Junior Data Engineer

Department: AI & Data

Location: India

Employment Type: FullTime

About SAAF Finance

SAAF Finance is a technology-driven lending platform building the data and automation backbone for modern mortgage and loan origination. Our Data Engineering team designs and maintains the pipelines and platforms that power analytics, underwriting insights, reporting, and AI-driven decisioning across the business. We're looking for early-career engineers who are curious, eager to learn, and want to build real-world data systems from day one.

About the Role

As a Data Engineer (Entry Level), you'll work closely with senior engineers to build and maintain data pipelines, write and optimize SQL, and support our cloud-based data warehouse. This role is ideal for freshers or engineers with up to 2 years of experience who want strong mentorship and hands-on exposure to modern data engineering tools and practices.

A Snapshot of Your Responsibilities

• Assist in building and maintaining data pipelines under the guidance of senior engineers.

• Write, test, and optimize SQL queries to extract, transform, and validate data.

• Support batch data ingestion and basic ETL/ELT workflows using Python.

• Help maintain data quality by running basic checks and flagging inconsistencies.

• Learn and work within our cloud data warehouse (Snowflake/Databricks) under supervision.

• Document your work — data flow notes, basic technical specs, and test cases.

• Participate in code reviews and incorporate feedback to improve code quality.

• Collaborate with analytics and business teams to understand data needs.

• Take a proactive approach to learning new tools, languages, and best practices.

• Communicate progress and blockers clearly with your team.

What You Will Need

For Freshers (0 years experience):

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, IT, or a related field.

• Basic understanding of SQL — able to write simple SELECT, JOIN, and aggregation queries.

• Basic knowledge of Python programming.

• Basic awareness of data warehousing concepts (tables, schemas, ETL at a conceptual level).

• Understanding of relational databases and data structures.

• Strong willingness to learn, good analytical thinking, and attention to detail.

• Good verbal and written communication skills.

For 1–2 Years Experienced:

• 1–2 years of hands-on experience in a data engineering, analytics engineering, or similar role.

• Working knowledge of SQL, including joins, aggregations, and basic performance tuning.

• Hands-on experience with Python; exposure to PySpark is a plus.

• Exposure to a cloud data warehouse or lakehouse platform (Snowflake, Databricks, Redshift, or BigQuery).

• Basic exposure to ETL/data pipeline tools (e.g., Airflow, dbt, Fivetran) is a plus.

• Familiarity with version control (Git/GitHub/Bitbucket).

• Basic understanding of any cloud platform (AWS, Azure, or GCP).

• Good problem-solving skills and ability to work in an agile team environment.

Nice to Have

• Academic or internship project experience involving data pipelines or analytics.

• Exposure to workflow orchestration tools such as Airflow.

• Basic familiarity with streaming concepts (Kafka) or NoSQL databases.

• Exposure to BI/visualization tools (Power BI, Tableau, Looker).

• Basic knowledge of Docker or containerization concepts.