Mr D - Senior Data Scientist

MR D, a 100% subsidiary of takealot.com, is looking for a talented, motivated and results-oriented Senior Data Scientist. 

We are a young, dynamic, hyper growth company looking for smart, creative, hard-working people with integrity to join us. 

Think you’ve been challenged before? Think again!

• Scale: Show the millions of Mr D customers what you can do. 
• Learn: We work with the best of the best, and then some. Code alongside industry leaders and upskill in record time.
• Grow: Expand your career in the fast-growing Takealot Group: takealot.com, Mr D & TFS. We like to promote from within: Here’s your chance.

As a Senior Data Scientist, you’ll play a pivotal role in building, deploying, and maintaining machine learning models for discovery, personalisation, operational optimisation, fraud prevention and other purposes. In addition, discover insights through data analysis to support business development and enterprise strategies.

This position reports to the Engineering Manager.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it: 

• Independently conducts feature engineering, data analysis, data processing, and model development that drives measurable business impact across food, grocery, and retail delivery services.
• Owns machine learning projects from conception to production, focusing on maximum long term business impact aligned with business objectives and key results.
• Provides valuable code reviews and technical guidance to team members while staying current with the latest ML advancements relevant to business context.
• Troubleshoots and resolves complex model, analysis, and feature issues independently with critical thinking and innovative problem-solving approaches.
• Creates sophisticated data-driven solutions to business problems including discovery, personalisation, operational optimisation, fraud prevention, forecasting, and customer retention.
• Collaborates effectively across teams to translate data insights into actionable strategies and solutions.
• Empowers other team members and contributes to team knowledge sharing and best practices development.
• Continuously improves ML methodologies, code quality, model performance, and system scalability to enhance team effectiveness.

The skills we need:

• Model Development and Deployment: Develop, deploy and maintain scalable machine learning models end-to-end.
• Data Analysis & Insights: Conduct exploratory data analysis and generate actionable business insights that identify growth opportunities and inform strategic decisions.
• Research & Innovation: Evaluate and recommend new ML techniques, tools, and methodologies relevant to business context and team advancement.
• Troubleshooting: Resolve model, feature, and system issues with clear documentation.
• Monitoring & Evaluation: Implement model monitoring systems, performance tracking, and evaluation frameworks to ensure ongoing solution effectiveness.
• Specifications and Planning: Create detailed functional and technical specifications for models and systems.
• Business Solutions: Implement machine learning solutions to solve complex business problems.
• Cross-Team Collaboration: Deliver large projects through effective collaboration with multiple teams.
• Documentation & Standards: Create comprehensive documentation, maintain coding standards, and apply methodological frameworks that enable team scalability and knowledge retention.

Qualifications & Experience: 

• Relevant tertiary qualifications in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science and/or Engineering.
• 5+ years of relevant data science, machine learning, or analytics experience.
• Advanced knowledge of data analysis, cleaning and preparation.
• Understanding of machine learning, deep learning and modeling tools.
• Expertise in programming and scripting languages (Primarily Python).
• Proven expertise using a cloud provider platform (e.g. Google Cloud or AWS).
• Demonstrate an advanced knowledge of mathematics and statistics, with a focus on machine learning algorithms and implementation.
• In-depth understanding of modeling and analytics best practices, solutions scalability, and performance tuning.
• Demonstrate a strong foundational understanding of computer science fundamentals such as data structures and algorithms.
• Experience influencing a team of data scientists to deliver highly available and scalable solutions/services.
• Proven themselves in a mathematics/statistics, computer science, or engineering field and successfully contributed to the design, development and deployment on various data science projects.
• Prior experience within an ecommerce company will be beneficial.
• Understanding and experience in one or more of the following: Supply Chain/Logistics, Retail, Marketing, CRM, Recommendations, Search & Discovery, or similar.

Let’s talk about life @ Mr D

• The power is in your hands: We offer a market-related, Total Remuneration Package which allows full flexibility according to your needs. Go on, be the master of your own destiny.
• No doors: We aren’t fans of stuffy offices or siloed work environments. See someone you like? High five, collab and make something great.
• Remote working: Do not feel like sitting in traffic, we got you covered! Love water cooler chats and working from home? We offer a hybrid working model for the best of both worlds.
• Mentorship programme: We aren’t kidding when we say the people with the best people win. Now’s your chance to be one of the best, by learning from the best.
• Naspers Tech Community & Online Learning: Share ideas and grow with global industry leaders who are all just a Slack message away. Love to learn? Up-skill with free access to courses on MyAcademy, Udacity, Coursera and more.
• Good times: Get to know the other extraordinary minds in the takealot group during regular social events and out-of-office activities (think hikes, think mini golf, think good times).
• Birthday leave: Cake Day all the way. Enjoy your day off - you deserve it. 
• Right tools, right job: Mac or Windows, two monitors or one. Whatever your preference, you’ll work on the latest tech, off the latest tech.
• Help when you need it most: Confidential counselling, legal support and financial guidance, for free, anytime, anywhere. 
• Tech stack (for days): Python, Go, AWS, Kafka, Redis, Docker, Kubernetes, IOT/MQTT and all things machine learning. If you build it, they will come.
• Free parking: No more 5km fun runs to your desk (unless you want to).

Like what you see? If you meet the above you are an Extraordinary Mind. Apply today!!

Mr D is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Applicants from previously disadvantaged groups and people with disabilities will be given preference