Machine Learning Engineer - NLP & Text Analytics

Placements24; Mbombela (Nelspruit); On-site; ZAR 600,000 - 900,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Dental insurance

Vision insurance

Annual leave

Professional development

ML tools

Collaborative culture

Job summary

Placements24 in Mpumalanga seeks a skilled Machine Learning Engineer focusing on NLP. You will design, train, and deploy NLP models, build data pipelines, and collaborate with product and software teams in Mbombela/Nelspruit.

The role emphasizes practical AI solutions, model evaluation, and staying current with research to deliver scalable text analytics systems. The ideal candidate has 2–4 years in ML engineering with Python, NLP libraries, and experience with scikit-learn, TensorFlow or

Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's in CS/DS/linguistics or related field.
• 2–4 years hands-on ML engineering experience with NLP.
• Proficiency in Python and ML/NLP libraries.

Responsibilities

• Develop, train, and deploy NLP models (text classification, sentiment analysis, NER, topic modeling).
• Build and maintain data pipelines for text data processing.
• Collaborate with product and software teams to integrate NLP features.

Skills

Python

NLP

Data pipelines

Git

Education

Bachelor's or Master's in CS/DS/Linguistics

Tools

scikit-learn

TensorFlow

PyTorch

spaCy

NLTK

Gensim

Transformers

Job description

About the Role

Our client, a leader in the AI & Emerging Technologies space, is seeking a talented Machine Learning Engineer to join their dedicated team in Nelspruit, Mpumalanga . This role focuses on designing, building, and deploying robust machine learning models for Natural Language Processing (NLP) and text analytics. You will work on challenging projects that involve extracting insights, understanding sentiment, and building intelligent text-based applications. The position offers a dynamic work environment where you can apply your skills to real-world problems and contribute to innovative AI solutions. You will collaborate with a skilled team of engineers and data scientists in Nelspruit , leveraging cutting-edge technologies. This is an excellent opportunity for an ML Engineer passionate about NLP to grow their career in a supportive and technologically advanced setting.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop, train, and deploy machine learning models for NLP tasks such as text classification, sentiment analysis, named entity recognition, topic modeling, and machine translation.
• Build and maintain scalable data pipelines for processing and preparing text data.
• Implement and optimize NLP algorithms and models using Python and relevant libraries (e.g., NLTK, spaCy, Hugging Face Transformers).
• Collaborate with product managers and software engineers to integrate NLP capabilities into applications and services.
• Evaluate model performance, identify areas for improvement, and implement enhancements.
• Stay current with the latest research and advancements in NLP and machine learning.
• Contribute to the design and architecture of ML systems for text analytics.
• Conduct experiments, analyze results, and present findings to technical and business stakeholders.
• Ensure the quality, scalability, and maintainability of ML solutions.
• Participate in code reviews and contribute to best practices in software development and MLOps.

Requirements

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Linguistics, or a related field.
• 2-4 years of hands-on experience in machine learning engineering, with a strong focus on Natural Language Processing.
• Proficiency in Python programming and experience with ML/NLP libraries (e.g., scikit-learn, TensorFlow, PyTorch, spaCy, NLTK, Gensim, Transformers).
• Experience with text preprocessing techniques, feature extraction (e.g., TF-IDF, word embeddings), and various NLP models.
• Understanding of deep learning architectures relevant to NLP (e.g., RNNs, LSTMs, Transformers).
• Experience with SQL and data manipulation.
• Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) and their ML services is a plus.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Good communication and teamwork abilities, especially within a team in Nelspruit .
• Experience with version control systems like Git.

Benefits

• Competitive salary and potential for performance-based bonuses.
• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance.
• Generous annual leave and opportunities for professional development.
• Access to advanced tools and technologies for ML development.
• A collaborative and innovative work environment focused on AI advancements.
• The opportunity to work on impactful NLP projects with real-world applications.
• Be part of a growing team pushing the boundaries of AI in Nelspruit .