Senior ML Engineer: GenAI & MLOps on Databricks

Sabenza IT & Recruitment; Johannesburg; On-site; ZAR 900,000 - 1,200,000; Full time

Job summary

Sabenza IT & Recruitment seeks a hands-on ML Platform Engineer in Johannesburg to operationalise models and AI applications on Databricks. You will build scalable pipelines, deploy AI agents and GenAI solutions, and ensure governance and CI/CD practices across production environments.

Ideal candidates have strong Python/SQL, Kubernetes and Docker experience, plus cloud certifications and a track record delivering end-to-end AI use cases.

Qualifications

• Strong understanding of MLOps, DevOps and software engineering practices for ML platforms.
• Experience building, deploying and supporting ML solutions in production.
• Proficiency in Python and experience with SQL and API development.
• Experience with Databricks, MLflow, Model Serving and cloud-native AI/ML platforms.
• Hands-on experience with Kubernetes, Docker and containerised deployment.
• Experience deploying ML solutions on AKS.
• Knowledge of CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure automation and monitoring.
• Experience with distributed computing technologies like Spark.
• Understanding of LLMs, RAG and AI agents.
• Ability to productionise data science solutions and collaborate with Data Scientists.
• Experience delivering end-to-end AI use cases from development to production.
• Ability to translate technical concepts into business outcomes and communicate with stakeholders.
• Strong written and verbal communication; fast-paced environment.

Responsibilities

• Productionise, deploy and monitor ML models and data pipelines on Databricks.
• Build, deploy and support AI Agents, GenAI applications and RAG solutions on Databricks.
• Develop and maintain reusable ML pipelines with CI/CD, testing, monitoring and governance.
• Deploy, optimise and manage models on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS).
• Design, develop and support APIs and microservices on AKS.
• Implement containerised solutions using Docker and Kubernetes for scalable deployments.
• Monitor model performance, drift and reliability in production.
• Collaborate with Data Scientists to productionise prototypes.
• Work with platform, security, cloud and infra teams for enterprise standards.
• Troubleshoot production issues related to models, pipelines and APIs.
• Optimize AI/ML solutions for performance, cost and reliability.
• Contribute to engineering standards and reusable frameworks.
• Mentor junior engineers and promote knowledge sharing.
• Stay updated with advancements in AI, GenAI, MLOps, Databricks, Kubernetes.

Skills

Databricks

Model Serving

MLflow

Python

SQL

REST APIs

Docker

Kubernetes

CI/CD

MLOps

Machine Learning

Generative AI

LLM deployment

Cloud engineering

Monitoring

Education

Matric and a tertiary qualification

Microsoft Azure certifications (AZ-104, AZ-305, AI-102 or equivalent)

Databricks certifications (Data Engineer, ML Engineer, GenAI Engineer)

Kubernetes/Containerisation certifications (CKA/CKAD)

DevOps/MLOps or Platform Engineering certifications

AWS or Google Cloud certifications advantageous

Machine Learning / Data Science certifications from providers (MS, Databricks, SAS, Coursera, DeepLearning.AI)

Tools

Databricks

MLflow

Kubernetes

Docker

AKS

Job description

Sabenza IT & Recruitment seeks a hands-on ML Platform Engineer in Johannesburg to operationalise models and AI applications on Databricks. You will build scalable pipelines, deploy AI agents and GenAI solutions, and ensure governance and CI/CD practices across production environments.

Ideal candidates have strong Python/SQL, Kubernetes and Docker experience, plus cloud certifications and a track record delivering end-to-end AI use cases.