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M-Pesa Africa: Senior Data Architect

Posting Country:  South Africa
Date Posted:  23 Apr 2026
Full Time / Part Time:  Full Time
Contract Type:  Permanent

At Vodacom, we’re working hard to build a better future. A more connected, inclusive and sustainable world. As a dynamic global community, it's our human spirit, together with technology, that empowers us to achieve this. 

We challenge and innovate in order to connect people, businesses, and communities across the world. Delighting our customers and earning their loyalty drive us, and we experiment, learn fast and get it done, together.

With us, you can be truly be yourself and belong, share inspiration, embrace new opportunities, thrive, and make a real difference. 
 

 

M-Pesa is a pioneering fintech business and global market leader in mobile money. Starting from 2007 as a convenient means by which the unbanked and underbanked could make digital payments, M-Pesa has now grown to offer over 60 million active customers Financial Services, Enterprise, Merchant and Retail solutions. We are proud of our work in enabling the digital economy in our markets, and in driving financial inclusion.

 

M-Pesa Africa is the largest FinTech providing services to more than 60 million customers and 5 million businesses solutions across Financial Services, Enterprise, Merchant and Retail. We are now well on our way to becoming the preferred digital payment method across the markets that we serve, for both in-store, remote and online payments. With headquarters in both Nairobi and Johannesburg, we serve markets that include Kenya, Tanzania, DRC, Lesotho, Ghana, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Mozambique.

 

We are a united, energetic and passionate team. A place where leaders coach, teams connect, and everyone is empowered to go further, faster. A place where heroes become superheroes; through growth, opportunity, and the chance to work with the best minds in FinTech.

Role Purpose:

 

The Senior Data Architect is responsible for defining, governing, and evolving M‑PESA Africa’s enterprise data architecture across multiple markets. Operating at the intersection of mobile money, payments infrastructure, AI, and analytics, the role sets the architectural standards and strategic direction that enable secure, scalable, and high‑quality data flows across M‑PESA platforms.

As a senior individual contributor with broad organisational influence, the role partners closely with engineering, product, compliance, and group‑level stakeholders to translate complex data challenges into robust, future‑ready architectural solutions. The Senior Data Architect provides thought leadership, mentors technical teams, and ensures that data architecture consistently supports regulatory compliance, operational excellence, and data‑driven value creation across the business.

Your responsibilities will include:

Data Architecture & Strategy

  • Own the enterprise data architecture across M-PESA Africa's multi-market environment, spanning transactional, operational, analytical, and AI/ML data domains.
  • Define and enforce data modelling standards, data flow patterns, and integration architecture for real-time and batch processing pipelines.
  • Lead architecture design for data platforms supporting payment rails, API analytics, fraud and AML detection, and regulatory reporting.
  • Drive the transition to modern data architectures: data mesh, data lakehouse, event-driven patterns aligning to M-PESA's cloud and hybrid infrastructure strategy.

 

Data Governance & Standards

  • Establish and champion enterprise-wide data governance frameworks, data quality standards, and master data management (MDM) policies across all six markets.
  • Define data classification, lineage, and cataloguing standards, ensuring traceability from source systems (e.g., Fintech 2.0 Platform) through to consumption layers.
  • Partner with Compliance, Legal, and Market teams to ensure data architectures meet local regulatory obligations and cross-border data sovereignty requirement.

 

Integration & Platform Architecture

  • Architect data integration patterns between M-PESA core systems, third-party platforms and analytics/AI layers.
  • Collaborate with API gateway teams to define event-driven, API-first data exchange patterns aligned with the integration layer strategy.
  • Design and govern streaming and CDC pipelines using technologies such as Apache Kafka and Oracle GoldenGate across market-level deployments.

 

AI & Analytics Enablement

  • Design data architectures that underpin AI/ML use cases including transaction monitoring, watchlist screening, customer intelligence, and predictive analytics.
  • Define feature store design, data pipeline standards, and model serving infrastructure patterns for production ML workflows.
  • Partner with the AI/ML team to evaluate and onboard vector databases, embedding pipelines, and LLM-ready data infrastructure.

 

Leadership & Stakeholder Engagement

  • Serve as the senior data architecture voice in Architecture Review Boards, design forums, and group-level governance bodies.
  • Mentor and coach mid-level data engineers and architects across markets, building data architecture capability within the team.
  • Produce executive-ready architecture artefacts, including C4/Mermaid diagrams, ADRs, and data strategy presentations for CTO/CIO audiences.
  • Lead vendor evaluations for data platform tools, cloud data services, and governance technologies.

