Senior Data Engineer

About the role

Rainforest Alliance is building a unified data and AI-ready platform on Databricks, Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 and Power BI Premium, using a Bronze/Silver/Gold medallion architecture. The role supports both the existing Azure SQL-based services and the new platform, which is in pilot phase, and also provides escalation cover and time-zone management by supervising a team of three data and data platform engineers. You will report to the Senior Manager, Enterprise Data Platform.

Key responsibilities

• Pipeline engineering: design, build and maintain production-grade data pipelines and core platform components on Databricks / ADLS Gen2 following the Bronze/Silver/Gold architecture.
• Dimensional modelling: turn signed-off requirements into dimensional models and the queries that consolidate raw data into them.
• Platform engineering: build reusable functions and production code that replicate validated queries at scale, and maintain and develop the existing SQL-based environment.
• Reporting: support Power BI datasets, reports and dashboards, and help report owners review and optimise them for accuracy, maintainability and performance.
• Power BI tenant admin: support lifecycle management, user onboarding/offboarding, governance (workspace and dataset cleanup) and performance monitoring.
• Data visualisation: develop and support the views and extractions feeding Power BI.
• Data quality: work with survey, BI and M&E analysts to embed data quality checks and troubleshoot issues.
• Documentation: keep clear, field-knowledge-free documentation of ingestion, transformation and modelling logic.
• Collaboration: work with the Data Platform Lead, Tech and Field Implementation teams, and align with the Unity Catalog governance model.
• Leadership: matrix-manage a small team (3-5 people), handle escalations and support a follow-the-sun approach to delivery and support.

Required profile

• Experience building and operating production data pipelines, ideally on Databricks or a comparable Spark-based platform and on cloud data lake storage (ADLS Gen2, S3 or equivalent).
• SQL and hands-on dimensional modelling (star schema, Bronze-Silver-Gold or similar patterns).
• Experience building the data layer behind BI tools, ideally Power BI, including performant, well-governed semantic models and views.
• Ability to write clear technical documentation understandable by non-specialists.
• Comfortable working to formal sign-off gates and coordinating with analysts, survey and field teams rather than working in isolation.
• Desirable: experience with survey/ODK-style tools (e.g. Survey123, XLSForms); familiarity with data governance concepts such as Unity Catalog; Python and PySpark.

What we offer

• A global organization with an impactful mission and a collaborative, respectful culture.
• Opportunities for professional growth and career development.
• Flexible hybrid working environment.
• Favourable time-off policy and initiatives supporting work-life balance.