Senior Data Engineer

ABOUT INKOMOKO 

Inkomoko supports entrepreneurs to grow their businesses in order to improve livelihoods, create jobs, and help communities thrive. 

In 2026, Inkomoko was listed by the Financial Times as the 5th fastest-growing company in Africa, supporting entrepreneurs across East and Central Africa to grow thriving businesses and build inclusive, resilient economies. 

Founded in 2012, Inkomoko has worked with more than 100,000 entrepreneurs, including thousands of refugee entrepreneurs. Inkomoko provides a combination of training, consulting, access to finance, and market-level systems change.  We are the largest investor to refugee entrepreneurs in Africa.  

Inkomoko has 900+ staff in 50 offices across Chad, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, and South Sudan. Through Inkomoko’s 2030 strategic plan, we are adding 3 additional countries to serve more than 550,000 entrepreneurs and growing our $30M loan fund to impact 7M lives. 

  INKOMOKO VALUES

All staff at Inkomoko are connected to a shared set of organizational values:

• Purpose: be solutions-oriented, produce high-quality work, and be a global leader.
• Achievement: push yourself to reach beyond what you previously thought possible. 
• Improvement: be humble, engage in continuous growth through open & accurate feedback
• Bravery: willing to take risks, create a safe space for others, be compassionate, and inclusive.
• We Eat Goat:  we celebrate success and support each other in hard times. We do this work together in the spirit of turikumwe, tuko pamoja, abren nen, Kula na sawa, On est ensemble.

Inkomoko is an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer.  Refugees, women, and persons who reflect the diverse communities we serve are strongly encouraged to apply.  

ABOUT THE OPPORTUNITY AND RESPONSIBILITIES

As a Senior Data Engineer, you will play a strategic role within the MERL team, and you will report to the Business Analytics Manager. You will lead the architecture, development, optimization and maintenance of scalable, reliable, and secure data platforms, engineering robust batch and real-time data pipelines that power business analytics, reporting, and data-driven applications across Inkomoko's countries of operation. 

You will collaborate closely with the Digital Transformation team (IT), Data & Quality Analysts, the Business Analytics Manager, and country MERL teams to ensure data pipelines are efficient and datasets are clean, accessible, well-documented, and ready for analytics, reporting, and decision-making. Success in this role requires strong data pipeline engineering and analytics skills for technical execution, attention to data quality, process documentation, and the ability to collaborate effectively across teams. This position is based in Rwanda, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Chad, or  Kenya.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

1. Data Pipelines & Integration (30%)

• Own the architecture, design, and evolution of scalable, secure, and reliable data solutions that enable data-driven decision-making.
• Lead the design and implementation of real-time, event-driven data pipelines using technologies such as Debezium (CDC), Apache Kafka, and similar streaming platforms to integrate data from internal systems, ERP platforms, and data collection tools (e.g., SurveyCTO).
• Lead the development and maintenance of scalable batch data ingestion pipelines using modern data integration tools, preferably Airbyte.
• Build and maintain centralized, high-quality datasets that support analytics, reporting, and AI initiatives across country and regional programs.

2. Data Modeling, Storage & Security (20%)

• Lead the design and governance of scalable data models, with a strong emphasis on dimensional modeling and analytics ready data models.
• Own the design, development and maintenance of secured, performant, scalable, and reliable OLAP (ClickHouse) and OLTP (MySQL/PostgreSQL) platforms.
• Automate database replication via CDC workflows  to ensure data consistency and enable fast, reliable recovery in failure scenarios.
• Lead data security and governance process  by implementing RBAC, encryption, backups,  disaster recovery, and secure access controls.

3. Data Quality & Monitoring (20%)

• Lead the design of data validation frameworks using dbt and Great Expectations (GX), and drive automation of data-quality processes.
• Establish anomaly detection, outlier monitoring, and reporting practices to guarantee dataset reliability.
• Document and continuously improve process flows for outlier resolution; train and support program teams on data-quality standards.
• Set the standard for pipeline-to-validation alignment in close partnership with Data Quality Analysts and other data team members.

4. Data & System Observability and Monitoring (10%)

• Design and implement observability for infrastructure, data pipelines, and data warehouse performance using tools such as Prometheus and Grafana.
• Define and track key operational metrics in real time, pipeline latency, throughput, failure rates, resource utilization, and data freshness.
• Build alerting and dashboards that surface pipeline or infrastructure degradation early, reducing time-to-detect and time-to-resolve for incidents.

5. Infrastructure Management, DevOps & Automation (10%)

• Own the setup and configuration of on-premise virtual machines and supporting services that host data pipelines, data warehouses, and databases.
• Lead the design and management of CI/CD pipelines for automated data testing and validation using tools such as dbt and Great Expectations, ensuring reliable, consistent, and repeatable dataset production, as well as automated infrastructure provisioning and deployment of data workflows.

6. Documentation, Mentorship & Learning (10%)

• Maintain clear, high-quality technical documentation covering database/schema design, data lineage, and ETL/ELT processes.
• Mentor and coach junior data engineers; lead knowledge-sharing sessions and set engineering best practices for the team.
• Stay current with, and champion the adoption of, emerging tools and practices in data engineering and analytics infrastructure.