Lead Data Scientist - Finance | ML & Big Data (KZN)

Placements24; Pietermaritzburg; On-site; ZAR 700,000 - 1,100,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Retirement contributions

Performance bonuses

Professional development programs

Conferences support

Advanced computing resources

Job summary

Placements24 client in Pietermaritzburg seeks a Data Scientist to drive data analytics and ML initiatives for financial products. You will work with large datasets, build predictive models, and translate insights into business actions within a collaborative team.

The role requires a strong statistical background, programming skills in Python or R, and the ability to communicate complex results to diverse stakeholders. On-site role in KwaZulu-Natal.

Qualifications

• Master's or PhD in Statistics, Computer Science, Mathematics, Economics, or a related quantitative field.
• 3–5 years of professional experience as a Data Scientist or similar analytic role (financial services preferred).
• Strong programming skills in Python or R with relevant libraries (scikit-learn, TensorFlow, PyTorch, Pandas, NumPy).
• Solid understanding of statistical modeling, ML algorithms, and data mining techniques.
• Experience with SQL and big data tech (Spark, Hadoop) is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Collect, clean and transform large datasets for analysis.
• Develop, test and deploy machine learning models for prediction and classification.
• Analyze data to identify trends and actionable insights.
• Design and run A/B tests to evaluate model performance and business impact.
• Communicate findings clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Collaborate with business units to translate needs into data science projects.
• Stay updated with advancements in data science and AI.
• Develop data-driven strategies to improve customer engagement, risk management and operations.
• Contribute to data science infrastructure and best practices.
• Ensure data quality and governance throughout analysis.

Skills

Python

R

SQL

Statistics

Machine Learning

Data Visualization

Communication

Teamwork

Problem Solving

Education

Master's or PhD in Statistics/Computer Science/Mathematics/Economics

Tools

Spark

Hadoop

Tableau

Power BI

TensorFlow

PyTorch

scikit-learn

Job description

Placements24 client in Pietermaritzburg seeks a Data Scientist to drive data analytics and ML initiatives for financial products. You will work with large datasets, build predictive models, and translate insights into business actions within a collaborative team.

The role requires a strong statistical background, programming skills in Python or R, and the ability to communicate complex results to diverse stakeholders. On-site role in KwaZulu-Natal.