
- Design, build and optimise robust ETL/ELT data pipelines supporting enterprise AI and agentic AI solutions.
- Build reliable, scalable data flows from complex source systems through to downstream AI models and applications.
- Work with data lakes, including on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), as part of the programme's data landscape.
- Develop data solutions and automation using SQL and Python.
- Design data models that make enterprise data suitable for AI and machine-learning consumption.
- Partner closely with AI Engineers to ensure data is structured, available and production-ready for agentic AI systems.
- Implement strong data quality, validation, governance and lineage controls, within stringent security, privacy and regulatory requirements.
- Troubleshoot data, transformation and pipeline issues across the end-to-end flow.
- Produce clear technical documentation to support architecture, governance, audit and regulatory review.
What you'll bring
Strong core data engineering fundamentals are essential — we're particularly interested in people who have built and supported complex production data pipelines rather than primarily working in reporting or analytics.
- Strong hands-on data engineering experience, building production-grade data pipelines and platforms.
- Strong experience designing and developing ETL/ELT pipelines.
- Strong SQL skills, including complex querying, transformation and optimisation.
- Good hands-on Python for data engineering and automation.
- Strong experience with data lakes, particularly on OCI, or a comparable modern cloud data platform (OCI-based data lake experience is particularly important).
- Strong understanding of data modelling for downstream analytical, AI or machine-learning consumption.
- Good understanding of pipeline orchestration, scheduling, monitoring and troubleshooting.
- Practical knowledge of data quality, governance and lineage.
- Experience with large, complex enterprise datasets and multiple source systems.
- Ability to document to a standard appropriate for a regulated enterprise environment, and to work across multiple workstreams and changing priorities.
- Middle East or Saudi market experience is a plus.
- Accommodation and agreed living expenses in Riyadh are covered, together with one return trip home per month.
- A 10% project completion bonus, on top of salary.
How our process works: add your details and CV using the form, and we’ll review your experience and suitability. If it’s a strong match, we’ll be in touch to arrange a conversation.
Add your details
Tell us a little about you and attach your CV. We’ll review and get in touch if it’s a good match.