Private: Senior Data Scientist

Private: Senior Data Scientist

17 March, 2025    

About Cenfri

Cenfri is an independent African economic think tank based in Kigali and Cape Town. We work to boost economic growth and increase sustainable development in emerging and developing markets. The data analytics team have active projects in South Africa, Rwanda and Tanzania. In Rwanda, we have partnered with the Ministry of ICT and Innovation and Mastercard Foundation for a six-year digital transformation programme aiming at harnessing Rwanda’s big data to enhance the Government’s digital capabilities and systems.

Role summary

Cenfri is looking for a senior data scientist to join our team in Cape Town, South Africa. The senior data scientist will be responsible for implementing and managing analytical projects at various public sector or private sector entities. This involves the design and implementation of data pipelines, data quality assessments, processing and analytics, and reporting.

This role includes collaborating with external parties to understand their analytical priorities as well as providing advice on how to improve existing data processes. You will also be responsible for delegating tasks to juniors and managing a small team.

Responsibilities

  • Work closely with client institutions to develop analytical plans to deliver on project objectives
  • Build the capacity of the data teams at partner institutions through knowledge sharing on projects and bespoke trainings
  • Manage and implement data projects with other team members
  • Develop ETL processes to enable partners to derive value from their data
  • Conduct descriptive analysis and predictive analytics on big data sets
  • Generate policy or business insights from analyses
  • Apply segmentation techniques to large record-level data sets, such as transactional telecommunications data, or demographic data sets
  • Conduct data exploration activities at government entities to gain insight into the data collected and potential analytical applications for the data
  • Assess data quality and provide guidance on methods or techniques to improve data quality
  • Collaborate with external stakeholders on their analytical priorities
  • Provide guidance to government entities on how to optimize existing internal data processes
  • Merge data sets from different entities to enable richer data analysis
  • Develop APIs to streamline data sharing processes
  • Maintain documentation on all work conducted and generally ensure compliance with the relevant data protection legislation

Requirements

  • 8+ years of work experience on data-centered projects
  • Post graduate degree in either Data Science, Economics, Statistics, Operations Research, Engineering, Applied Mathematics or Computer Science
  • Experience with extracting, cleaning, and transforming data and working with data owners to understand the data
  • Experiencing in managing analytical projects to inform decision-making processes (public sector experience is a bonus)
  • Proficiency in SQL
  • Proficiency in R or Python, or any other scripting/programming language
  • Proficiency in MS-Office suite

The ideal candidate

  • Excellent problem-solving skills with a strong attention to detail
  • Can work independently and as part of a team
  • Experienced in leading and managing analytical projects
  • Ability to source and combine data from both structured and unstructured sources
  • Ability to formulate a clear problem statement, develop a plan for tackling it and clearly communicating findings verbally and in writing
  • A creative and enthusiastic attitude to unearthing valuable insights to solve economic problems
  • Have experience working with systems or applications that generate data
  • Ability to balance multiple priorities

Placement and Location

Cenfri is based in Cape Town, South Africa, with an office in Kigali, Rwanda. This role will be based in our Cape Town office. The role requires international travel up to 25% per year.

If you identify with our values, are excited about impactful research and would like to contribute to our mission and vision, we would love to hear from you.

Closing Date: 11 April 2025

Click here to apply.

Similar Articles
Legal Associate
Join Cenfri NPC: Drive Inclusive Growth as a Legal Associate...
Research Associate
Join Cenfri NPC: Drive Inclusive Growth as a Research Associate   ...