M-Pesa Africa: Principal Data Scientist

Job Description

M-Pesa is a pioneering fintech business and global market leader in mobile money. Starting from 2007 as a convenient means by which the unbanked and underbanked could make digital payments, M-Pesa has now grown to offer over 60 million active customers Financial Services, Enterprise, Merchant and Retail solutions. We are proud of our work in enabling the digital economy in our markets, and in driving financial inclusion.

M-Pesa Africa is the largest FinTech providing services to more than 60 million customers and 5 million businesses solutions across Financial Services, Enterprise, Merchant and Retail. We are now well on our way to becoming the preferred digital payment method across the markets that we serve, for both in-store, remote and online payments. With headquarters in both Nairobi and Johannesburg, we serve markets that include Kenya, Tanzania, DRC, Lesotho, Ghana, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Mozambique.

We are a united, energetic and passionate team. A place where leaders coach, teams connect, and everyone is empowered to go further, faster. A place where heroes become superheroes; through growth, opportunity, and the chance to work with the best minds in FinTech.

Role Purpose:

The Commercial Team works with the M-Pesa leadership across our 7 OpCos to co-create the product strategy, drive thought leadership and new strategic partnerships, design new products and features, set commercial priorities with the engineering teams and support the product development lifecycle.

Your responsibilities will include championing big data, analytics and machine learning to help build the next generation of M-Pesa services that are personalised, contextualised and smart. This could include work across the M-Pesa Africa product suite, including the consumer and merchant app experience, the financial services portfolio, international remittances and the business portal.

Your responsibilities will include:

• Create Machine Learning and AI products that provide actionable business insight and drive personalisation for M-Pesa users.
• Developing predictive models with large and varied datasets, working with a community of colleagues across Advanced Analytics, technology, and data and customer functions
• Development of machine learning models for various areas of the business on the Big Data Platform
• Development of prototype code in e.g. PySpark for automated training and scoring of the machine learning models
• Machine Learning Model performance tracking and reporting
• Uses data visualisation to engage audience in a compelling way, enabling effective storytelling
• Work with lead data scientist to deliver key packages of work to meet the needs of business customers
• Works in partnership with Big Data Engineering for data ingestion to support use cases
• Works in partnership with Big Data Production Data Engineering for model automation and productionising
• Contributing to the wider community to enable Machine Learning and AI capability across Vodafone globally.
• Manages and takes ownership of a portfolio of work from model development to stakeholder engagement

The ideal candidate for this role will have:

• Bachelor’s or Master’s Degree in quantitative fields like Mathematics, Statistics, Economics, Computer Science Engineering, Artificial Intelligence or related fields (essential)
• Professional and/or academic experience in Big Data analytics & deployment of models and algorithms to solve real-world problems (with deep statistical and machine learning modelling expertise)
• Familiarity with visualisation tools (e.g. Tableau, Qlik, D3)
• Experience working with large datasets (e.g. SQL, Hadoop, Spark, NoSQL)
• Proficiency in at least one relevant programming language: Python, R
• Experience in major machine learning modelling libraries (e.g., H2O, scikit-learn, PyTorch) and techniques (e.g. random forest, gradient boosting, k-means segmentation, multiple regression, factor analysis, time-series forecasting)

Core competencies, knowledge and experience:

• A minimum of 6-8 years relevant experience in Data Science.
• Experiencing mentoring and managing a team of junior data scientists.
• Experience manipulating and analysing large and complex datasets
• Experience in visualisation, creating graphical static and interactive displays of data that clearly communicate insight
• Good interpersonal communication and presentation skills
• Understands how AI & ML creates commercial value
• Ability to manage relationships with stakeholders across the continent
• Ability to work in a fast-paced environment
• Analytical and expansive thinking with a strong desire to deliver and develop
• Experience building and deploying models (Churn, Recommenders, Credit, Fraud, etc.)

Closing date for Applications: 13 June 2026.

The base location for this role is, Vodacom Midrand Campus.

The Company's approved Employment Equity Plan and Targets will be considered as part of the recruitment process. As an Equal Opportunities employer, we actively encourage and welcome people with various disabilities to apply.
Vodacom is committed to an organisational culture that recognises, appreciates and values diversity & inclusion.