The ideal candidate for this role will have:

Qualifications:

  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Electrical/Computer Engineering, or a related field.
  • Professional certifications: AWS Certified Data Engineer, GCP Professional Data Engineer, TOGAF, CDMP (DAMA), or equivalent.

 

Core Competencies,knowledge and experience:

 

Key Technical Competencies:

  • Strong understanding of data modelling principles including conceptual, logical, and physical design, with experience modelling high-velocity transactional and event-driven data at scale.
  • Extensive experience with cloud data platforms on AWS and/or Azure, including services such as Redshift, Glue, Lake Formation, Azure Synapse, or Databricks.
  • Proficiency in data integration patterns including CDC (Change Data Capture), ETL/ELT pipelines, Apache Kafka event streaming, and Oracle GoldenGate for real-time data replication.
  • Strong knowledge of data architecture patterns including data lakehouse, data mesh, lambda/kappa architecture, and dimensional modelling for analytical workloads.
  • Experience with data governance frameworks and tooling including data lineage tracking, metadata cataloguing (Apache Atlas, Collibra, or equivalent), data classification, and data quality management.
  • Knowledge of data security and privacy architecture including field-level encryption, data masking, tokenisation, role-based access control (RBAC), and the design of consent-aware, jurisdiction-sensitive data flows in regulated financial environments.

 

360 Competencies

  • Strategic Systems Thinking: Balances long-term architectural vision with pragmatic, incremental delivery across complex multi-market environments.
  • Technical Leadership: Guides and elevates the work of engineering teams; sets quality bars and architectural standards without micromanaging.
  • Communication & Influence: Presents complex data concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences, including CTO/CIO-level stakeholders
  • Cross-functional Collaboration: Engages effectively across product, engineering, compliance, and market teams across multiple geographies.
  • Data-Driven Decision Making: Uses evidence, metrics, and architectural trade-off analysis to drive decisions and build conviction.
  • Adaptability: Comfortable with ambiguity and evolving requirements in a fast-moving African fintech landscape.

Key Behavioral Competencies:

  • Strong communication skills with the ability to explain complex concepts.
  • Analytical, structured thinker with strong problem‑solving ability.
  • Collaborative and influential across multi‑market teams.
  • Self‑driven, accountable, and delivery‑focused

 

Experience:

  • 8+ years of experience in data architecture, data engineering, or closely related technical disciplines, with at least 3 years in a senior or lead capacity.
  • Proven track record designing enterprise-scale data platforms in financial services, fintech, or telecommunications.
  • Deep expertise in data modelling (conceptual, logical, physical) for both OLTP and OLAP systems.
  • Hands-on experience with cloud data platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and big data technologies (Spark, Databricks, BigQuery, Redshift, etc.).
  • Proficiency in data integration patterns: ETL/ELT, Change Data Capture (CDC), event streaming, and API-driven data exchange.
  • Strong understanding of data governance frameworks and tools (DAMA-DMBOK, Apache Atlas, Collibra, or equivalent).
  • Experience with streaming platforms such as Apache Kafka in high-throughput transactional environments.
  • Experience in mobile money, payment systems, or digital financial services platforms in emerging markets.
  • Familiarity with blockchain-based identity/data architectures (verifiable credentials, DID standards, on-chain registries).
  • Exposure to AI/ML pipeline architecture, feature stores (Feast, Tecton, etc.), and LLM-ready data infrastructure.
  • Experience operating across multi-country regulatory environments in Sub-Saharan Africa.
  • Familiarity with cross-border payment data architectures

 

 

Closing date for Applications: 30 April 2026.

 

The base location for this role is, Vodacom Cape Town Campus.  


The Company's approved Employment Equity Plan and Targets will be considered as part of the recruitment process. As an Equal Opportunities employer, we actively encourage and welcome people with various disabilities to apply.
Vodacom is committed to an organisational culture that recognises, appreciates and values diversity & inclusion.

Commitment from Vodacom

Vodacom is committed to attracting, developing and retaining the very best people by offering a flexible, motivating and inclusive workplace in which talent is truly recognized, developed and rewarded. We believe that diversity plays an important role in the success of our business and we are committed to creating an inclusive work environment which respects, values, celebrates and makes the most of people’s individual differences - we are not only multinational but multicultural too. At Vodacom you will have access to our excellent flexible benefits programme that you would expect from any global company.

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