Specialist Data Scientist

Recruiter:

Specd

Job Ref:

JHB002006/Josh

Date posted:

Tuesday, April 15, 2025

Location:

Johannesburg, South Africa

SUMMARY:
We are seeking a highly skilled and motivated Specialist Data Scientist to join one of our leading clients in the banking sector. bringing deep expertise in Data Analytics, Machine Learning, and Quantitative Analysis, with a strong understanding of Capital Markets and Complex Financial Systems. The ideal candidate will have the technical and domain experience necessary to drive innovation in trading strategies, risk analytics, and market intelligence.

POSITION INFO:
JOB DESCRIPTION INFORMATION

Job Title: Specialist Data Scientist
Employment Type: 3 Months Contract (Renewable)
Work Location: Onsite

Job Description / Responsibilities:

Requirements:

Data Analytics & Machine Learning:

Proven experience applying ML models to financial data sets (e.g., regression, classification, clustering, time series forecasting).
Strong ability to derive insights from structured and unstructured data.

Quantitative Analysis:

Deep understanding of statistical methods and their application in financial modeling.
Experience building and validating quantitative models for trading, pricing, or risk.

Financial Markets Expertise:

Strong understanding of Capital Markets, with a focus on Equities, Trading, and Market Microstructure.
Experience working with or within Global Markets environments.
Ability to interpret and model complex financial instruments and systems.

Programming & Tools:

Advanced proficiency in Python for data science, including libraries such as NumPy, pandas, scikit-learn, TensorFlow, or PyTorch.
Experience working with cloud platforms, particularly AWS.
Familiarity with databases (SQL, NoSQL), data pipelines, and distributed computing frameworks.

Domain-Specific Knowledge:

Solid grasp of Market Microstructure and how trading systems function at low-latency levels.
Ability to work with tick data, order books, and execution algorithms.

Qualification and experience required:

Master’s or PhD in a quantitative field such as Computer Science, Mathematics, Statistics, Financial Engineering, or related discipline.
Prior experience at a financial institution, hedge fund, trading firm, or investment bank
Experience in high-frequency or algorithmic trading environments is a plus.

Mandatory Skills:

Data Analytics:

Exploratory data analysis (EDA).
Data wrangling, cleaning, and transformation.
Feature engineering.

Machine Learning:

Supervised/unsupervised learning.
Model selection, tuning, and validation.
Deep learning (CNNs, RNNs, Transformers if applicable).
Time series forecasting.
Model explainability & fairness.

Statistical & Quantitative Analysis:

Hypothesis testing, A/B testing.
Bayesian statistics.
Regression, classification, clustering.
Advanced probability and stochastic modeling.

Programming & Software Engineering:

Expert in Python (pandas, NumPy, scikit-learn, PyTorch/TensorFlow, etc.).
Version control (Git).
Writing production-ready code.
APIs and microservices (bonus).

Cloud & Infrastructure:

AWS (S3, Lambda, SageMaker, EMR, Glue, etc.).
CI/CD for data pipelines or ML models.
Containerization (Docker, Kubernetes is a plus).

Data Management:

SQL (complex queries, optimization).
NoSQL (MongoDB, DynamoDB).
Big data tools (Spark, Hadoop, etc.).

Package & Remuneration:
Compensation will be determined based on qualifications, applicable industry experience, and previous earnings.

NB! This job is now closed. You can apply for other jobs by uploading your CV.

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