Senior Data Scientist – Remote-First Leader & Mentor

Placements24; Rustenburg; Hybrid; ZAR 1,000,000 - 1,400,000; Full time

Job summary

Placements24 in South Africa is hiring a remote-first Senior Data Scientist to build advanced ML models, drive data-driven decisions, and extract actionable insights from complex datasets.

You will mentor junior data scientists, collaborate with product and engineering teams, design production pipelines, and help shape the strategic direction of the company’s data science capabilities within a global analytics context.

Qualifications

• Ph.D. or Master’s in a quantitative field.
• 5+ years of professional experience in data science or ML.
• Proficiency in Python or R and libraries (scikit-learn, TensorFlow, PyTorch, Pandas, NumPy).
• Strong SQL and data warehousing experience.
• Experience deploying ML models to production.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and deploy sophisticated ML models and algorithms.
• Perform in-depth data analysis including data cleaning, feature engineering, and EDA.
• Build and maintain data pipelines for model training and deployment.
• Collaborate with product and engineering teams to integrate DS solutions into products.
• Communicate complex findings clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Stay updated on latest DS, ML, and AI advancements.
• Mentor junior data scientists and foster learning culture.
• Develop strategies for data acquisition, storage, and management.
• Contribute to ethical considerations and best practices in AI.

Skills

Python

R

SQL

Remote collaboration

Mentoring

Communication

Education

PhD or Master’s in a quantitative field

Tools

scikit-learn

TensorFlow

PyTorch

Pandas

NumPy

Spark

Job description

Placements24 in South Africa is hiring a remote-first Senior Data Scientist to build advanced ML models, drive data-driven decisions, and extract actionable insights from complex datasets.

You will mentor junior data scientists, collaborate with product and engineering teams, design production pipelines, and help shape the strategic direction of the company’s data science capabilities within a global analytics context.