Fabric Data Engineer (Senior or Lead)

Position: Permanent
Location: Fully remote. Cape Town based candidates are favoured, as the role includes occasional in person meetings with colleagues and clients.
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We are Haefele Software. We are a boutique software development firm, established in London 2006, with a growing team of 50 between London and Cape Town.
We are engineering-focused and build high-performance Agile teams, enjoying complex problems, serving a variety of industries and clients, generally abroad.
As a collective, we strive to be surrounded by equally personable, sharp, and growth-minded people, in a space that values relationships, people first, and pragmatic process, to foster the mentor and the mentorable.
Fabric Data Engineer (Senior or Lead)
The Role
We are looking for a data engineer who works comfortably at both ends of the delivery spectrum. You will design the data architecture that an enterprise depends on, and you will also build the pipelines that make it work. The role spans three types of engagement: migrating existing estates onto Microsoft Fabric, modernising platforms that have outgrown their original design, and standing up greenfield Fabric implementations from a blank sheet.
Microsoft Fabric is a firm requirement for this position. Candidates without demonstrable, hands on Fabric delivery experience will not be considered. You will work directly with client stakeholders, so the ability to explain architectural trade offs to a technical audience and to a business audience is as important as the engineering itself.
Your first 6 months at Haefele Software
Everyone starts at Haefele Software by learning our processes. Our staff experience team will ensure you have all your hardware, gear, and swag on your start date. You’ll need to work through our onboarding guide to get yourself set up and comfortable on our communications platform (MS Teams and Office 365) and added to the relevant groups and channels for the project team you will be joining. You’ll meet your team, client, and the broader engineering team.
You’ll build relationships with the developers on your team, get to know your assigned Development Practice Lead, and you’ll complete our fundamentals training program using our internal learning platform. You’ll receive regular structured feedback from your team. You will regularly catch up and deliver feedback to the developers on your team, set goals and track their progress on the road to their professional improvement.
What you will do
Design and document data architecture for enterprise clients, covering medallion patterns, domain driven design and governance frameworks.
Build and orchestrate ingestion and transformation pipelines, with a bias towards metadata driven approaches that scale beyond a single project.
Lead migration and modernisation work, moving workloads from platforms such as Teradata and on premises SQL Server into Fabric and Azure.
Deliver end to end Fabric implementations across Lakehouse, Warehouse, Data Factory, OneLake and Real Time Intelligence.
Build and tune Power BI semantic models, including DAX, row level and object level security, and deployment pipelines.
Establish CI/CD for data platforms, including source control, branching strategy, automated deployment and environment promotion.
Apply AI native engineering practices to accelerate delivery, including agentic workflows and the Model Context Protocol.
Set technical standards and review the work of other engineers. At Lead level, this includes owning the technical direction of an engagement and mentoring the delivery team.
Core Skills
Microsoft Fabric, end to end Lakehouse, Warehouse, Data Factory, OneLake and Real Time Intelligence.
Power BI Semantic models, DAX, row level security and object level security, deployment pipelines, and performance tuning.
Data architecture Medallion patterns, domain driven design, and governance frameworks.
Data engineering Metadata driven ingestion, ETL and ELT orchestration, and CI/CD for data platforms.
Migration and modernisation Moving Teradata and on premises SQL estates onto Fabric and Azure, including assessment, sequencing, reconciliation and cutover.
AI native data engineering Agentic workflows, the Model Context Protocol, and the use of Claude Code on Fabric.
Essential Personal Skills
Excellent coach and leader, able to hold the attention and respect of their peers.
High EQ, can read the team’s personalities and ensure that they get the best performance from each person by utilizing their skills and strengths most effectively.
Open-minded collaborator, always seeking the best solution, not holding onto dogmatic approaches.
Favours teamwork and collaboration over individual delivery.
Favours outcome over output.
Self-motivated and expects the same from others on their team.
Spots learning opportunities and actively shares their knowledge.
Recognizes when team members are in a comfort zone and look for ways to challenge more junior team members.
Uses data as evidence to back up technical decisions.
Uses standard approaches to problem-solving where possible. Implementing novel solutions only where no solution to the problem exists in the community or other projects.
Thrives when challenged, seemingly unstoppable in their approach to solving a challenging task.
Reader and researcher, on top of the ever-changing technology landscape.
Clear and professional communicator. Able to clearly articulate ideas and explanations with team members and stakeholders alike.
Comfortable with ambiguity, an expert at digging into a vague requirement and getting clarity.
Essential Technologies
Microsoft Fabric
Power BI
Azure Synapse
Onelake
Data Factory
Dax
T SQL
Spark
Azure DevOps
Git
MCP
Nice to have
Experience designing and delivering training, whether formal client enablement sessions, internal upskilling, or structured handover to a client team at the end of an engagement. This carries real weight for us, because a large part of the value we leave behind is a client team that can operate the platform without us.
Relevant Microsoft certifications in the Fabric, Azure data or Power BI tracks.
Experience in a consulting or client facing delivery environment.
Exposure to data governance tooling such as Microsoft Purview.
What we look for beyond the technology
Clear written communication. Much of the role is remote, and decisions need to survive being read rather than explained in person.
Comfort with ambiguity at the start of an engagement, and the discipline to reduce it quickly.
A willingness to be challenged on architectural decisions, and to challenge others in turn.
Location and ways of working
The role is fully remote. Candidates based in Cape Town are favoured, because the role involves occasional in person meetings with colleagues and clients. Applicants outside Cape Town will be considered where the rest of the profile is a strong match, and should be willing to travel for those sessions on occasion.
Remuneration
The range spans the Senior and Lead levels. Placement within it depends on demonstrated experience, depth of hands on
Fabric delivery, and the degree of architectural and client ownership the appointee takes on
Fabric Data Engineer (Senior or Lead)
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