African Energy Futures Is Hiring For Senior and Junior Data Scientists

Available Roles

1. AI and Data Platforms Lead

2. Junior Data Scientist

1. AI And Data Platforms Lead

The AI and Data Platforms Lead is a senior technical role combining product development, data engineering, applied artificial intelligence and practical software development. The successful candidate will design and deliver the unit’s digital and AI-enabled capabilities.

Responsibilities

• Lead the technical design, development and improvement of the online data platform and visualisation tools.

• Translate user needs into product roadmaps, prototypes, specifications and tested releases.

• Work with Ember and other partners to adapt or integrate platform components while building independent African Climate Foundation and African Energy Futures capability.

• Design systems that support accessibility, low-bandwidth use, maintainability, multilingual expansion and responsible open access where appropriate.

• Build data-ingestion, transformation, storage, metadata, versioning and publishing pipelines.

• Integrate structured and unstructured data from public, partner and internal sources using APIs, automated workflows and documented manual processes.

• Collaborate with the Junior Data Scientist on data validation, provenance, reproducibility, access control and release standards.

• Maintain technical documentation, repositories, testing processes, backups and business-continuity arrangements.

• Identify, prototype and deploy AI applications for data discovery, extraction, classification, cleaning, summarisation, visualisation, research and knowledge management.

• Develop retrieval, search and assisted-analysis tools connected to trusted organisational data and evidence.

• Use human-in-the-loop evaluation to manage hallucination, bias, confidentiality, intellectual-property and security risks.

• Provide training, templates and technical support to colleagues and manage technical vendors or contributors when necessary.

Required Qualifications And Experience

• A degree or equivalent practical experience in computer science, data engineering, information systems, software engineering, computational science or a related field.

• At least six years of relevant experience in software, data-platform, data-engineering or applied-AI roles.

• Experience delivering user-facing tools.

• Strong proficiency in Python and SQL.

• Experience working with APIs and databases.

• Familiarity with modern web-based data-visualisation approaches.

• Practical experience with cloud infrastructure, deployment, version control, testing and secure data workflows.

• Hands-on experience applying large language models or machine-learning tools to real organisational use cases.

• Ability to explain technical choices, risks and trade-offs clearly to non-technical colleagues.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English.

Desirable Experience

• Open-data platforms, geospatial data, energy data, development indicators or public-interest technology.

• Data protection, cybersecurity, AI governance or model evaluation in nonprofit or research environments.

• Experience supporting organisations operating across multiple African countries and variable digital-infrastructure environments.

2. Junior Data Scientist

The Junior Data Scientist will turn fragmented and inconsistent information into reliable, usable datasets. This role is intended for an early-career analyst who is interested in detailed problem-solving and developing expertise in African energy and development data.

Responsibilities

• Search for and catalogue public, academic, commercial and partner datasets across African countries and regions.

• Download, request, extract or transcribe information from spreadsheets, reports, APIs, databases and other source formats.

• Maintain source registers, data inventories and update schedules.

• Engage institutions and partners to clarify definitions, obtain missing information and document permissions.

• Clean, standardise, merge and restructure datasets using repeatable scripts and documented procedures.

• Reconcile country names, units, currencies, dates, technology classifications and other coding systems.

• Identify duplicates, gaps, implausible values and inconsistencies, and escalate unresolved issues.

• Prepare data for publication, visualisation and analysis while preserving raw files and audit trails.

• Maintain metadata, data dictionaries, change logs and quality-control records.

• Produce descriptive statistics, tables, charts and maps under the guidance of the senior data scientist.

• Conduct literature and source reviews to provide context for quantitative findings.

• Replicate published calculations and check figures, labels, notes and citations before release.

• Support country profiles, comparative dashboards, data stories and strategic-analysis assignments.

• Upload and test datasets and content on the platform, report issues, and maintain shared repositories and documentation.

• Participate in training, peer review, team planning and engagement with the wider African data community.

• Use AI-assisted tools where appropriate while checking outputs against original sources and following unit protocols.

Required Qualifications And Experience

• A bachelor’s degree in statistics, economics, data science, computer science, engineering, geography, energy, development studies or another relevant quantitative field.

• One to three years of relevant experience, including internships, research assistantships or a strong portfolio of applied projects.

• Working proficiency in Python or R and spreadsheets.

• Familiarity with SQL is strongly preferred.

• Practical experience cleaning and analysing real-world datasets and producing basic visualisations.

• High accuracy, organisation and persistence when handling repetitive or detailed tasks.

• Ability to document sources and methods clearly and ask for help when data are ambiguous.

• Good written and verbal communication skills in English.

Desirable Experience

• African public data, energy statistics, development indicators or geospatial information.

• Git, notebooks, APIs, Power BI, Tableau or web-based visualisation tools.

• Experience extracting data from PDFs or poorly structured source files.

Work Arrangement And Contract Details

• Location: Remote across Africa.

• Operational hub: Cape Town, South Africa.

• Contract: Fixed-term contract.

• Duration: 12 months.

• Renewal: Renewable by mutual agreement and subject to project success.

• Start date: Immediately.

• Work authorisation: Applicants must have the legal right to work in the country where they are based.

Application Details

• Deadline: 4 October 2026.

• Application route: Submit an application through the dedicated BambooHR vacancy page for the relevant role.

• Outcome notification: Applicants who do not receive a response by 30 November 2026 should consider their application unsuccessful.