Jobs

Senior Data Scientist

Praesignis (Pty) Ltd

Gauteng Mid-Senior Posted 4 Sep 2026 Closes in 26 days

Overview

Our client in the banking industry is looking for a Senior Data Scientist to design, develop and optimise machine learning, AI and decisioning solutions that drive customer, risk and operational outcomes across Personal and Private Banking (PPB) and Digital channels.

Requirements

  • Computer Science, Data Science, Engineering, Mathematical Statistics, Actuarial Science, Mathematics, Econometrics or a related quantitative field.
  • Masters or Doctorate will be an added advantage.
  • Strong experience developing machine learning models on Databricks.
  • Strong understanding of feature engineering, feature selection and feature optimisation techniques.
  • Experience building and governing reusable enterprise features within Feature Stores.
  • Experience using Databricks MLflow for model tracking, experimentation and model governance.
  • Experience developing customer propensity, risk, fraud, retention and optimisation models.
  • Strong knowledge of statistics, machine learning and decision science methodologies.
  • Experience working with large-scale customer, behavioural, transactional and digital datasets.
  • Experience designing model monitoring and performance measurement frameworks.
  • Knowledge of Generative AI, prompt engineering and applied AI use cases.
  • Ability to translate business problems into analytical solutions and measurable business outcomes.
  • Strong stakeholder engagement, communication and business consulting skills.
  • Experience delivering end-to-end data science use cases from concept through production deployment.
  • Self-driven and able to operate effectively in a fast-paced, outcome-focused environment.

Responsibilities

  • Partner with PPB, Digital, Product and Risk teams to identify and prioritise high-value analytical opportunities.
  • Design, develop, train and optimise machine learning models using Databricks, MLflow and distributed compute environments.
  • Develop customer propensity, next best action, next best product, customer value, retention and engagement models.
  • Develop risk, collections, fraud and operational models to improve business performance and decision quality.
  • Build and maintain reusable feature pipelines using Databricks Feature Engineering and Delta tables.
  • Define, create and govern reusable enterprise features for inclusion within the Databricks Enterprise Feature Store.
  • Establish feature definitions, feature quality controls, lineage and monitoring standards across business domains.
  • Perform feature engineering, feature selection and feature importance analysis to improve model performance and reuse.
  • Develop optimisation and decisioning models that support customer engagement, product recommendation and operational decision strategies.
  • Conduct exploratory data analysis, statistical analysis, hypothesis testing and model validation using Databricks notebooks and workflows.
  • Perform model tuning, calibration, challenger model development and performance benchmarking.
  • Monitor model performance, stability, drift and business outcomes and recommend improvements where required.
  • Develop Generative AI use cases where appropriate, including customer support, document intelligence and knowledge-based assistants.
  • Work closely with ML Engineers to productionise models and features into enterprise platforms and decisioning systems.
  • Produce model documentation, validation reports and governance artefacts in line with model risk management requirements.
  • Mentor junior Data Scientists and contribute to modelling standards, reusable frameworks and analytical best practices.

How to apply

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