Data Management Lead – Analytics – Retail at Salt South Africa

About the Role


A leading South African value retailer is restructuring its analytics capability - moving away from flat team structures and long-term contractor reliance toward permanent leaders who take real ownership of their domains. This is one of those critical hires.
The Data Management Lead owns the data management layer that underpins all analytics across the business. This means establishing and governing robust semantic models and semantic layers, building a multi-year roadmap, and leading a small internal team - while collaborating closely with an external data engineering partner. The role requires someone who thinks in years, not tickets.


Team You'll Lead


1 Data Steward
1 Support Analyst
3 Analytics Engineers
Close collaboration with an external Data Engineering Lead and their team of approximately 6 engineers (GCP-focused; Microsoft stack sits with this role)


Key Responsibilities


Own the design, implementation, and governance of semantic models and semantic layers - Power BI modelling treated as a semantic layer, not just a visualisation tool
Build and drive a multi-year data management strategy and roadmap - five-year thinking, not just the next sprint
Lead, coach, and develop the internal analytics team
Establish clear intake, triage, and prioritisation processes to protect team capacity from ad-hoc demand
Collaborate with the external engineering team on data availability, quality, and GCP to Microsoft platform integration
Build and maintain a sustainable, production-ready Microsoft analytics environment
Challenge and reduce reliance on non-scalable patterns (SharePoint lists as databases, low-code technical debt)
Act as primary technical and strategic owner of the analytics data management domain


Requirements


Strong data engineering background with deep expertise in semantic modelling and Power BI - tabular/semantic models, not report-building
Proven experience leading technical teams with genuine domain ownership
Demonstrated ability to build long-term roadmaps and deliver sustainable platforms
Solid grasp of data modelling best practice, performance, and governance within a Microsoft analytics stack
Effective across both technical teams and business stakeholders


Advantageous


Retail or large multi-site operational experience
Hybrid environment experience - Microsoft analytics alongside cloud platforms (GCP)
Experience bringing structure and accountability to previously flat or contractor-heavy teams


Role Details


Employment type: Permanent
Location: Kuils River, Cape Town (on-site)
Target start: October 2026 / phased into FY27
Annual package: R1 350 000.00