Principal Data Scientist - Remote, Equity & Impact

Placements24

Pretoria

Hybrid

ZAR 1,200,000 - 2,000,000

Full time

4 days ago

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Benefits offered by this job

Equity options

Health insurance

Dental insurance

Vision insurance

Conference allowances

Remote work

Job summary

Placements24 is seeking a Principal Data Scientist for a fully remote role, focused on leading advanced ML models and data-driven strategies. You will work from anywhere in South Africa and collaborate across engineering, product and domain experts to solve high-impact problems.

The ideal candidate has a PhD or MSc, 7+ years in data science, strong ML, stats, Python/R, SQL, and cloud experience. You will mentor juniors, design experiments, publish or contribute to open source, and stay at the

Qualifications

PhD or Master's in a quantitative field.
7+ years data science and ML experience.
Expertise in statistical modeling and ML techniques.
Proficient in Python and R.
Strong SQL and big data tooling.
Cloud ML services experience.
Ability to translate business problems into data solutions.
Excellent communication and leadership.
Publications/open-source contributions a plus.

Responsibilities

Lead ML model design and implementation.
Analyze data to derive actionable insights.
Develop and deploy predictive models (forecasting, classification, clustering, anomalies).
Collaborate with engineering to productionize models.
Design and run A/B tests and experiments.
Mentor junior data scientists.
Stay updated with ML research and AI advancements.
Communicate findings to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
Develop data strategies aligned with business objectives.
Ensure ethical use of data and AI.