Chief AI & Data Science Architect

ATS Client; Midrand; On-site; ZAR 1,800,000 - 3,200,000; Full time

Job summary

Vodacom South Africa is seeking an Executive Head of VSA Big Data, AI & IA to lead data science and AI strategies. You will architect and deploy scalable AI solutions, mentor a high-performing team, and align AI initiatives with CX, Monetization and Productivity pillars.

Ideal candidates have 10–15 years in AI, with 5+ years in senior technical leadership, strong GenAI/LLM experience, and a CVM-focused mindset for real-time decisioning.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, AI, Data Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Statistics, Economics or related field (essential).
• Master's degree advantageous.
• Executive leadership certification advantageous.
• 10–15 years of progressive experience in AI, Data Science or related fields, with at least 5 years in a senior technical leadership role.
• Proven track record of designing and delivering large-scale AI products, platforms or services in a complex environment.
• Deep hands-on experience in GenAI, LLMs, agentic AI and real-time AI decisioning systems.
• Well versed in CVM principles, real-time recommender systems and MLOps practice.
• Extensive experience building, managing and scaling AI/ML teams across diverse cross-functional environments.
• Demonstrated success in driving adoption and commercialization of AI use cases with measurable business impact.

Responsibilities

• Principal technical expert: act as the lead data scientist for Vodacom SA, guiding ML/AI initiatives.
• AI vision: set technical roadmap for centrally built AI services aligned to strategy.
• Insight translation: convert complex data into strategic insights for non-technical audiences.
• Innovation agenda: evaluate emerging AI trends and integrate them to maintain competitive advantage.
• Thought leadership: mentor colleagues on statistics, algorithms, data and responsible AI.

Skills

Python

ML/DL

Leadership

MLOps

GenAI

LLMs

Real-time AI

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

Master's degree advantageous

Executive leadership certification advantageous

Tools

PyTorch

TensorFlow

scikit-learn

H2O

XGBoost

MLflow

Kubeflow

SageMaker

Docker

Kubernetes

Tableau/Power BI

Job description

Vodacom South Africa is seeking an Executive Head of VSA Big Data, AI & IA to lead data science and AI strategies. You will architect and deploy scalable AI solutions, mentor a high-performing team, and align AI initiatives with CX, Monetization and Productivity pillars.

Ideal candidates have 10–15 years in AI, with 5+ years in senior technical leadership, strong GenAI/LLM experience, and a CVM-focused mindset for real-time decisioning.