Data Scientist
ZOLA Electric
Arusha, Tanzania
Company Description
ZOLA Electric (formerly Off Grid Electric) is the leading renewable energy brand in Africa, helping customers to light their homes, power small businesses, stay connected and expand opportunities for work and study. We are a growth-stage start-up that’s on track to light a million homes in Africa with clean, affordable solar energy. ZOLA Electric combines Silicon Valley technology with local expertise to offer African homes and businesses a long-term solar solution to an unreliable grid.
We are looking for a Data Scientist with strong experience in this capacity. If you are successful, you will play a critical role as a senior member of the product team and will help architect and lead the implementation of our data analytics strategy of leveraging the data of our systems to create more value for resellers, installers and end users. You will work closely with electrical and data engineers, BI specialists and the product manager. You will create a bulletproof system that enables us to deliver business intelligence, data science and new software features at an accelerating pace.
The company was founded in 2012, and investors include Tesla, Vulcan Capital, DBL Partners, Helios Investment Partners, EDF, Total, and GE Ventures. ZOLA Electric is a recipient of the UN Momentum for Change Award, the Zayed Future Energy Prize and is a member of the Global Cleantech 100. For more information, visit www.zolaelectric.com.
Position
The Data Scientist will play a critical role in designing and implementing enhancements to our data analytics strategy. The position will involve working with our Hardware and Software teams and external partners to analyze the functional needs, translate them into technical requirements and implement them.
Gain understanding from domain experts on functional need from stakeholders and business problems or objectives
Translate functional needs in technical descriptions how to collect, extract and analyze data,
Drive improvements in efficiency, automation, cleaning, transformations, and error detection
Introduce (machine learning) models to diagnose and forecasting tools based on designs
Implement new models in engineering stack all the way into production
Propose visualizations and embedding in the business process or products
Being able to explain and communicate models to non-native data engineers
Continuously explore data to improve models
Requirements
- BS in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Math, Econometrics or equivalent
- 3-5 years of experience in business, data analytics or data scientist role
- Expert-level SQL relational data experience
- At least 2 years of Python or similar experience
- Able to translation of business needs/requirements into technical requirements
- Able to build out data resources needed
- Excellent communication skills
- Planning and Organizing Skills
- Time Management Skills
- AWS basics
Experience with the following is a bonus:
- Worked with distributed teams (Collaborative)
- Looker or other BI/dashboarding experience
- Deployment on OSS stack
- Different software building best practices, like Agile or Kanban working
Other information
Preferred locations are Lagos, Nigeria (virtual) or Arusha, Tanzania, although this role can be fulfilled on-site and remotely. We have offices in East Africa, West Africa, Europe and the western United States. You will need to be available for working meetings and collaboration with colleagues in these locations / time zones.