Snowflake Data Engineer

Job Description

We are seeking an experienced Snowflake Data Engineer to design, build, and maintain scalable data pipelines and transformation frameworks. You will own the end-to-end data flow from ingestion through to consumption-ready Gold layer outputs, ensuring data quality, performance, and alignment with business requirements.

As a Snowflake Data Engineer, you will design and build reusable ingestion frameworks supporting batch, incremental, and streaming loads with robust error handling and schema evolution capabilities. You will develop and maintain dbt transformation models across Silver (cleansed, conformed) and Gold (consumption-ready) layers, ensuring alignment with source-to-target mappings and business rules. You will implement comprehensive automated testing frameworks (uniqueness, not-null, referential integrity, and custom business-rule tests) to safeguard data quality, validate Gold layer outputs against agreed models, and perform reconciliation testing across source, Silver, and Gold layers. You will own defect triage, investigation, and resolution within agreed SLAs, conducting root-cause analysis and implementing preventative fixes. You will produce and maintain interface documentation covering source connections, data contracts, schedules, dependencies, and technical metadata lineage. You will apply CI/CD and version control standards to all pipeline and dbt code, ensuring peer-reviewed, tested deployments across environments. You will monitor and optimise pipeline performance, reliability, and cost through logging, alerting, and observability implementation. Finally, you will collaborate closely with Data Modellers, analysts, and stakeholders to ensure delivered pipelines are fit for purpose, performant, and aligned to business definitions.

Qualifications

• Advanced proficiency in Snowflake SQL, schema design, performance tuning, and Snowflake-specific features (stages, pipes, streams, dynamic tables)
• Expert-level dbt (data build tool) experience: building, testing, documenting projects; model dependencies and macro development
• Strong foundation in ETL/ELT design, data warehousing concepts, and dimensional modelling
• Expert SQL writing, query optimisation, and complex transformation logic
• Scripting capability in Python or similar languages for orchestration, data validation, and custom transformations
• Experience with orchestration tools (Airflow, Prefect, or equivalent)
• Proficiency with Git workflows, branching strategies, and CI/CD pipeline integration
• Proven experience designing and implementing data quality frameworks
• Familiarity with automated testing tools and methodologies
• Understanding of data validation, reconciliation, and audit patterns
• Hands-on experience with cloud data platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP)
• Familiarity with infrastructure-as-code, containerisation, or deployment automation
• Understanding of logging, monitoring, and alerting tools
• Strong problem-solving and analytical mindset
• Clear communication and documentation abilities
• Collaborative approach to cross-functional teamwork
• Proactive issue identification and resolution
• Meticulous attention to detail and commitment to data accuracy
• Demonstrated track record of delivering production data pipelines at scale

Additional Information

Why NCS?

This is a place for people who like to get stuck in, bring ideas to life and make things happen. You'll work alongside experienced people who care about what they do, contribute to meaningful work and have the support to keep learning and grow your career.  Whether you want to deepen your expertise, explore something new or take your career in a different direction, there's room to make it your own.  We value Adventure, Excellence, Integrity, Ownership and Unity - bringing curiosity, collaboration and accountability to the way we work with our clients and each other.

Ready to make extraordinary happen?

We'd love to hear from you.

We celebrate diversity and inclusion

We value different perspectives, experiences and strengths our people bring.  We're committed to an inclusive workplace where everyone has the opportunity to contribute, grow and succeed, and to providing equal employment opportunities and reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment process.

Important information

Applicants will need valid Australian work rights and may be required to undergo relevant background, probity and police checks.

Agencies: NCS accepts candidate submissions only from agencies on our preferred supplier panel through the NCS Agency Portal.