Lead Real Estate Data Scientist

Placements24; Pretoria; Hybrid; ZAR 1,200,000 - 1,800,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Fully remote

Equity options

Professional dev budget

Flexible schedule

Job summary

Placements24 is seeking a Lead Real Estate Data Scientist to build and lead a new data science function in a remote-first environment. The role focuses on predictive modeling for market trends, property valuations, and data-driven investment strategies, with a strong emphasis on delivering data products in a modern prop-tech setting.

The candidate will guide a remote team, collaborate with product and engineering, and ensure ethical data handling across real estate data sources and APIs.

Qualifications

• Master's or PhD in a quantitative field such as CS, stats or math.
• 7+ years in data science with real estate or financial analytics.
• Proven remote-team leadership and project delivery experience.
• Strong Python/R and ML library proficiency (TensorFlow, PyTorch, scikit-learn).
• Deep SQL/NoSQL experience and cloud (AWS/Azure/GCP) expertise.
• Excellent communication and problem solving in business terms.

Responsibilities

• Develop ML models for market forecasting, price prediction and risk.
• Design data mining strategies from large real estate datasets.
• Build scalable data pipelines and ETL processes, ensure data quality.
• Collaborate with product, engineers and stakeholders on roadmaps.
• Mentor a remote team of data scientists, provide guidance.
• Create visualizations and reports for technical and non-technical audiences.
• Stay current with data science advances and apply to business problems.
• Champion data-driven decision making and ethical data handling.
• Contribute to strategic direction of data initiatives.

Education

Master's or PhD in quantitative field

Tools

Python

R

SQL

NoSQL

TensorFlow

PyTorch

scikit-learn

Cloud Platforms

Job description

About the Role: Our client, a forward-thinking real estate technology company, is looking for an exceptional Lead Real Estate Data Scientist to build and lead a new data science function. This is a fully remote, critical role focused on leveraging advanced analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to drive innovation across all facets of the real estate business. You will be instrumental in developing predictive models for market trends, optimizing property valuations, enhancing user experience on our digital platforms, and uncovering new data-driven investment strategies. This position is perfect for a seasoned data scientist with a strong background in real estate and a passion for building impactful data products in a remote-first culture, based ideally near Pretoria.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and implement sophisticated machine learning models for real estate market forecasting, property price prediction, and investment risk assessment.
• Design and execute data mining strategies to identify actionable insights from large, complex datasets related to property, demographics, and economic indicators.
• Build and maintain scalable data pipelines and ETL processes to ensure data quality and accessibility.
• Collaborate closely with product managers, engineers, and business stakeholders to define data science project roadmaps and deliverables.
• Lead a team of data scientists, providing mentorship, technical guidance, and performance management.
• Create compelling visualizations and reports to communicate complex findings to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Stay at the forefront of advancements in data science, machine learning, and real estate technology, and apply new techniques to solve business problems.
• Champion data-driven decision‑making across the organization.
• Ensure ethical data handling and compliance with relevant regulations.
• Contribute to the strategic direction of the company's data initiatives.

Requirements

• Master's or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Statistics, Mathematics, Data Science, or a related quantitative field.
• 7+ years of experience in data science, with a significant portion focused on the real estate industry or related financial analytics.
• Proven track record of leading data science projects and teams, with experience in managing remote team members.
• Expertise in programming languages such as Python or R, and proficiency with data science libraries (e.g., TensorFlow, PyTorch, scikit-learn).
• Strong experience with SQL and NoSQL databases, and cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP).
• Deep understanding of statistical modeling, machine learning algorithms, and data mining techniques.
• Excellent problem-solving skills and the ability to translate complex business needs into data science solutions.
• Exceptional communication and presentation skills, with the ability to explain technical concepts to a broad audience.
• Demonstrated ability to work independently and collaboratively in a fully remote environment.
• Familiarity with real estate data sources and APIs is a plus.

Benefits

• Highly competitive salary and equity options.
• Fully remote work arrangement with flexibility.
• Opportunity to shape the data strategy of a growing prop-tech company.
• Access to cutting-edge tools and technologies.
• Professional development budget and support for continuous learning.
• Collaborative and innovative virtual work culture.