Senior Data Scientist

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Vodacom is a Leading African Mobile communication company providing wider range of communication services including mobile voice, messaging, data and converged services to over 200 million customers. From our roots in South Africa, we have grown our mobile network business to include operations in Tanzania, DRC, Mozambique, Kenya, Lesotho, Egypt and now Ethiopia. The mobile networks cover a total population of approximately 250 million people. Through Vodacom Business Africa (VBA) we also offer business managed services to enterprises in over 40 countries across the continent.

We employ individuals who are as passionate about customers as we are. We are truly Customer Obsessed, which means that we are passionate about exceeding customer expectations; work relentlessly to really understand the customer; look at decisions through the customer’s eyes and take personal accountability for the customer experience. We are looking for people with a passion for Artificial Intelligence, IA (Intelligent Automation & Agentic AI) and Big Data.

Your responsibilities will include:

• Create AI/IA products that provide new services to Vodacom and its stakeholders.
• Develop, validate and productionise advanced machine learning models using large and varied datasets, applying strong statistical modelling, feature engineering, model evaluation and optimisation skills in partnership with technology teams.
• Contributing to the wider community to enable AI capability across Vodafone globally.
• Development of machine learning models for various areas of the business on the Big Data Platforms.
• Track machine learning model performance and business outcomes, including campaign uplift, incremental revenue and return on investment, and communicate insights through clear reporting and compelling data visualisations.
• Work with lead and principal data scientists to deliver key strategic initiatives to meet the needs of business customers.
• Works in partnership with Big Data Engineering team to automate, integrate & productionize AI workloads.
• Partner with business decision-support and commercial teams to translate analytical findings into practical recommendations, advise on campaign targeting decisions, and identify opportunities to improve customer and revenue outcomes.
• Design and evaluate controlled experiments and A/B tests for customer campaigns, defining hypotheses, treatment and control groups, success metrics, statistical significance and post-campaign measurement.
• Mentorship to data scientists in the team.
• Present results to technical and non- technical audiences.

The ideal candidate for this role will have:

• Bachelor’s or Master’s Degree in quantitative fields like Mathematics, Statistics, Economics, Computer Science Engineering, Artificial Intelligence or related fields (essential).
• A minimum of 4-6 years relevant experience in Big Data & Data Science.

Core competencies, knowledge, and experience:

• Experiencing working with and mentoring/coaching data scientists in training.
• Experience in GenAI and Large Language Models (LLMs) is a plus.
• Hands-on experience in building and optimizing recommendation systems.
• Strong hands-on experience building and operating data science and machine learning solutions on AWS, including SageMaker, Glue, Athena, Lambda, S3 and OpenSearch, with practical knowledge of scalable model training, deployment and monitoring.
• Strong data engineering and manipulation skills using SQL and PySpark, including developing, optimising and troubleshooting distributed Spark pipelines for large structured and unstructured datasets.
• Proficiency in at least one relevant programming language: Python, R, Java.
• Experience across major machine learning model frameworks (e.g. H2O, scikit-learn, PyTorch, Tensorflow) and techniques (e.g. random forest, gradient boosting, k-means segmentation, multiple regression, factor analysis, time-series forecasting).
• Knowledge of MLOps and LLMOps concepts and deployment of models through batch and real-time architectures.
• Familiarity with visualization tools (e.g. Tableau, Qlik, D3, Apache Superset, Plotly, PowerBI, Opensearch, Grafana).
• Good interpersonal communication and presentation skills.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced environment.
• Analytical and expansive thinking with a strong desire to deliver and develop.
• Experience working with teams and coaching data scientists.
• Real-time Decisioning & Intelligence use case deployment and evaluation experience.

We make an impact by offering:

• Enticing incentive programs and competitive benefit packages
• Retirement funds, risk benefits, and medical aid benefits
• Cell phone and data benefits, advantages fibre connection discounts, and exclusive staff discounts offered in collaboration with partner companies

Closing date for Applications: 09 September 2026.

The base location for this role is Vodacom, Midrand Campus

The company's approved Employment Equity Plan and Targets will be considered as part of the recruitment process. As an Equal Opportunities employer, we actively encourage and welcome people with various disabilities to apply.
Vodacom is committed to an organisational culture that recognises, appreciates, and values diversity & inclusion.