SENIOR DATA SCIENTIST / AI & QUANT LEAD

About

This is an excellent opportunity for a SENIOR DATA SCIENTIST / AI & QUANT LEAD to join a BIG 4 CONSULTANCY FIRMS – and to lead the design, development, and deployment of advanced analytics, AI, and machine learning solutions that address critical risk, audit, actuarial, and compliance challenges. SALARY on offer will be between R1.9 M – R2.2 M per annum (plus bonus’ and benefits). You can be based in either CAPE TOWN or JOHANNESBURG.

TO BE CONSIDERED: You will bring deep technical expertise combined with a proven track record of building data science capabilities from inception to enterprise-level impact, ideally within financial services. You will relish the challenge to work cross-functionally across risk, actuarial, and audit disciplines - designing AI-driven solutions that deliver measurable business outcomes.

THE COMPANY: This is one of the BIG 4 CONSULTANCY FIRMS, who are the world’s largest professional services businesses.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Spearhead the development of the firm’s data science and AI capability.
• Mentor and upskill junior data scientists, analysts, and consultants.
• Shape the cultural and technical vision for embedding data-driven decision-making across the firm.
• Develop and deploy machine learning and generative AI solutions for risk, audit, actuarial, and compliance use cases.
• Apply advanced statistical modelling, NLP, and data engineering to solve complex business problems (fraud detection, AML, regulatory compliance, predictive modelling).
• Drive innovation in applying alternative data sources to financial risk and audit insights.
• Engage directly with clients, partners, and internal stakeholders to identify opportunities for AI and data-driven solutions.
• Translate complex technical methodologies into clear business recommendations and outcomes.
• Lead workshops and innovation sessions with executives to demonstrate the art of the possible with AI.
• Lead the design and delivery of small-scale applications (6–12 month build cycles) that embed AI/ML into internal audit and risk tools.
• Oversee full lifecycle delivery from concept through prototyping, testing, and deployment.
• Ensure solutions meet governance, compliance, and security standards.

REQUIRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE:

• Master’s degree (or equivalent) in Engineering, Applied Mathematics, Computer Science, or a related quantitative discipline.
• Demonstrated academic excellence (first-class honours preferred).
• Minimum 7–10 years’ experience in data science, AI/ML, or quantitative analytics.
• Proven record of growing a data science capability from inception to enterprise adoption, ideally within the financial services sector.
• Experience working across investment management, risk, compliance, and operational domains is highly desirable.
• Direct exposure to building and deploying NLP-based ML models and generative AI solutions for financial applications.
• Strong knowledge of data strategy, governance, and modern cloud-based data platforms (Snowflake, Databricks, AWS, Azure).
• Proficient in Python (Tensor Flow, Keras, Py Torch, Spa Cy, NLTK, Gensim), R, and SQL.
• Experience with orchestration frameworks (Airflow, Dagster) and cloud-native data pipelines.
• Skilled in data visualisation platforms (Power BI, Tableau).
• Strong mathematical and statistical grounding for applied machine learning.
• Strategic thinker with strong problem-solving and research orientation.
• Comfortable operating in ambiguous, cross-disciplinary projects with C-suite stakeholders.
• Passion for innovation - exploring how emerging AI technologies (LLMs, alternative data, NLP) can reshape financial services.
• Mentorship mindset - committed to knowledge sharing and building high-performing teams.