Talent Pool – Junior Data Scientist
Discovery Health
Business Unit: Discovery Health
Function: Data Sciences
Date Posted: 15 September 2026
Position: Junior Data Scientist
Employment Type: Talent Pool
About Discovery
Discovery’s core purpose is to enhance and protect people’s lives. The organisation achieves this through breakthrough product designs that use incentives to encourage healthier lifestyle choices.
Discovery’s large and diverse datasets span areas including healthcare, wellness, driving, investments and life insurance. These datasets support innovation, risk management, operational efficiency and the company’s shared-value model.
About the Data Science Lab
The Group Data Science Lab applies predictive analytics, machine learning, big data and operations research to projects across Discovery Group and its individual business units.
The team works across areas such as:
- Operations
- Clinical services
- Wellness
- Finance
- Customer service
- Sales
- Behavioural science
The lab works with terabytes of structured and unstructured data in a big-data environment and develops advanced analytical solutions.
About the Position
Discovery Health is building its talent pool for Junior Data Scientists to work on cutting-edge Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Large Language Model (LLM) projects.
The team has extensive experience researching, using, training and engineering systems that leverage NLP and LLM technologies. Successful candidates will contribute to expanding and accelerating this research and development.
Key Responsibilities
The successful candidate will be responsible for:
- Working with large volumes of unstructured text data from a variety of sources.
- Reviewing relevant academic literature and industry developments.
- Working with senior team members to deliver projects from inception through deployment and business adoption.
- Prototyping data science and machine-learning systems, particularly NLP and LLM solutions.
- Developing code in line with architectures designed by senior data scientists and data engineers.
- Evaluating prototypes, models and deployments to ensure scientific rigour and business value.
- Presenting analyses and project updates to technical and business audiences.
- Identifying new opportunities to use existing datasets and tools, as well as new technologies, for innovative business applications.
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Personal Attributes
Discovery is looking for candidates who demonstrate:
- A creative and eager attitude towards learning and discovering valuable insights.
- A passion for generating value through data and technology.
- Enthusiasm for building systems that solve real-world problems.
- The ability to balance multiple priorities effectively.
- The ability to understand how individual work contributes to the wider business context.
- Alignment with Discovery’s values and core purpose.
Technical Skills
Essential
- SQL and database experience.
- Python for data science and machine learning.
- Ability to formulate clear problem statements.
- Ability to develop structured plans for solving problems.
- Ability to communicate findings clearly through verbal, visual and written formats.
Advantageous
Experience with any of the following will be beneficial:
- Git and version control.
- R.
- NLP packages and models.
- TensorFlow and/or PyTorch.
- Using or training Large Language Models (LLMs).
- Spark and/or Dask.
Education and Experience
Applicants should have an Honours or Master’s degree in a quantitative field such as:
- Computer Science
- Mathematics
- Statistics
- Data Science
- Actuarial Science
- Operations Research
- Industrial Engineering
- Applied Mathematics
- A similar quantitative discipline
A PhD would be advantageous.
Other qualifications may also be considered where supported by relevant experience.
Candidates at all levels of experience will be considered.
Employment Equity
Discovery’s approved Employment Equity Plan and Targets will be considered as part of the recruitment process.
Discovery is an equal-opportunities employer and actively encourages and welcomes applications from people with disabilities.
Company
Discovery Health
Industry: Financial Services / Health Insurance / Data & Technology
Function: Data Sciences
Location: South Africa
How to Apply
Interested candidates should apply through Discovery’s official careers platform and search for “Talent Pool – Junior Data Scientist”.
Date Posted: 15 September 2026