Sandton: Senior Python Developer posted by The Focus Group

Company Summary

A leading JSE-listed financial services company is expanding its Group Data Science Team, a world-class division that partners across digital, clinical, wellness, and behavioural domains. The team collaborates globally and leverages modern big-data platforms to build scalable, future-focused solutions that drive innovation across the organisation.

Role Summary

The Senior Python Developer plays a critical role in the AI Enablement function, building and maintaining production-grade Python systems, managing ML pipelines, and ensuring enterprise-scale deployment of AI/ML models. You will contribute to technical standards, support team members, and help turn advanced AI into dependable business value.

Requirements

Essential:

• 5+ years experience in Python development

• Strong grounding in software engineering principles (SOLID, unit testing, CI/CD, Git)

• Experience with ML engineering/MLOps tooling (MLflow, Kubeflow, etc.)

• Cloud platform experience (AWS, Azure, or GCP)

• Experience designing and maintaining ELT/ETL pipelines in distributed compute environments (Spark, Ray or similar)

• Ability to contribute to technical design, code reviews, and engineering best practices

Advantageous:

• Experience with Vertex AI, BigQuery, Cloud Composer

• Exposure to large-scale data ecosystems and distributed systems

• Experience mentoring junior engineers or data scientists

Responsibilities

• Build, optimize, and maintain high-performance Python systems for AI/ML delivery

• Participate in code reviews and contribute to engineering standards

• Design and manage ELT/ETL pipelines in large-scale MPP environments

• Support the full ML lifecycle: deployment, monitoring, and optimisation

• Implement automated monitoring, alerting, and model observability

• Provide guidance to junior developers and data scientists

• Collaborate with stakeholders to translate business needs into robust technical solutions