Job Summary

The Platform Engineer (UDP) is responsible for designing, building, and operating the core data platform foundations on GCP that enable trusted data ingestion, analytics, and AI use cases across Prudential Africa.
The role ensures the UDP is secure, scalable, observable, and compliant, while providing self-service capabilities to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists across multiple African markets

Key Responsibilities

UDP Core Platform Engineering

• Design, build, and operate the Unified Data Platform (UDP) infrastructure using Infrastructure as Code and automation first principles on Google Cloud Platform
• Engineer and maintain standardised data platform components, including:
• Cloud landing zones for data workloads
• Compute, storage, and networking for data processing
• Secure connectivity between source systems and the data platform
• Ensure platform scalability, resilience, and cost efficiency across dev, test, and production environments.

Data Enablement & SelfService

• Enable selfservice onboarding for data sources, pipelines, and analytics workloads through reusable templates and golden paths.
• Partner with Data Engineers to support:
• Data ingestion pipelines
• Data quality and validation frameworks
• Data contracts and metadata integration
• Provide platform capabilities that support downstream BI, advanced analytics, and AI/ML readiness.

Observability, Reliability & Operations

• Implement end-to-end data and platform observability, including:
• Pipeline health and failures
• Platform performance and capacity
• Data freshness and availability indicators
• Apply SRE practices to the data platform, including SLIs/SLOs, incident management, and post incident reviews.
• Provide Level‑2/3 operational support for UDP platform incidents and escalations.

Security, Governance & Regulatory Compliance

• Embed securitybydesign into the UDP, including identity, access controls, encryption, secrets management, and network security.
• Ensure alignment with:
• Group Data & AI Strategy
• Local data protection regulations (PIAs, lawful processing, residency where applicable)
• Support audit, risk, and assurance activities related to the data platform.
• Implement policyascode and guardrails to ensure compliant use of the platform by LBUs.

CI/CD & Platform Automation

• Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines for data platform components and infrastructure.
• Automate platform provisioning, upgrades, monitoring, and recovery processes.
• Maintain shared libraries and templates to ensure consistent and repeatable deployments across markets.

Continuous Improvement & Platform Evolution

• Continuously improve the UDP in line with evolving business needs (analytics, AI, regulatory reporting).
• Evaluate and adopt new dataplatform and cloud capabilities aligned to Group standards.
• Contribute to the roadmap for AIready data foundations (without owning model development).

Skill Requirements

Core Technical Skills

• Strong experience with cloud-based data platforms (GCP preferred).
• Handson expertise in Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, Ansible).
• Experience with container platforms (Kubernetes, Docker) supporting data workloads.
• Strong understanding of CI/CD tooling and automation for platform services.(Github Actions, Jenkins)
• Proficiency in scripting/programming (Python strongly preferred).

Data Platform & SRE Knowledge

• Experience supporting data pipelines, data lakes, and analytics platforms.
• Practical understanding of platform observability, reliability, and capacity planning.
• Exposure to data governance, metadata, and data quality concepts.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience working in financial services / insurance or other regulated environments.
• Exposure to AI/ML platform foundations (feature stores, model deployment pipelines, MLOps readiness).
• Cloud or Kubernetes certifications (GCP, Azure, CKA/CKAD).

Soft Skills

• Strong problem-solving and system thinking.
• Ability to work across central Group teams and local business units.
• Clear communication with technical and non‑technical stakeholders.
• Comfortable operating in a multicounty, matrixed environment.

Other Requirements