Lead Data Scientist

Location: South Africa | Remote
Employment Type: Permanent | Full-Time
Industry: Data Science | AI | Data Technology

WatersEdge Solutions is partnering with an innovative technology business to find an experienced Lead Data Scientist for a senior, hands-on leadership role. This is an opportunity for someone who wants to remain deeply involved in building data science solutions while also mentoring others, owning delivery and helping shape the direction of a sophisticated data science function.

The role sits at the heart of the product environment, where machine learning, privacy-preserving modelling, entity resolution, data linkage, analytics and AI-powered pipelines are central to delivering value to enterprise customers.

About the Role

As Lead Data Scientist, you’ll act as second-in-command to the Head of Data Science, combining technical leadership with hands-on delivery. You’ll lead complex analytical work, take ownership of customer-facing analytical delivery and represent the Data Science function when required.

Importantly, this isn’t a role where leadership means stepping away from the technical work. You’ll continue to design, code, validate and deliver solutions, including writing production-grade Python.

You’ll also play a key role in evolving the data science environment towards Python-powered Jupyter workflows, using Claude Code and other LLM tools to accelerate research, development, testing, documentation, prototyping and production delivery.

The technology environment includes Python, PySpark, Delta Lake, Jupyter Notebooks, Azure Synapse, Trino, Power BI, Kubernetes-hosted model serving and FastAPI inference endpoints.

Key Responsibilities

• Help shape, prioritise and own the analytical roadmap and backlog.

• Take ownership of customer analytical delivery from initial problem definition through to decision-ready insights.

• Translate ambiguous business questions into clearly defined analytical problems and measurable success criteria.

• Present analytical findings to senior stakeholders and confidently challenge expected conclusions where the evidence does not support them.

• Develop maintainable, testable, production-grade Python using modern software engineering practices.

• Apply warehouse and lakehouse best practices across data grain, joins, provenance, effective dating, reconciliation and traceability.

• Work with matched, indirect, aggregated and imperfect datasets while recognising potentially invalid or misleading comparisons.

• Apply techniques including weighted binning, dependency and importance measures, and validation controls.

• Use Claude Code and agentic/LLM workflows throughout the analytical delivery lifecycle.

• Act as deputy to the Head of Data Science when required.

• Mentor Data Scientists and support team delivery and technical development.

• Represent the Data Science function with internal and external stakeholders.

• Potentially lead an Agile delivery squad within the wider platform environment.

What You’ll Bring

• 7+ years’ experience across data science, data analytics or data warehousing, with substantial recent Data Science experience.

• 2+ years’ technical or engineering leadership experience.

• Senior-level expertise across machine learning, statistical modelling and AI system design in production environments.

• Experience deploying, monitoring and retraining production models.

• Advanced Python skills.

• Strong hands-on experience with Jupyter Notebooks, pandas, NumPy and scikit-learn.

• Experience with Delta Lake or comparable lakehouse architectures.

• Experience with PySpark, feature stores, training-data versioning and schema evolution.

• Strong data warehouse expertise using Azure Synapse Analytics, Azure SQL, T-SQL and/or ANSI SQL.

• Strong analytics and visualisation experience using Power BI and Python-based visualisation or interactive analysis tools.

• Experience mentoring Data Scientists, owning technical delivery and communicating with senior stakeholders.

• Excellent written and verbal English communication skills.

• Bachelor’s degree in a STEM discipline or equivalent professional experience.

Nice to Have

• Apache Ranger or comparable data governance technologies.

• FastAPI.

• PyTest and automated testing.

• PySpark and distributed data processing.

• Kubernetes-based model deployment or serving.

• C#.NET development.

• Angular or Electron development.

What’s On Offer

• Permanent remote position based in South Africa.

• Flexible working arrangements.

• Wellness initiatives and home-office support.

• Continuous learning opportunities.

• Performance incentives and employee equity participation.

• Supportive, inclusive team environment with an emphasis on transparency, accountability and work-life balance.

• The opportunity to work on sophisticated data science and AI problems with direct product and customer impact.

• Occasional travel to Johannesburg or Cape Town for in-person meetings, typically only a few times per year.

Company Culture

This is a technically ambitious, data-driven environment where Data Science is a core part of the product rather than a supporting function. The team values people who can combine technical depth with commercial judgement, communicate complex findings clearly and take ownership of outcomes.

It’s particularly well suited to someone who enjoys staying hands-on while mentoring others and who is excited by the practical application of AI and LLM tooling within modern data science workflows.

Please Note: If you have not been contacted within 10 working days, consider your application unsuccessful.