With over 100 years of rich history and strongly positioned as a local bank with regional and international expertise, a career with our family offers the opportunity to be part of this exciting growth journey, to reset our future and shape our destiny as a proudly African group.
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Job Summary
We are looking for a Senior Data Scientist to join the Personal and Private Banking Data Science team at Absa Bank. As a Senior Data Scientist, you will become a collaborator within a team of specialist data scientists aiming to help Absa discover the insights hidden in its vast amounts of data and help enable smarter decisions to deliver better products and services and shape business strategy. You will be expected to take on the most complex artificial intelligence projects, as well as provide technical mentoring and coaching for junior team members.Job Description
Work with large-scale structured and unstructured datasets using modern data platforms (e.g. Databricks, AWS, other cloud-based environments).
Design, build, and deploy high-quality machine-learning models and applied AI solutions (including large language models) to drive strategic and competitive advantage, ensuring robustness, governance, and interpretability.
Partner with stakeholders across business, product, marketing, risk, strategy and technology teams to help translate their challenges into actionable data science models and embed insights into decision-making processes and strategy.
Partake in data science community of practice in the broader organisation by sharing knowledge and skills
Mentor junior data scientists and contribute to best practices in analytics, modelling, and storytelling.
Minimum Experience and Skills Requirements
7+ years’ experience in data science or advanced analytics
Deep knowledge of machine learning methods, principles and frameworks
Strong programming and data querying skills (SQL, PySpark, Python)
Machine Learning: Scikit-learn, PyTorch, PyCaret, etc.
Hadoop Big Data Platform: Spark, hdfs, hive, etc
Python Tools: pytest, conda, poetry etc
DevOps: Git (GitHub), bash, ssh, CI/CD Pipelines
Cloud: DataBricks, AWS
Presentation skills: ability to efficiently present data and ML models insights to a non-technical audience
Team Skills: guiding junior team members, defining and maintaining team standards
Experience delivering end-to-end analytical solutions in a complex, data-rich environment (financial services experience is advantageous).
Education:
Bachelor’s degree in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science, Physics, or a related quantitative field.
Postgraduate qualification (Honours / Master’s) in Data Science is advantageous.
Education
Bachelor's Degree: Information TechnologySkills Required
- 7+ years experience in data science or advanced analytics
- Deep knowledge of machine learning methods, principles, and frameworks
- Strong programming and data querying skills: SQL, PySpark, Python
- Experience with ML libraries: Scikit-learn, PyTorch, PyCaret
- Experience with Hadoop big-data platform: Spark, HDFS, Hive
- Familiarity with Python tooling: pytest, conda, poetry
- DevOps skills: Git/GitHub, bash, ssh, CI/CD pipelines
- Cloud platform experience: Databricks, AWS
- Experience designing, building, and deploying ML models and large language models
- Presentation skills for communicating data and ML insights to non-technical audiences
- Experience mentoring junior data scientists and defining team standards
- Experience delivering end-to-end analytical solutions in complex, data-rich environments
- Financial services experience
- Bachelor's degree in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science, Physics, Information Technology, or related quantitative field
- Postgraduate qualification (Honours/Master's) in Data Science
Absa Group Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Absa Group and has not been reviewed or approved by Absa Group.
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Healthcare Strength — Medical aid, group life, disability, and funeral cover are described as comprehensive, with features such as terminal‑illness advances and beneficiary grocery benefits. Wellness and assistance offerings support overall financial and personal wellbeing.
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Retirement Support — A pension fund and group retirement arrangements are positioned as core benefits within fixed remuneration. Retirement coverage is embedded alongside other protections as part of standard employment.
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Equity Value & Accessibility — Employee share‑ownership (eKhaya) and equity‑linked awards broaden wealth‑sharing, with dividends or cash‑equivalent participation in some markets. This provides longer‑term value beyond base pay.
Absa Group Insights
What We Do
Absa Group Limited (Absa) has forged a new way of getting things done, driven by bravery and passion, with the readiness to realise growth on the African continent and beyond. We’re a truly African brand, inspired by the people we serve in Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Mozambique, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. We also have representative offices in China, Namibia, Nigeria and the United States, as well as securities entities in the United Kingdom and the United States, along with technology support colleagues in the Czech Republic.
