Data Science Lead (AI/ Software Development)

Morton Moore Financial Services; George; On-site; ZAR 837,000 - 949,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Player-coach leadership

Own AI initiatives

Shape AI strategy with leadership

Cloud-native data stack (Azure, Snow,

Job summary

Morton Moore Financial Services in George, Western Cape, South Africa, seeks an experienced Data Science Lead to build and drive its AI and ML capability on-site in George. The role blends hands-on modelling with team leadership in a young, ambitious data organisation, with strong governance and regulatory focus.

The successful candidate will mentor data scientists, shape the AI strategy with senior leadership, and own end-to-end model lifecycle from discovery to deployment, monitoring and

Qualifications

• Five+ years in data science or ML, incl. at least two years in senior/lead capacity.
• Proven track record delivering production ML models with measurable business impact.
• Strong Python and SQL skills with familiarity in modern data warehousing.

Responsibilities

• Lead design, development and production deployment of ML models delivering business value.
• Own model lifecycle end to end from discovery to production monitoring and retraining.
• Run stakeholder discovery sessions to scope opportunities and define success metrics.
• Build and maintain supervised, unsupervised and time-series models across use cases.
• Partner with Data/Analytics Engineering to ensure robust data pipelines for model development.
• Set and enforce standards for model quality, validation, documentation and peer review.
• Implement MLOps and deployment pipelines on a cloud-native stack.
• Ensure governance, explainability and regulatory compliance (POPIA, FAIS, Treating Customers Fairly).
• Present outputs and insights to executive audiences in clear commercial language.
• Mentor data scientists via pairing, code reviews and coaching while hands-on.

Skills

Python

SQL

Data warehousing

Tools

Azure

GCP

AWS

Job description

Overview

Our client, a well-established insurance and financial services group based in George, is seeking an experienced Data Science Lead to build and drive its AI and machine learning capability. This is a hands‑on leadership role in a young, ambitious data organisation where the successful candidate will remain personally close to the modelling work while mentoring a growing team. The role is permanent and based on site in George.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the design, development and production deployment of machine learning models that deliver measurable commercial value.
• Own the full model lifecycle end to end, from initial business requirement and discovery through to production monitoring and retraining.
• Run business discovery sessions with stakeholders to scope opportunities, define success measures and prioritise the AI delivery roadmap.
• Build and maintain supervised, unsupervised and time-series models across use cases such as customer lifetime value, propensity, churn and fraud detection.
• Partner with Data Engineering and Analytics Engineering teams to ensure robust, well-governed data pipelines supporting model development.
• Set and enforce technical standards for model quality, validation, documentation and peer review.
• Implement MLOps practices and production deployment pipelines on a modern cloud‑native stack.
• Ensure model governance, explainability and compliance with regulatory expectations, including POPIA, FAIS and Treating Customers Fairly principles.
• Present model outputs, insights and recommendations to executive and non‑technical business audiences in clear commercial language.
• Mentor and develop data scientists through pairing, code review and structured coaching while remaining personally hands‑on.
• Shape the broader AI strategy in partnership with senior leadership and contribute to capability planning as the team scales.
• Evaluate and introduce relevant innovations, including large language models, generative AI and agent frameworks, where they create practical business value.
• Monitor deployed models in production and report on performance, drift and realised business impact.

Requirements

• At least five years' experience in data science or machine learning, including a minimum of two years in a senior or lead capacity.
• Proven track record of personally delivering production machine learning models with measurable business impact.
• Strong Python and SQL skills, with familiarity in modern data warehousing.
• Hands‑on experience with supervised, unsupervised and time‑series modelling techniques.
• Experience owning the full model lifecycle from business requirement through to production.
• Experience with cloud data platforms such as Azure, GCP or AWS.
• Strong business engagement and stakeholder communication skills, including presenting to executive committees.
• Experience leading or mentoring data science teams while remaining technically hands‑on.
• Working awareness of model governance, explainability and regulatory requirements in a South African financial services context.
• Advantageous: insurance or financial services domain exposure, CLV, propensity, fraud or churn modelling, MLOps pipelines, Snowflake, dbt, Databricks, Azure ML, Vertex AI, BigQuery ML or generative AI frameworks.

Benefits and Compensation

Our client is offering a salary of R 75 000 to R 85 000 per month, depending on experience and qualifications.

• A genuine player‑coach leadership opportunity where you lead a team and stay in the work.
• Full ownership of AI initiatives that directly influence how the business grows, prices and retains customers.
• The opportunity to shape the AI strategy and delivery roadmap alongside senior leadership.
• Work with a modern, cloud‑native data stack including Azure, Snowflake, Python, dbt and GCP.
• Scope to build a team culture and technical standard that becomes the benchmark across the group.
• Clear growth path into a broader AI leadership role as the capability and team scale.