Senior BI Solution Specialist - BSTD at South African Reserve Bank

Brief description

The main purpose of this position is to develop and maintain detailed technical designs and ensure alignment of the implementation and maintenance thereof with respect to all business intelligence (BI) solutions across the South African Reserve Bank (SARB).

Detailed description

The successful candidate will be responsible for the following key performance areas:

• Develop detailed technical domain-specific BI technology and solution standards in adherence to, and in line with, enterprise architecture (EA) standards, strategy and product roadmaps. 
• Translate business requirements into detailed solution designs and technical specifications, and guide the development of end-to-end BI solutions, ensuring that the implementation adheres to the specifications.
• Guide product owners and application technical specialists on infrastructure, application configuration and software licensing requirements for implementation of the BI solutions. 
• Apply architectural and engineering concepts in designing detailed technical solutions that meet operational requirements, such as scalability, maintainability, security, reliability, extensibility, flexibility, availability and manageability.
• Lead, guide and review various phases of the software development life cycle (SDLC) to ensure adherence to project-specific solution designs and EA standards. 
• Ensure that technology solutions which are production ready meet the defined design specifications and do not impose risks to the SARB.
• As a subject matter expert, lead BI proofs of concept and prototypes when introducing new BI technologies into the SARB.
• Continually review BI solution architectures and designs, and provide recommendations for improvement to senior management and relevant stakeholders.
• Keep abreast of industry best practices and technologies, and lead the implementation  thereof to design and optimise effective and efficient data solutions.
• Impart knowledge of the technical environment to the product team as well as system developers, database administrators, and infrastructure and EA teams.
• Own and be accountable for the delivery of technical BI solution design workstreams while also mentoring and guiding more junior colleagues.

QUALIFICATIONS

Job requirements

To be considered for this position, candidates must be in possession of:

• a Bachelor’s degree (NQF 7) in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Information Management/Technology or an equivalent qualification;
• at least five years’ experience in solutioning, designing and implementing complete BI solutions at an enterprise level; and
• at least five years’ working experience with Oracle Data Integrator (ODI). 

The following would be an added advantage:

• TOGAF and ITILv3 certifications;
• experience across the BI platforms, such as Microsoft Power BI Reporting Server and Services, Informatica, Teradata, AWS and Azure;
• proficient in SQL, Oracle and AIX;
• solid experience in translating business requirements into detailed BI designs (conceptual, logical and physical), with a focus on re-usability;
• practical knowledge of software engineering concepts and best practices, including DevOps, DevSecOps, DataOps;
• familiarity with Time-Series and Graph database types and related technologies (Druid, InfluxDB, Neo4J, etc.); 
• ability to scope projects and define workstreams, and effectively lead and mentor more junior colleagues;

experience in:

• ODS, data warehouse, data mart, cube, database technologies and big data design and frameworks;
• designing of various schemas (Star schema, Snowflake schema, Fact    Constellation schema);
• BI infrastructure components from applications, databases, operating systems and networks;
• database technologies such Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle Database, MySQL, PostgreSQL, IBM Db2 and NoSQL, with a strong knowledge of database fundamentals (normalisation and de-normalisation).

Additional requirements include:

• client/service orientation;
• effective communication skills;
• judgement and decision-making skills;
• service and stakeholder focus;
• drive for results; 
• planning and organising skills; 
• problem-solving and analytical skills; and
• conceptual thinking skills.