Senior Manager, AI Platform & Data Engineering

MTN Group; Roodepoort; On-site; ZAR 800 000 - 1 200 000; Full time

Job summary

A leading telecommunications company in South Africa seeks an experienced Product Owner / Manager for its data enablement unit. The role involves translating MTN’s DDO strategy into impactful data intelligence solutions and requires a strong background in data engineering and AI model productionisation. You'll work in a fast-paced environment to oversee the design and governance of advanced analytics, ensuring competitive compliance and driving innovation across data-driven products. Ideal candidates should have over 8 years of experience and strong leadership skills.

Qualifications

• 8-10+ years in large-scale data engineering with a minimum of 5 years in a senior role.
• Experience in productionising AI models at enterprise scale, preferred in telco.
• Leadership experience in building AI/ML infrastructure in complex environments.

Responsibilities

• Oversee the industrialisation of AI models ensuring enterprise readiness.
• Lead design and governance of a multi-OpCo cloud AI and data estate.
• Anticipate complex performance bottlenecks in high-throughput AI workloads.
• Champion cost optimisation and performance monitoring practices.

Skills

Data Pipeline Mastery

Big Data Infrastructure Leadership

Privacy & Governance

Cloud & DevOps Integration

System Optimisation

Team Enablement

Cross-functional Influence

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or related field

Master’s degree in Data Engineering or related field

Tools

Spark

Kafka

SQL

Python

Docker

Kubernetes

Databricks

Airflow

Job description

A leading telecommunications company in South Africa seeks an experienced Product Owner / Manager for its data enablement unit. The role involves translating MTN’s DDO strategy into impactful data intelligence solutions and requires a strong background in data engineering and AI model productionisation. You'll work in a fast-paced environment to oversee the design and governance of advanced analytics, ensuring competitive compliance and driving innovation across data-driven products. Ideal candidates should have over 8 years of experience and strong leadership skills.