Job details

Zutari: Co-creating an engineered impact.

Zutari is a well-established, management-owned engineering firm with almost 90 years' experience. As human-centred engineering consultants and advisors, we are trusted by our clients, business partners, communities and other stakeholders across Africa.

We co-create engineering solutions that have a positive impact and improve people's lives. Zutari values inclusion and recognises the importance of a diverse, talented workforce, believing that people need other people to succeed.

What kind of talent do we pursue?

We employ people with the right attitude and a positive mindset, who are motivated by doing the right thing, getting things done and share a sense of urgency. People who have an impact in our teams and broader community. People who think differently and connect with those around them to co-create new opportunities and leave a meaningful legacy.

Role overview 

Zutari's Digital Advisory team is expanding its data practice, delivering innovative solutions across energy, transport, water, and buildings. Working at the intersection of engineering and technology, the team partners with BIM and IoT specialists to connect static 3D and asset data with real-time information, bringing digital twins to life.

Role responsibilities

• Collaborate across cross-functional teams to deliver multiple concurrent data and analytics projects.
• Ingest and consolidate raw data from diverse sources, including Building Information Modelling (BIM), IoT sensors, and ERP systems.
• Design, build, and maintain scalable data architectures and end-to-end data pipelines.
• Perform data analysis and develop BI dashboards to surface actionable insights for stakeholders.
• Research, prototype, and validate machine learning and AI proof-of-concepts to address business challenges.

Minimum requirements

• A "can-do" attitude and genuine passion for applying data in engineering and infrastructure domains
• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field
• At least 4 years' experience in data engineering and/or data science
• Fluent in Python, including object-oriented design, unit testing, and Git version control
• Hands-on experience with SQL databases, data warehousing, and data pipeline design
• Experience with Docker for containerisation and deployment of data applications
• Experience working with time-series data and IoT data streams
• Ability to communicate complex technical findings clearly to non-technical engineering stakeholders - both in writing and in presentations
• Comfortable leading technical decisions on a workstream and collaborating across multidisciplinary teams (BIM, IoT, engineering)

Advantageous

• Master's or higher qualification
• Experience in infrastructure sectors (energy, water, transport, or buildings)
• Understanding of asset lifecycle data and digital twin concepts, including semantic data modelling or ontologies
• Experience with BIM data formats (IFC) or integration with BIM platforms
• Data engineering certification
• Software development and software engineering best practices
• Docker / containerisation
• Leveraging Claude Code (or similar) to increase output
• Proven experience building and deploying ML/AI solutions beyond proof-of-concept
• Cloud and data platform experience: Snowflake, Microsoft Fabric, Databricks, BigQuery, or similar
• Streaming and real-time pipeline experience (Kafka, Spark Streaming, or similar)
• MQTT / SCADA / industrial IoT protocols (e.g. Sparkplug B, OPC-UA, Modbus)
• Familiarity with geospatial data and tools (e.g. GeoPandas, PostGIS, or similar)
• Time-series database experience (InfluxDB, TimescaleDB, or similar)

We believe that a diverse workforce is key to our business success.  We seek the best people for our jobs based on their skills, qualifications, and experience.  We embrace the principle of equal opportunity in employment, and we work towards eliminating all forms of unlawful discrimination in our employment practices.  In support of diversity and the equal opportunity principle, preference will be given to individuals from designated groups within South Africa.