Data Scientist - Generative AI and Agentic AI Systems

About Vodacom

Vodacom stands as Africa's leading mobile communications provider, serving over 200 million customers across several countries including South Africa, Tanzania, DRC, Mozambique, Kenya, Lesotho, Egypt, and Ethiopia. Our networks reach roughly 250 million people, and through Vodacom Business Africa, we offer managed services to enterprises in more than 40 African countries. Recognized as South Africa's number one top employer by the Top Employer Institute for 2026, we pride ourselves on being truly data-driven and devoted to intelligent solutions that drive superior customer experience and business results.

Role Overview

We seek a Data Scientist with expertise in Generative AI and Agentic AI to architect and deliver advanced AI-powered solutions enhancing customer experiences. This role involves designing production-grade large language model (LLM) systems and agent-driven workflows that facilitate real-time decision-making, intelligent automation, and proactive personalized customer engagement.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and deploy LLM-powered applications such as Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), conversational AI, summarization, classification, and recommendation systems.
• Design RAG architectures that integrate both structured and unstructured enterprise data.
• Implement effective prompt engineering techniques along with evaluation frameworks and safety guardrails.
• Establish LLMOps pipelines to orchestrate, monitor, evaluate, and optimize AI solutions ensuring scalability, security, and production readiness.
• Create agentic AI systems capable of multi-step reasoning, tool and API orchestration, autonomous execution with feedback loops, supporting customer query resolution, CX insights, and journey orchestration.
• Integrate AI agents into chatbots, virtual assistants, IVR and voice systems, and backend workflows, including human-in-the-loop controls.
• Build scalable AI models that analyze unstructured customer data—call audio, speech transcripts, chat logs, surveys, emails, and support tickets—to extract sentiments, intents, root causes, churn indicators, and journey patterns.
• Deliver real-time CX intelligence tools enabling dynamic next-best-action suggestions, proactive issue detection, and personalized multi-channel engagement.
• Develop predictive models such as propensity scores, customer segmentation, and proactive calling strategies.
• Engineer scalable pipelines including data ingestion, vector databases, APIs, microservices, containerization with Docker/Kubernetes, and deploy on cloud platforms like AWS, GCP, or Azure.
• Lead and mentor data science teams, championing Generative AI and Agentic AI initiatives while translating complex AI outputs into actionable business insights in collaboration with cross-functional stakeholders.

Candidate Profile

• Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics, Statistics, Computer Science, Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, or relevant quantitative field; Master’s degree beneficial.
• Minimum 3 to 5 years of experience in Big Data, Data Science, AI/ML, or Engineering with demonstrated capability in end-to-end AI solution delivery.
• Familiarity mentoring and guiding data scientists through emerging AI technologies.
• Expertise in Generative AI, large language models, MLOps/LLMOps frameworks, and building core generative and agentic AI applications.
• Strong proficiency in Python and experience with machine learning frameworks like H2O, scikit-learn, PyTorch, TensorFlow.
• Experienced in handling structured (SQL) and unstructured data (PySpark, NoSQL) and cloud-native model deployment.
• Knowledge of container technologies such as Docker and Kubernetes.
• Experience with prompt engineering, hallucination mitigation, responsible AI frameworks, and evaluation of LLMs.
• Ability to design AI systems covering real-time and batch processing architectures, with hands-on use of API frameworks like FastAPI or Flask.
• Familiar with visualization tools such as Tableau, PowerBI, Grafana, or similar platforms.
• Strong communication, presentation, analytical, and problem-solving skills, capable of working independently and collaboratively in agile, fast-paced environments.
• Curious, adaptable, and committed to continuous learning in evolving AI landscapes.

Additional Information

• Role is based at Vodacom Campus in Midrand, Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa.
• Application deadline is 27 August 2026.
• Vodacom adheres to its Employment Equity Plan and actively encourages applicants with disabilities.
• We offer attractive incentives including competitive benefits, retirement funds, medical aid, telecom discounts, and other staff privileges.

Equal Opportunity Statement

Vodacom is devoted to cultivating a diverse and inclusive workplace that appreciates and values diversity across all dimensions.