Data Scientist Job at IGrow Wealth Investments

• IGrow Wealth Investments Group of Companies, proudly positioned as South Africa’s #1 Investment company, is seeking a curious, driven Mid-Level Data Scientist to join our innovative and growing team based in Durbanville, Cape Town. 
• You will work across the full data science lifecycle — from problem framing and exploratory analysis through to model development, deployment, and monitoring.
• Your work will span machine learning, natural language processing, generative AI, computer vision, and statistical analytics, all delivered on IGrow's Python, PostgreSQL, and Docker stack — directly influencing product decisions and business outcomes.

Minimum requirements (Advantageous):

• Postgraduate degree (Honours, Masters, or PhD) in a quantitative field such as Computer Science, Statistics, Mathematics, or Engineering.
• Minimum 5 years of hands-on experience in a data ccience or spplied machine learning role.
• Strong proficiency in Python for Data Science (NumPy, pandas, scikit-learn, PyTorch or TensorFlow).
• Solid understanding of machine learning fundamentals, including model selection, cross-validation, regularisation and evaluation metrics.
• Practical experience with Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Large Language Models (LLMs), including Transformers, BERT and GPT models.
• Proficiency in SQL and PostgreSQL for data extraction and manipulation.
• Experience deploying machine learning models using Docker.
• Strong statistical knowledge, including hypothesis testing, probability, regression and experimental design.
• Ability to communicate technical concepts effectively to non-technical stakeholders.
• Practical knowledge of Generative AI tools, including LangChain, LlamaIndex, OpenAI API, Claude and Hugging Face.
• Ability to build RAG solutions using vector stores such as PostgreSQL/pgvector.
• Exposure to computer vision frameworks, including OpenCV, torchvision, YOLO and Detectron2.
• Familiarity with AI automation and development tools, including n8n, Zapier, Base44 and Claude Code.
• Front-end development skills in React, TypeScript, Tailwind and Framer Motion for building model-facing tools.
• Knowledge of Zoho CRM integrations using Deluge and JavaScript.

Duties and responsibilities include, but not limited to:

Machine Learning & Predictive Modelling

• Design, train, evaluate, and deploy supervised and unsupervised machine learning models in Python.
• Build predictive and prescriptive models across classification, regression, clustering, and ranking tasks.
• Own the full ML lifecycle: data preparation, feature engineering, model selection, validation, deployment, and monitoring
•  Package and deploy models in Docker for reproducible, versioned, maintainable production use.

NLP & Generative AI

• Develop and fine-tune NLP models for text classification, named entity recognition, sentiment analysis, and summarisation
• Leverage LLMs and generative AI (Claude, OpenAI API, Hugging Face) to build intelligent applications
• Design prompt engineering strategies and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines using PostgreSQL/pgvector for vector storage.
• Evaluate and mitigate risks in generative AI outputs including hallucination, bias, and fairness.

Computer Vision

• Build and adapt computer vision models for image classification, object detection, and segmentation.
• Work with pre-trained architectures (e.g. CNNs, ViTs) and fine-tune on domain-specific datasets.
• Collaborate with engineering teams to integrate vision models into production systems.

Analytics, Dashboards & Statistical Insights

• Conduct rigorous exploratory data analysis (EDA) and statistical modelling to surface actionable insights.
• Design and analyse A/B tests and experiments to measure the impact of product and business changes.
• Translate complex analytical findings into clear, compelling narratives for non-technical stakeholders.
•  Build dashboards and internal tools using React, TypeScript, Tailwind, and Framer Motion to track model and business KPIs.

AI Automation & Workflow Integration

• Use AI developer tools such as Claude Code and LLMs to accelerate experimentation and delivery
• Automate data and model workflows with n8n, Zapier, and Base44
• Integrate model outputs and insights into iGrow systems including Zoho CRM (via Deluge and APIs)

Collaboration & Research

• Partner with data engineers to ensure high-quality data is available for modelling.
• Work with product managers and stakeholders to define problems, success criteria, and evaluation metrics
• Stay current with research developments in ML, NLP, and AI; evaluate and apply relevant techniques
• Document methodologies, experiments, and model decisions to support reproducibility and knowledge sharing.