Data Engineer

Role: Data Engineer

Location: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Job type: Full time, permanent

Working arrangement: Hybrid

This position offers a hybrid work model, allowing flexibility between working from home and our office. Typically, employees are expected to work 2 days in the office per week.

Why QS?

At QS, we believe that work should empower you. That’s why we foster a flexible working environment that encourages every employee to own their career whilst thriving personally and professionally. Our company values underpin everything we do – we collaborate, respect and support each other.

It’s our mission to empower motivated people around the world to fulfil their potential through higher education, ensuring that everyone has access to opportunities that change lives.

Our diversity makes us stronger. By sharing our experiences, we learn from one another and achieve more together, driving progress across the sector.

At QS, you’ll be responsible for implementing real change in the international higher education landscape. You’ll take on meaningful challenges that see a positive impact across the business and the wider sector.

We’re confident you’ll feel right at home here. QS was named as one of Newsweek’s Top 100 Most Loved Workplaces® in the UK (October 2023), recognising the respect, trust and appreciation that drive our culture every day. And as a gold-accredited Investors in People organisation – putting us among the top 28% of workplaces globally – it’s official: QS is a place where everyone can thrive.

As a Data Engineer, this is what you’ll be doing:

At QS, we believe that empowering people through data drives meaningful impact in higher education worldwide. As a Data Engineer, you will play a vital role in designing, building, and maintaining the data pipelines, APIs, and services at the heart of QS Cerebrum, and our enterprise analytics and AI platforms. Your work will enable innovative, data-driven decision-making across the organization, helping to unlock insights that support learners, institutions, and our global mission. This is an exciting opportunity to join our Data Engineering team, where you’ll work on ELT/ETL pipelines, data transformations, API delivery, and knowledge graph enrichment. You’ll collaborate closely with data science and business intelligence colleagues to deliver robust, scalable solutions that directly contribute to QS’s vision of enabling motivated people everywhere to fulfill their potential through higher education.

If you’re eager to grow, innovate, and make a difference in a diverse, supportive environment, we invite you to see yourself in this role and help shape the future of education with us.

Role responsibilities:

• Design and maintain data pipelines, including integrating real-time and streaming data to support dynamic business needs.
• Build and optimize data transformations, ensuring that data quality and lineage are consistently embedded throughout all processes.
• Contribute to the design and development of core data models and structures for our data lakehouses and marts, implementing and adhering to architectural best practices.
• Develop and maintain APIs and delivery mechanisms to serve both internal and external consumers, ensuring reliable and scalable data access.
• Support knowledge graph enrichment by modeling relationships, performing entity resolution, and integrating vector search to enhance data connectivity and insights.
• Apply business acumen to effectively interpret data requirements, ensuring that technical solutions align with the underlying business purpose and add measurable value.
• Implement data quality tests, data contracts, and schema management to maintain high standards of data integrity and consistency.
• Document pipelines and workflows, contributing to comprehensive metadata and lineage documentation for transparency and ongoing improvement.
• Any other duties that fall within the purpose and scope of the role, including tasks that may arise outside of standard business hours.

Key skills and experience:

• Demonstrated ability to solve complex problems with curiosity and resourcefulness.
• Effective communication skills, with the capacity to clearly explain technical concepts to colleagues and stakeholders of varied backgrounds.
• Sound judgment in balancing technical design decisions with real business needs.
• Adaptability and a collaborative mindset, thriving in fast-paced and evolving environments.
• Entrepreneurial spirit and initiative, with a track record of driving innovation and delivering results.
• Proven proficiency in SQL and Python, and experience working with cloud data platforms such as Snowflake or equivalent.
• Hands-on experience with orchestration tools (e.g., Glue, Airflow, dbt) or similar technologies enabling scalable and reliable data delivery.
• Ability to model and manage core data structures for data lakehouses, marts, and graph-based designs.
• Experience with APIs (REST, GraphQL) and event-driven design patterns is appreciated.
• Exposure to streaming frameworks and machine learning / artificial intelligence workflows is valued.
• We value candidates who have enriched knowledge graphs, performed entity resolution, or contributed to advanced data connectivity and insights.
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent professional experience is welcomed; we encourage candidates from diverse backgrounds and non-traditional pathways to apply.

So, who are we and what do we do?

QS is the world leader in higher education services, analytics, insights and intelligence. From consultancy to student mobility, academic partnerships to branding solutions, our services power both institutional and individual success.

We’re behind the world’s most widely read university rankings (Meltwater 2023). Our QS World University Rankings® reach hundreds of millions, shaping decisions and guiding futures.

Since launching in 1990, our impact and influence have only grown. Today, we work with more than 2,000 of the world’s leading higher education institutions, over 12,000 employers, and governments seeking change and socioeconomic development through higher education.

Join QS and you’ll join an 800-strong community of problem-solvers, creators, collaborators and change-makers based in 40+ countries and 11 international offices, including Australia, Malaysia, India, Romania, Singapore, France, Germany, the USA and our headquarters in London.

With every talented new hire, business acquisition and bold initiative, we’re strengthening our reach and delivering even greater value to institutions and learners worldwide. Are you ready to shape the future of higher education?

We take investing in our people very seriously.

As standard you will have:

• Competitive base salary
• Access to an annual bonus scheme (for qualifying roles only)
• 20 days annual leave, plus public holidays
• Generous maternity and paternity leave
• Access to an Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) and MiCare health
• A vibrant social environment and multicultural and multinational culture

But that’s not all. Outside of these standard benefits we also offer resources to allow professional growth and wellness initiatives to nurture a healthy mindset:

• Free subscription to the Calm App – the #1 app for sleep, meditation, and relaxation
• A focus on welfare which is led by our global wellness team, with mental health first aiders globally
• Access to a variety of diversity and inclusion initiatives and groups
• Strong recognition and reward programs – including a peer-to-peer recognition platform, quarterly and annual QS Applaud Awards, Connect with your Career annual PD event
• Support for volunteering and study leave
• Free subscription to LinkedIn learning – with over 5000 courses and programmes at your fingertips
• Options to join our outstanding global Mentorship programme
• Brand new breakout and relaxing spaces in office