Data Engineer

The Government Technology Agency (GovTech) is the lead agency driving Singapore’s Smart Nation initiatives and public sector digital transformation. As the Centre of Excellence for Infocomm Technology and Smart Systems (ICT & SS), GovTech develops the Singapore Government’s capabilities in Data Science & Artificial Intelligence, Application Development, Smart City Technology, Digital Infrastructure, and Cybersecurity.

At GovTech, we offer you a purposeful career to make lives better. We empower our people to master their craft through continuous and robust learning and development opportunities all year round. Our GovTechies embody our Agile, Bold and Collaborative values to deliver impactful solutions.

GovTech aims to transform the delivery of Government digital services by taking an "outside-in" view, putting citizens and businesses at the heart of everything we do.

Play a part in Singapore’s vision to build a Smart Nation and embark on your meaningful journey to build tech for public good. Join us to advance our mission and shape your future with us today!

Learn more about GovTech at tech.gov.sg.

Who we are
The mission of GovTech's Data and Artificial Intelligence Platforms team is to deliver high-quality reusable Data and AI assets and services for policy making, service delivery and operations across WOG.

What the products are
We are seeking a Data Engineer to join our Data and Artificial Intelligence Platforms (DAIP) team. The existing Government Data Architecture (GDA), launched in 2019, laid the groundwork for WOG data sharing via TCs, SSOTs and central platforms. As the data technology landscape is rapidly evolving and data/system requirements are becoming increasingly complex and interconnected, to better support agencies, the next phase of GDA (i.e. GDA 2.0) aims to consolidate, streamline, and elevate the products and initiatives within the WOG data landscape – this includes the development of the following products.

• DataHive as the next-gen WOG Data Discovery & Request Platform to cater to a wider range of WOG requirements and use cases. DataHive has been further enhanced to support both data requestors and providers as follows. 1) Data requestors/consumers will experience a streamlined data search and request process, with options to access data via curated APIs and through an analytics workbench. 2) Data providers can expect more flexibility and control in the management of datasets on the platform itself.
• Data products that compute and serve derived data for ops and service delivery for multiple agencies. By adopting the “Build Once, Use Many Times” approach for such data products, the intent is to achieve the benefit of cost-savings, better data quality and improving time-to-market for new services.
• Fraud Detection Platform (FDP). FDP is a central platform for Grant Fraud Insights. It draws data from TC Business & Individual, combines it as a graph and generates insights on businesses and individuals for government grant, procurement and finance due diligence checks and audits.

What you will be working on

As a data engineer, you will:

• Architect and build ingestion pipelines to collect, clean, merge, and harmonize data from different source systems.
• Day-to-day monitoring of databases and ETL systems, e.g., database capacity planning and maintenance, monitoring, and performance tuning; diagnose issues and deploy measures to prevent recurrence; ensure maximum database uptime;
• Construct, test, and update useful and reusable data models based on data needs of end users.
• Design and build secure mechanisms for end users and systems to access data in data warehouse.
• Research, propose and develop new technologies and processes to improve agency data infrastructure.
• Collaborate with data stewards to establish and enforce data governance policies, best practices and procedures.
• Maintain data catalogue to document data assets, metadata and lineage.
• Implement data quality checks and validation processes to ensure data accuracy and consistency.
• Implement and enforce data security best practices, including access control, encryption, and data masking, to safeguard sensitive data.
• Learn and share knowledge in a multi-disciplinary team.

Additionally, more senior engineers will be expected to:

• Establish best practices
• Share your expertise and mentor other engineers
• Help with recruiting.

You are not just here to write code, but also to figure out what we should be building and how we should build it.

Your job will be to bring expertise and capability to the public sector. Sometimes this means coding new systems from scratch. Other times this means using the best solutions the community has to offer. We use cloud services, open source software, and commodity hardware as far as possible. Knowing what to build and what to reuse lets us avoid wasting time on solved problems and focus on delivering actual value.

What it is like working here
We build products that serve a variety of agency users, who use them to solve highly meaningful problems pertinent to our society, from transportation, to education, to healthcare. The public sector is full of opportunities where even the simplest software can have a big impact on people’s lives. We are here to improve how we live as a society through what we can offer as a government.

• Rapid Prototyping - Instead of spending too much time debating ideas we prefer testing them. This identifies potential problems quickly, and more importantly, conveys what is possible to others easily.
• Reliable Productization - To scale an idea, a prototype or a Minimum Viable Product to a software product, we scrutinize and commit to its usability, reliability, scalability and maintainability.
• Ownership - In addition to technical responsibilities, this means having ideas on how things should be done and taking responsibility for seeing them through. Building something that you believe in is the best way to build something good.
• Continuous Learning - Working on new ideas often means not fully understanding what you are working on. Taking time to learn new architectures, frameworks, technologies, and even languages is not just encouraged but essential.

What we are looking for
We work mostly in Python, JavaScript and Scala. We are looking for proficiency in at least one language and the ability to learn. Strong passion in software engineering is what matters to us.

We look for people who:

• Have a demonstrated ability to build software
• Can write code to solve abstract problems
• Can think critically on how to get the code correct and cover the edge cases
• Can talk and reason about code with other engineers
• Have a demonstrated ability in writing efficient code
• Adequate exposure to cloud or on-prem production environment, and experience in deployment would be an advantage
• Understanding of devops, CI/CD would be an advantage
• Have an interest in data science and machine learning
• Take the initiative to make things happen
• Want to work for the public good

Our employee benefits are based on a total rewards approach, offering a holistic and market-competitive suite of perks. These include leave benefits to meet your work-life needs and employee wellness programmes.

We champion flexible work arrangements (subject to your job role) and trust that you will manage your own time to deliver your best, wherever you are, and whatever works best for you.

Learn more about life inside GovTech at go.gov.sg/GovTechCareers.

Stay connected with us on social media at go.gov.sg/ConnectWithGovTech.