Senior Data Scientist

**What will you do?**
- Santam Ltd has a vacancy within the Group Underwriting division for a Senior Data Scientist. The role reports to the Head: Data Analytics and will ideally bases in Belville, Cape Town.

**What will make you successful in this role?**

**KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES WILL INCLUDE**:

- Involvement in engagement with stakeholders to understand their business challenges and advise on practical analytics solutions
- Collaborate with key stakeholders within the data value chain, external and internal, to ensure that the appropriated data sources and data structures are in place for building analytics solutions
- Research, develop and implement appropriate statistical / mathematical / machine learning models as needed
- Keep up-to-date with latest technology trends
- Communicate results and ideas to key decision makers
- To generate and maintain actuarial data assets and make these available to the rest of the organization
- Develop and maintain outstanding data from the Analytical Base Table and to utilize this to develop predictive models, assist other Business Units in doing diagnostic and descriptive analytics
- Ensure automation of data assets delivered timeously
- Use advanced analytics techniques to solve business problems in cooperation with business units
- Seek out initiatives to enhance Santam’s capability in the Data Science field
- Assist users across the group to make use of the data science workbench

**Qualifications & Exeperience**
- B. Degree in Quantitative Management (decision sciences) or Computer Science/Statistics/Applied Statistics/Applied Mathematics (Postgraduate preferable)
- 5-7 years practical experience in an analytical/quantitative environment

**Skills**
- Strong programming skills ( SQL essential, Python and/or R highly desirable, Spark, Java )
- Experience with common data science toolkits, such as R, Hadoop, Scala, RapidMiner, Alteryx, SAS, SPSS etc. highly desirable
- Experience in Data integration
- Machine learning / Artificial Intelligence and Statistical algorithm development essential
- Experience with Big Data platforms highly desirable
- Experience in Data management and integration such as Ralph-Kimbal dimensional modelling (Star-schema model) or Bill Inmon Snow-flaking model essential
- Business acumen: Enterprising & commercial thinking: Keeps aware of corporate markets and the state of competitors, identifies business opportunities, views issues in terms of costs, profits, markets and added value.
- Statistical analysis: Data scientists must have a strong foundation in statistical analysis to effectively identify patterns, trends, and relationships within data.
- Programming: Proficiency in programming languages such as Python and R is essential for data scientists to analyse data and build predictive models.
- Data wrangling: Data scientists must be able to gather, clean, and pre-process data to ensure its accuracy and reliability.
- Machine learning: Knowledge of machine learning algorithms and techniques is necessary to build predictive models and make data-driven decisions.
- Data visualization: Data scientists should have the ability to create clear and effective visualizations to communicate insights and findings to stakeholders.
- Communication
- Problem-solving
- Creativity
- Curiosity
- Financial acumen

**Competencies**
- Client Focus
- Collaborates
- Cultivates Innovation
- Drives results
- Flexible and adaptable
- IT Data Analysis
- Data Collection
- Advanced analytics to address business requirements
- New technologies and methodologies
- Stakeholder management