What the job is

This is a contract role for an AI Data Engineer specializing in Claude Code, offered by E-Merge IT Recruitment. The position is fully remote and based in Johannesburg, Gauteng. You will work on building advanced data systems and AI-powered solutions for modern businesses.

What you will do

You will design and build scalable data pipelines that handle large amounts of information in batch or near-real-time. You will collect and process data from various sources like APIs, databases, files, event streams, and web pages. You will develop and maintain large-scale web scraping systems to gather data efficiently. You will clean, validate, and transform data to make it useful for analytics and AI applications. You will create AI workflows and systems that use tools, APIs, and databases, including features like tool calling, structured outputs, and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG). You will also support data storage systems like data lakes and warehouses and ensure data quality through monitoring and validation.

What you need

You must have strong experience with programming languages like Python or Node.js/TypeScript. You should have advanced SQL skills and experience with relational databases. You need proven experience building data pipelines for production use. Familiarity with cloud platforms like AWS is required, as well as experience with data lakes, warehouses, or lakehouse technologies. You must have hands-on experience with AI platforms such as OpenAI, Anthropic, or similar. Experience with web scraping tools like Playwright, Puppeteer, Scrapy, or Selenium is also needed. Knowledge of APIs, containers, CI/CD, testing, and secure engineering practices is essential.

What you will get

This is a contract role that offers a salary of up to R650 per hour, negotiable based on your experience. The job is fully remote, allowing you to work from anywhere. You will have the opportunity to work on cutting-edge AI and data engineering projects.