Discovery

The Programme 

Discovery’s core purpose is to make people healthier and to enhance and protect their lives. We seek out and invest in exceptional individuals who understand and support our core purpose, and whose own values align with those of Discovery.  
 
Our fast-paced and dynamic environment enables smart, self-driven people to be their best.  
 
As global thought leaders, Discovery is passionate about innovating in order to not only achieve financial success, but to ignite positive and meaningful change within our society. 
 
About the Data Science Lab: 
 
The Group Data Science Lab applies predictive analytics, machine learning, big data, and operations research skills to run and to support key projects for the Discovery Group and for the individual Discovery business units, including the health, life, and short-term insurance businesses.  
 
We work across operational, clinical, wellness, financial, customer service, sales, and behavioural science areas. We use and create state-of-the-art tools and work with terabytes of structured and unstructured data within a big data environment. 
  
About the Position: 

We have a vacancy for a data scientist to work on cutting-edge Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Large Language Model (LLM) projects.  
 
The team has been researching, using, training, and engineering systems which leverage NLP and LLMs for years, and we are looking for team members to help expand and accelerate this research and development. 
  
Responsibilities include: 

• Working with huge quantities of unstructured text data from a variety of sources. 
• Completing reviews of relevant academic literature and industry releases. 
• Working with seniors in the team to own the delivery of projects from inception through to deployment and business adoption. 
• Prototyping code for data science and ML systems, particularly those using NLP and LLMs, in line with architecture designed with senior data scientists and data engineers. 
• Evaluating prototypes, models, and deployments robustly to ensure scientific rigour and business value. 
• Presenting analyses and project updates to both technical and business audiences.
• Keeping an open mind and looking for new opportunities for the use of existing datasets and tools, as well as new ones, for novel business applications. 

Required Skills and Abilities 

Personal Attributes:   

• A creative and eager attitude to learning, unearthing valuable insights, and generating value for Discovery clients. 
• Enthusiasm for building systems which solve real problems through data and technology. 
• Ability to balance multiple priorities and step back to see how your work fits into the wider business context.
• Aligned to Discovery values and core purpose. 

Technical Skills: 

• SQL and working with databases. 
• Python for data science and machine learning. 
• Ability to formulate a clear problem statement, develop a plan for tackling it, and clearly communicate findings verbally, visually, and in writing. 

Advantageous: 

• Version control (Git). 
• Experience with R. 
• Experience with using and/or developing NLP packages and models. 
• Experience with TensorFlow and/or PyTorch. 
• Experience with using and/or training LLMs.
• Experience with Spark and/or Dask.  

Education and Experience: 

• Honours or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Mathematics, Statistics, Data Science, Actuarial Science, Statistics, Operations Research, Industrial engineering, Applied Mathematics, or similar quantitative field. A PhD degree would be advantageous. Other qualifications will also be considered if accompanied by relevant experience. 
• We will consider candidates at all levels of experience. 

About Us: 
 
As a proudly South African company and a global financial services provider, we differentiate ourselves by focusing on how our products are adding value to people’s lives, while impacting society in a positive and sustainable way.  
 
We achieve this with our Shared-value Insurance model that offers incentives to encourage people to be healthier and enhances and protects their lives.  
 
Our model delivers better health and value for clients, superior results for the business, and a healthier society.