Data Scientist (Home Loans) at Absa

Job Summary

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF THE SPECIFIC BUSINESS UNIT:

• Absa Home Loans has been on a healthy growth trajectory to reclaim its leadership spot in the mortgage finance space. The analytics team, working alongside strategy, has been playing an active role in shaping the how of bringing this possibility to life.
• The team is currently engaged in several initiatives in the exploratory and advanced analytics space, to leverage the data that our engineering team has worked tirelessly to store in an easier to access format – hence enabling you to do what you do best! 

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF THE ROLE:

• The Analytics team has grown and stretched together with our Home Loans business as we have continued to show up in the market to house the nation!
• We are pleased to be bringing to the market this exciting role that will work on our vast data assets to unearth insights that will play an active role in shaping the business’ strategy and tactical planning / execution. This will include applying techniques in data wrangling, exploratory analytics and spatial analysis to solve business problems in the property space.
• While we have a healthy book of work and plenty of problems to intellectually challenge our newest team member, we maintain much-needed flexibility for analysts to take on projects that they identify in the business as well!

Job Description

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Participate in design thinking processes to determine & confirm hypotheses and priority questions / data challenges & related metrics to be solved for
• Translate business questions to be solved into data requirements & define data solutions to deliver against these requirements
• Query the relevant database to obtain data and create fit for purpose datasets, using the relevant tools - SQL, SAS, Hadoop
• Use advanced data science skills to build solutions that leverage the best suited analytical techniques. These include but are not limited to: advanced statistics, machine learning and deep learning.
• Produce business insights and recommendations based on data analysis & modeling concluded & where relevant with knowledge and experience of e.g. SAS, Python, R.
• Use storytelling and data visualization techniques to maximize impact & deliver a user friendly product to business
• Contribute to the consolidation of data solutions into viable end products (in the language of business) that can be leveraged on an ongoing basis e.g. dashboards, reports etc.
• Present data analysis (trends, insights, forecasts) & findings to business & show tangible business impact to be derived from the data science process
• Promote data literacy with your business stakeholders by sharing best practices and showing tangible business impact & recommendations as a direct result of the data solutions provided
• Stay ahead of the curve on data science and analytics trends & leading practice data tools and techniques & transition the organization to advanced methods for the continuous optimization of data

EDUCATION and MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS:

• Bachelor (Honours) degree in Statistics, Mathematics, Engineering, Physics
• At least 5 years’ postgraduate work experience in an analytics or data science role
• Expert knowledge of anadvanced analytics tool: Python, R, Apache Spark
• Expert knowledge of a data query tool: SQL, SAS
• Expert knowledge of a visualization tool: PowerBI, Tableau, Quicksight

WHAT’S ON OFFER:

• Autonomy: Flexibility in the book of work where you will be encouraged to find/develop passion projects in the business, alongside the challenging assignments that the team already has on the go
• Mastery: an environment that will stretch you in bringing your advanced analytics toolkit to bear in advancing business priorities
• Purpose: in a world where assumptions about how the business operates have been upended, the team plays an active role in democratizing information and enabling the business to validate its learning
• Culture: a great environment where the team culture is in its next evolutionary step to build combination solutions that far surpass the sum of individual team member solutions

Education

Bachelor's Degree: Information Technology

• Absa Bank Limited is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer. In compliance with the Employment Equity Act 55 of 1998, preference will be given to suitable candidates from designated groups whose appointments will contribute towards achievement of equitable demographic representation of our workforce profile and add to the diversity of the Bank.
• Absa Bank Limited reserves the right not to make an appointment to the post as advertised