Senior Data Engineer

The Bank for International Settlements, BIS is hiring a Senior Data Engineer within the Banking Technology department.

This role is based in Basel, however, thanks to our status as an international organization, we can hire globally and welcome applications from candidates of all nationalities and located anywhere in the world. Relocation support is available for the successful candidate and their dependent family members.

This job is available as three years fixed term.

The deadline for applications is  Wednesday 25th March at 20.00 CET.

Purpose of the job

As part of the BIS Banking Department’s technology transformation and ongoing data service operations, the Senior Data Engineer will play a key role in modernising and operating the Bank’s data ecosystem. The role supports streaming, advanced analytics, and business intelligence by designing and implementing reliable and secure data products.

This includes migrating existing data to the on-premises data lake and supporting its day-to-day operation and continuous improvement, with a later potential migration to the cloud. The Senior Data Engineer will collaborate closely with diverse teams, including business analysts, product managers, data scientists, statisticians, and security experts, while maintaining a respectful and inclusive environment.

By joining the team, you will:

• Contribute to modernisation and transformation projects that shape the future of the BIS’s data ecosystem.

• Work closely with colleagues across the banking function, fostering collaboration and innovation in a multi-year strategic project.

• Influence strategic directions within a global organisation, driving impactful change in the financial and data domains.

Principal accountabilities

• Design and develop end-to-end data pipelines that extract, transform, and load data from diverse sources, ensuring compliance with business rules, security, privacy, and governance requirements.

• Collaborate with end users to develop, enhance, and maintain data products that meet business needs, delivering frequent, incremental product releases.

• Provide production support for data platforms and pipelines, including on-call coverage during evenings and weekends as needed.

• Implement monitoring, observability, incident response, and problem management for data services

• Stay current with relevant technology trends (e.g., data engineering, streaming, cloud) and contribute insights to IT strategy.

• Lead initiatives and cross-functional teams as needed, ensuring objectives are met, and coach colleagues to foster team growth.

Qualifications, skills, and experience

• Education: University-level degree in Information Management, Computer Science, Data Engineering, or a closely related field. Or the equivalent gained through professional experience.

• Technical expertise: Proven experience building data pipelines for data warehouse and/or data lake architectures. Hands-on development with open-source data technologies such as Hadoop, Hive, Spark, Kafka, and ELK.

• Programming and data modelling: Excellent programming skills in a major language (e.g., Python, Java, C#) and proficiency with SQL. Strong data modelling skills and experience building scalable applications.

• Collaboration and communication: Strong verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to explain complex technical concepts to diverse audiences. A hands-on and practical approach with a problem-solving mindset and attention to detail.

• Governance and security: Awareness of data governance, data quality frameworks, and security-by-design principles.

• Adaptability: Ability to learn new domains and technologies beyond current expertise, embracing diverse perspectives and collaborative ways of working.

Who we are:

Internationalism is at the core of our identity and the best representation of this is our workforce. With employees from over 66 countries and offices in nine locations, the BIS is a global organisation with a truly international workforce. By joining us, you will work in a unique, highly rewarding, and international work environment. We are committed to equal opportunities at the BIS and aim to build a workforce that reflects our global membership. We strive to attract the best talent and foster an inclusive environment. We welcome applications from all qualified candidates, including those with a breadth of professional experience. You can discover more about our inclusive working environment here.

What the BIS offers:

We want your time at BIS to be a rewarding and career-enriching experience. We offer an agile and flexible working environment with hybrid working opportunities including home office and working from abroad days. To support our international applicants, we offer relocation support that extends to your dependent family members. In addition, we offer a competitive compensation and benefits package, including support for working families such as childcare and education allowances (where applicable). Finally, we offer a genuinely unique international working environment, which will give you exposure to the global financial system and the opportunity to collaborate with passionate experts from all over the world.