Senior Lead Data Scientist - Predictive Analytics (Hybrid)

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

Benefits offered by this job

Health & dental coverage

Vision insurance

Retirement savings plan

Professional development

Job summary

Placements24 is seeking a Lead Data Scientist in Randburg, Gauteng, to guide an analytics team in delivering end-to-end predictive models for the insurance sector. You will drive model development, validation, deployment, and stakeholder communication in a hybrid work setting.

You will mentor researchers, translate business needs into analytics solutions, oversee project timelines, and stay ahead of ML innovations to ensure scalable, robust outcomes that create measurable business impact.

Qualifications

• Master's or PhD in Data Science, CS, Statistics, Mathematics or related field.
• Minimum 8 years in data science with at least 3 years in leadership or mentoring.
• Strong coding in Python or R with ML libraries like scikit-learn, TensorFlow, PyTorch.
• Experience with big data tech (Spark/Hadoop/Hive) and SQL.
• Good statistical knowledge, experimental design and A/B testing.

Responsibilities

• Lead and mentor a team of data scientists.
• Design and deploy end-to-end data science solutions.
• Develop and apply ML algorithms (regression, classification, clustering, DL).
• Work with large datasets using Spark/Hadoop ecosystems.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to translate business needs into analytics projects.

Skills

Python

R

Machine Learning

Leadership

SQL

Education

Master's degree

PhD

Tools

scikit-learn

TensorFlow

PyTorch

Spark

Hadoop

Hive

Job description

Placements24 is seeking a Lead Data Scientist in Randburg, Gauteng, to guide an analytics team in delivering end-to-end predictive models for the insurance sector. You will drive model development, validation, deployment, and stakeholder communication in a hybrid work setting.

You will mentor researchers, translate business needs into analytics solutions, oversee project timelines, and stay ahead of ML innovations to ensure scalable, robust outcomes that create measurable business impact.