About the position
If your academic record reads like a fairy tale and you will thrive in a fast-paced mission led environment, take a closer look! In addition to fulfilling a key role to achieve sustainable profitability, you will earn in US dollars while working in a flexible hybrid model based in the heart of Cape Town.
You will report to the Group Head of Credit and take ownership of the analytical engine that drives credit and pricing strategies.
The Company:
A rapidly growing African scale-up improving everyday lives by providing access to solar energy and smartphones through innovative financing, in-house technology, and broad distribution networks across the continent.
What’s in it for you?
You will join a purpose-led business that combines the stability of a large organisation with the agility of a small team, where you are trusted with meaningful responsibility from Day 1 in a high-expectation, high-support culture. Enjoy additional benefits such as share options, travel opportunities, hybrid flexibility and annual team retreats.
Your Responsibilities?
- Drive Profitability Through Data: Develop, monitor, and refine our pricing models to consistently achieve profitability targets. You will model the P&L impact of changes to pricing, credit policies, and commission structures.
- Credit Performance Forecasting: Build and maintain models to forecast key credit metrics, including repayment rates and portfolio losses. Your forecasts will be a critical input for financial planning and strategic decisions.
- Enhance our Credit Risk Models: Analyse diverse customer and behavioural datasets to build, backtest, and improve our automated credit scoring and risk-bucketing systems.
- Explore New Opportunities: Explore, test, and prototype new analytical models and data-driven projects to uncover opportunities for improving business performance and customer outcomes.
- Deliver Actionable Analysis: Go beyond just building models. You will investigate portfolio trends, identify drivers of good and bad performance, and provide clear, actionable recommendations to in-country teams.
- Own Commercial Outcomes: You will not stay in a spreadsheet. You'll be expected to own business outcomes, understand the second-order effects of your models on sales and underwriting teams, and do work beyond pure analysis to make things happen.
What would make you ideal for the position?
- Education: Bachelors or Honours degree in Actuarial Science, Statistics, Data Science, Mathematics, or a related quantitative field.
- Technical Skills:
- Strong proficiency in SQL for data extraction and manipulation.
- Advanced skills in Python or R for statistical analysis, modelling, and data visualization (e.g., scikit-learn, pandas, seaborn).
- Experience in building and maintaining credit scorecards, pricing models, or complex financial forecasts. Familiarity with data visualization or dashboarding tools (e.g., Tableau, Power BI) is a plus.
- Soft Skills:
- Strong analytical and problem-solving abilities.
- A highly commercial mindset with a focus on business impact. Excellent communication skills—you must be able to explain complex quantitative concepts to non-technical stakeholders. C
- Combines high intellectual horsepower with a practical, hands-on approach.
- Must have an adventurous spirit and be willing to travel to our operating countries to engage directly with local teams and understand on-the-ground realities.
- Experience: 2-5 years of relevant experience in a credit risk, pricing, or data science role, preferably within fintech, lending, or financial services.
The Offer:
- A USD-denominated monthly salary between $2,500 – $5,000, converted to ZAR (Offer will be market related, based on qualifications, skills and experience)
We don’t want you to miss out due to limited access to your academic results. Please keep your academic record, including your GPA / overall average, readily available, as this will be required as one of the first steps in the proces.
Desired Skills:
- sql
- python
- r
- statistical modelling
- credit risk analysis
- financial modelling
