Senior Data Scientist

Job Description


Our client is a global leader in the consumer beverages industry with a deep footprint across Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. They are in the middle of an ambitious data and AI transformation - building a modern, cloud-native analytics platform and embedding machine learning, LLM-powered applications, and responsible AI into how the business makes decisions, engages customers, and runs commercial operations at scale.
Performance Objectives for Year One

1. Lead the end-to-end design, validation, and deployment of at least one production-grade ML or LLM solution that delivers measurable business value within the first 9 months.
2. Define and embed best-practice standards for model validation, testing, monitoring, and governance across the data science team, including responsible AI and model risk management practices fit for a regulated production environment.
3. Build and operationalise the team's LLM application stack - covering retrieval-augmented architectures, agentic workflows, tool integration, and robust evaluation, monitoring, and cost-optimisation practices.
4. Partner with data engineering and platform teams to ensure ML and AI workloads are robust, scalable, and cost-effective on the cloud platform, preferably Azure / Databricks.
5. Act as the technical sparring partner for the data science team - reviewing designs, challenging assumptions, and guiding technical decisions across multiple concurrent initiatives.
6. Mentor and uplift other data scientists, raising the team's standard in MLOps, statistical rigour, and production engineering, with demonstrable growth in at least two team members.