Jumia’s Data Platform Modernization: Building Metadata-Driven Frameworks on AWS

Introduction to Jumia

Jumia, established in 2012, stands as a prominent technology company operating across 14 African countries with its headquarters in Lagos, Nigeria. Listed on the NYSE with a market cap of $554 million, Jumia’s ecosystem encompasses a marketplace, logistics service, and payment service infrastructure.

Modernization Challenge

The company faced several challenges with its existing Hadoop-based infrastructure, including:

  • High maintenance costs
  • Limited scaling capabilities
  • Job queuing inefficiencies
  • Complex infrastructure automation
  • Local development constraints

Metadata-Driven Framework Solution

The modernization project introduced reusable, scalable frameworks addressing various phases:

  • Data orchestration using Apache Airflow
  • Data migration from HDFS to Amazon S3
  • Data ingestion through batch and micro-batch processing
  • Data processing with Apache Iceberg
  • Data maintenance automation

Technical Implementation

The solution leverages AWS serverless services including Amazon EMR Serverless, Amazon MWAA, and DynamoDB. The architecture emphasizes data protection through encryption and follows the principle of least privilege. YAML-based configuration files drive the framework’s functionality, enabling streamlined development workflows.

Key Benefits and Results

The implementation delivered significant improvements:

  • 50% reduction in data lake costs
  • Standardized workflows across teams
  • Improved deployment efficiency
  • Enhanced data governance
  • Faster time-to-production

Framework Components

The solution includes sophisticated components for DAG creation, validation layers, dependency management, and notification systems. It utilizes Apache Iceberg’s ACID capabilities for reliable data processing and implements maintenance tasks for optimizing table metadata management.

For detailed information about this implementation, visit AWS’s detailed blog post about Jumia’s next-generation data platform