Machine Learning Engineer

Value Proposition
The Shoprite Group is Africa’s largest fast-moving consumer goods retailer with over 35 million customers and 2,500 outlets. Our customers are at the heart of what we do, and our sole purpose is to provide all communities with high quality products at the most affordable prices. Within such a dynamic environment, innovation and the effective application of technology are becoming essential to maintain a competitive position. We continue to invest in being a technologically innovative and enabled business. You will be part of delivering complex machine learning and data solutions to some of the most recognised retail brands in South Africa. You will be surrounded by teams and individuals who challenge you and inspire you to be extraordinary. Are you ready to make an impact?

Role Purpose
The Machine Learning Engineer is an emerging specialist professional who will kick start their careers by supporting the ML team to apply computer science (including data structures, algorithms, computability and complexity) statistical modeling, and software engineering in machine learning operations (MLOps) to build cutting edge, end-to-end ML data models. The role supports the development of solutions and design of self-running and automated software and predictive models to enable the Group increase efficiencies, reduce costs, identify opportunities that generate value and drive data as a competitive advantage.

Role Description

• Participate in stakeholder meetings and work with senior colleagues to analyse business problems, clarify requirements and define the scope of the resolution needed.
• Collaborate within a cross-functional team of Data Scientists, Engineers and Analysts in order to understand project goals, and build, implement and scale-up algorithms for measurable impact.
• Display basic understanding of ANN's, CNN's, RNN's, autoencoders, fundamental data science concepts (linear and logistic regression, SVM's, dimensionality reduction), decision trees, gradient boosting, ensemble models, etc. to develop machine learning models.
• Work with above architectures within deep learning frameworks such as Keras and TensorFlow.
• Demonstrate foundational understanding of relevant applications and/or systems (including, but not limited to, the machine learning algorithms) being created.
• Build basic algorithms based on statistical modelling procedures and build and maintain machine learning solutions in production.
• Use data modelling and evaluation strategy to find patterns and predict unseen instances.
• Train models on large-scale data and fine tune hyper-parameters.
• Research appropriate machine learning algorithms and tools and work with senior colleagues to select the correct libraries, programming languages and frameworks for each task.
• Apply understanding of theoretical frameworks in computer science fundamentals, including data structures, algorithms, computability, complexity and computer architecture.
• Keep abreast of technological developments in the field, and integrate the latest data technologies into existing requirements.
• Follow best practices and standards of machine learning operations (MLOps) workflows for data preparation, deployment, monitoring and retraining to enable agile application methods to projects, and support machine learning models and data sets within a CI/CD process.

Qualifications and Experience

• Bachelor’s Degree or Diploma in Data Science, Computer Science, Information Technology, Information Systems or a related field – (essential).
• +2 years’ experience as a Data Scientist or ML Engineer (preferred) working with machine learning frameworks, models, or systems with strong mathematical and statistical experience skills - (essential).
• Exposure to common machine learning, data, math and visualisation libraries (i.e. Pandas, pyTorch, SciPy, NumPy, Scikit-Learn etc.) - (essential).
• Exposure to developing Machine Learning & NLP solutions over opensource platforms such as (TensorFlow, SparkML, OpenCV, pyTorch, etc.) - (essential).
• Exposure to different coding environments (local, notebooks, containers) and software engineering workflows (testing, code management/Git) - (essential).
• Proficiency in MS Office 365 with well-developed Excel skills – (essential).
• Understanding of relational databases as SQL, MySQL, etc. - (essential)
• Familiarity with a cloud environment (at least one of the following - AWS, Azure, GCP) and containerised environment (Mesos, Kubernetes, Docker) and CI/CD (Jenkins, AWS Code Pipelines) - (desirable)
• Experience in a retail, commercial or IT environment – (desirable).

Our Group and all its operating companies is committed to creating, embracing, and preserving a diverse workplace that values the unique talents, perspectives, backgrounds, and abilities that enrich our organisation. A place where everyone matters and feels included.
We are committed to Employment Equity when recruiting internally and externally.
Please take note that by responding to this application and providing your personal information, you confirm your express and informed consent for Shoprite Checkers (Pty) Ltd and all its subsidiaries and affiliates companies to process your personal information for the Company to consider your application for this position. All Personal Information which you provide to the Company will be used and/or retained only for the purposes for which it is collected, whereafter it will be permanently destroyed. Your information is only retained if it is required by law or where you have given consent to us to retain such information for an extended period.
If you don’t hear from us within 14 days, please consider your application unsuccessful. Any personal information collected as part of your application will be destroyed, securely, in accordance with South African legislation.