Data Scientist

Centrax Group; Johannesburg; On-site; ZAR 1,000,000 - 1,500,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Market related salary

Job summary

Centrax Group seeks a Data Scientist to apply advanced analytics and ML to finance and actuarial data. You will translate business questions into analytical problems, build models and productionise them, turning results into insights that shape decision-making across the finance operating model.

Focus areas include problem framing, model development and MLOps deployment, analytics products, visualization and governance. Strong experience in insurance/finance is required.

Qualifications

• 6+ years in data science, analytics or quantitative modelling with 3+ years in insurance/financial services.
• Advanced Python and/or R, plus strong SQL for large-scale data manipulation.
• Hands-on ML with scikit-learn, XGBoost, TensorFlow or PyTorch.
• Solid statistics: regression/GLMs, time-series forecasting, hypothesis testing.
• Model deployment to production on cloud platforms with MLOps tooling.
• ETL and data cleansing experience (Informatica or similar).
• Familiarity with Data Mesh, MDM and finance data lakes/warehouses.
• Visualization in Power BI or Tableau; stakeholder storytelling.
• Understanding of finance/actuarial data and reporting standards.
• Git, Jira; Agile and Waterfall methodologies.

Responsibilities

• Translate business questions into analytical problems and build production-ready models.
• Turn results into insight that shapes forecasting, cost analytics, anomaly detection and reports.
• Develop analytical data products and tell stories to stakeholders.
• Ensure model risk, ethics and governance in deployment.

Skills

Python

R

SQL

ML modelling

Statistics

Data visualization

MLOps

ETL

Git/Jira

Agile/Waterfall

Tools

scikit-learn

XGBoost

TensorFlow

PyTorch

Azure ML

Databricks

AWS SageMaker

Informatica

Power BI

Tableau

Git

Jira

Job description

Our client, a leading financial services and insurance group, is looking for a Data Scientist to apply advanced analytics, statistical modelling and machine learning to finance and actuarial data. Reporting to the Head: Centre IT, you will turn business questions into analytical problems, build and productionise models, and translate results into insight that shapes decision-making across the finance operating model, from forecasting and cost analytics to anomaly detection, automation and reporting intelligence.

Key focus areas: problem framing and exploratory analysis, model development and MLOps deployment, analytical data products, visualisation and stakeholder storytelling, and model risk, ethics and governance.

Requirements

• 6+ years in data science, advanced analytics or quantitative modelling, with 3+ years in insurance or financial services
• Advanced Python and/or R, plus strong SQL for large-scale data manipulation
• Practical ML experience with scikit-learn, XGBoost, TensorFlow or PyTorch
• Solid statistics: regression and GLMs, time-series forecasting, hypothesis testing, experimental design
• Model deployment to production on Azure ML, Databricks, AWS SageMaker or equivalent, with MLOps tooling
• Strong grasp of finance data flows, transformation and cleansing; Informatica or comparable ETL
• Familiarity with Data Mesh, MDM and finance data lakes/warehouses
• Visualisation and storytelling in Power BI, Tableau or equivalent
• Understanding of finance and actuarial data, accounting principles and reporting standards
• Git, Jira; Agile and Waterfall

Benefits

• Market related salary.