Data Scientist at Co-operative Bank of Kenya

The role

The successful jobholder will be expected to:

1. Transform large, complex datasets into pragmatic, actionable insights, leverage data to identify, quantify and influence tangible business gain by performing ad-hoc analysis and presenting results in reports, dashboards and charts.
2. Implement analytical model designs, perform any restructuring required, and review dataset implementations performed by the data engineer and BI developers.
3. Selecting features, building and optimizing classifiers using machine learning techniques and Data mining using bank selected data mining tools.
4. Enhance data collection procedures to include information that is relevant for building analytic systems, Process, cleanse and verify the integrity of data used for advanced analysis by creating automated anomaly detection systems and constant tracking of its performance.
5. Improve data foundational procedures, guidelines and standards and develop best practices for data management, maintenance, reporting and security.
6. Implement statistical data quality procedures or test driven approach for quality assurance and conduct performance tuning to be able to optimize the application of statistical models and scripts.
7. Design, build, and maintain various parts of the data warehousing with respect to requirements gathering, data modeling, metric establishment, reporting production, and data visualization.
8. Gather and process raw, unstructured data at scale into a form suitable for analysis then consolidate into the data warehouse in order to perform Business Intelligence and advanced analytics.
9. Evaluate datasets for accuracy and quality using statistical data quality procedures, software, or test-driven approaches that ensure quality assurance and solve any issues which may arise.
10. Assist to analyze business/use case requirements from BI analysts to determine operational problems, define data modeling requirements, gather and validate information, apply judgment and statistical tests and develop data structures to support the generation of business insights and strategy.
11. Provide test interfaces for users to test the reports and dashboards before being put on the production environment and carry out technical user training as required to enable users interpret BI solutions.
12. Develop and maintain documentation/manuals on models developed, reports generated and statistical solutions devised.
13. Assist in developing and implementing a program of continuous improvement of BI processes through a cycle of analysis of existing systems, processes, and tools, identifying areas for improvement, and implementing high-impact changes, and getting feedback from stakeholders.

Qualifications, Skills & Attributes

The successful jobholder will be required to possess the following qualifications: -

1. A degree in statistics, data sciences or related quantitative fields is preferred (or equivalent on-the-job experience).
2. A minimum 3-5 years of business experience as a Data Scientist or applied data experience is required.
3. Experience with relational databases such as Oracle, SQL queries, or OLAP cubes is preferred.
4. Excellent understanding of machine learning techniques and algorithms, such as k-NN, Naive Bayes, SVM and Decision Forests.
5. Experience with common data science toolkits, such as R, Weka, NumPy, MatLab, etc Excellence in at least one of these is highly desirable.
6. Proficiency in using query languages such as SQL, Hive, Pig and Experience with NoSQL databases, such as MongoDB, Cassandra, HBase.
7. Good applied statistics skills, such as distributions, statistical testing, regression, etc. with good scripting and programming skills.
8. Knowledge of agile software development process and performance metric tools.
9. Experience extracting and cleaning text in different formats e.g. HTML, pdf files.
10. Proven ability to collaborate with other team members across boundaries and contribute productively to the team’s work and output, demonstrating respect for different points of view.
11. Able to use strong interpersonal and teamwork skills to cultivate effective, productive client relationships and partnerships across organizational boundaries.
12. Strong co-ordination and project management skills to handle complex projects.