Bring your possibility to life! Define your career with us

With over 100 years of rich history and strongly positioned as a local bank with regional and international expertise, a career with our family offers the opportunity to be part of this exciting growth journey, to reset our future and shape our destiny as a proudly African group.

Job Summary

The purpose of this role is to be responsible for driving business value, building models, reporting and taking the lead to select and rotate through business areas within the Transactional Banking. Works closely with data engineering and data architects to source and store and run data analytics and reporting. Build and run tracking tools for overall Transactional Banking products and display on a regular basis through visualization tools to business. Drive the Analytics portion of the Campaign Committee. Take the lead to build validation and standardization processes across Transactional Banking. Build and test applications that deliver analytical and predictive content direct to users, combining commercial, analytical and technological expertise. Manage and grow in Data Analyst to develop new skillset in open source technologies such as SAS, SQL, Python & R. 

Job Description

Key Accountabilities

Accountability: Project work and Initiatives

• Lead a team of Data Analysts allocated to various projects and modelling assignments to ensure high quality, on time deliverables
• Own and drive key new data solutions initiatives with support from broader team and direct reports. This will be applicable to high priority, high impact projects.
• Responsible for sizing all new demand (cost and timeline), identify and foresee upcoming challenges, effectively plan and mitigate risks, and effective resource allocation and utilization
• Lead collaboration partner to the Data Science team to co-create and deliver innovative data products in line with the Big Data and Advanced Analytics deliver roadmap
• Collaborate with the heads of department within Transactional banking as well as the greater Absa group to co-define and develop new data solutions including data marts, MI and Analytical models.

Accountability: Building and growing the team

• Be a senior specialist and mentor within the team that is entrepreneurial and Agile in ethos and is recognized for its commitment to delivery and world-class performance
• Collaborate with a broader community of data analysts from own internal teams, disruptive data start-ups and corporate and business partners
• Mentor junior team members to actualize their potential, working with them to map and accomplish goals

Accountability: Infrastructure, Data Access and Control

• Responsible to provide platforms, hardware and software, provisioning of internal and external data and appropriate data access control (on a need basis) to ensure productivity
• Accountable for peer review forums, testing strategy, code quality control and ensuring best statistical and analytical practices are followed
• Responsible to drive a culture of adhering to the highest data standards, governance processes and risk controls in line with the Barclays Data Policy
• Ensure up to date knowledge of Data Privacy, Data Protection, Data Regulation and Conduct Risk within the team of direct reports

Accountability: Evangelism and Customer/Client Experience

• Establish a customer / client centric culture and extend data and insights into actions to impact the end user
• Drive a new way of working where data informs business decisions to not only deliver short term benefits but also long term sustainable growth and true customer value
• Support & share knowledge and best practices with the analytical, technical and business community in the
• Company and build relationships with the wider global analytics community
• Present our leading-edge, advanced analytics and insights capabilities, results and data-driven culture at leading conferences

Knowledge & Skills:

• Coding/software development skills. Strong mathematical and statistical skills.
• Knowledge of information technology environments, administration, policies and processes. Working knowledge of financial and management accounting desirable
• SAS & SQL (preferred), Python, Java (as a precursor to learning Scala) including the key numerical, analytical and machine learning libraries
• Forecast (desirable) and predictive modeling
• R (desirable), Octave/Matlab
• Apache Spark (preferred), Hadoop, Scalding
• Linux/Unix. Bash. Git. SBT/Maven
• Agile

General

The appointment will be made in line with the Absa Employment Equity strategy

Qualification requirement

• B Degree in BSc, B.Com, BEng, B.BusSc or equivalent NQF level 7 or higher qualification
• At least five (5) years analytics, modelling or software development experience.
• Understanding of and experience of applying machine learning methods preferable
• Understanding of and experience of using Big Data technologies preferable
• Experience in building analytical tools to generate insight, recognize patterns and predict behavior, and to deliver content direct to users of data products
• Work with technical teams, architects, designers, and administrators to overcome technical challenges and to make it happen
• Experience in leading key initiatives to deliver results through an Agile methodology
• Proficient in MS Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook) and the Internet
• No criminal record

Preferred requirements

• Preferably a Master’s Degree in a quantitative discipline such mathematics, statistics, physics, computer science or engineering or equivalent NQF level 8 or higher qualification
• Preference will be given to South African Citizens and Permanent residents of South Africa with proof of permanent resident status

Education

Bachelor`s Degrees and Advanced Diplomas: Business, Commerce and Management Studies (Required)