Senior Data Scientist

Senior Data Scientist (NLP / RAG / Applied AI)

Location
: Remote (trial period) then on-site in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire

Company
: Box Africa Group – Fast-growing IT services company (+100 employees) pivoting 100% to AI

Contract
: Full-time – Permanent

About Us

Box Africa is a rapidly growing IT services company operating across West Africa. We are launching a dedicated
AI division
to deliver high-impact, applied AI solutions in fintech, telecom, banking, health, agriculture, and the public sector.

Our ambition is to build the
leading AI practice in West Africa
, combining cutting-edge research, applied machine learning, and local talent development.

Main Responsibilities

As a
Senior Data Scientist
, you will play a key role in advancing Box Africa's AI practice. You will design, prototype, and deploy
state-of-the-art AI models
with a focus on
Natural Language Processing (NLP)
,
Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)
, and
Applied AI use cases
relevant to Africa.

1. Research & Development

• Lead the research and prototyping of models in
  NLP, LLM fine-tuning, multilingual and multimodal AI
  .
• Develop and optimize
  RAG pipelines
  for African languages and domain-specific contexts (banking, telco, fintech, health).
• Drive applied research in
  Intelligent Document Processing (IDP)
  , automating information extraction and classification.
• Explore AI for
  risk scoring, credit scoring, and credit exposure loss prediction (IFRS9 ECL models)
  .
• Investigate and apply
  agentic architectures
  and
  agents-as-a-service
  to real-world enterprise problems.
• Stay ahead of emerging trends (explainable AI, bias mitigation, reinforcement learning, multimodal AI).

2. Model Development & Production

• Design and build
  end-to-end AI models
  , from proof-of-concept (POC) to production deployment.
• Collaborate with AI engineers to ensure robust
  MLOps integration
  (training, versioning, deployment, monitoring).
• Apply
  XAI techniques
  to ensure explainability, fairness, and regulatory compliance.
• Deliver
  scalable, production-ready solutions
  addressing financial services (fraud detection, risk scoring), telecom, and public services.

3. Collaboration & Mentorship

• Work closely with the Head of AI & Strategy and the AI Engineering Manager to shape Box Africa's AI practice.
• Mentor junior data scientists and foster a
  culture of applied research and innovation
  .
• Collaborate with client teams to translate business challenges into
  AI-driven solutions
  .

4. Impact & Ecosystem Building

• Contribute to the design of
  AI services tailored to West Africa
  (IDP for banks, credit scoring models, multilingual assistants).
• Publish findings, represent Box Africa at conferences, and grow our presence in the
  African AI ecosystem
  .
• Position Box Africa as a
  pioneer in applied AI & agentic systems
  across UEMOA and West Africa.

Candidate Profile

Technical Skills

• Deep expertise in
  NLP & LLMs
  (transformers, HuggingFace, embeddings, multilingual models).
• Hands-on experience with
  RAG architectures
  (vector databases: FAISS, Weaviate, Milvus; LangChain, Haystack).
• Strong knowledge of
  risk & credit scoring models, exposure loss forecasting, and IDP techniques
  .
• Proficiency in
  machine learning & deep learning frameworks
  (PyTorch, TensorFlow, Scikit-learn).
• Experience with
  XAI, bias detection, and compliance-driven AI
  .
• Familiarity with
  MLOps practices
  (MLflow, CI/CD, containerization).

Experience & Leadership

• 5+ years
  of professional experience in Data Science or AI research.
• Proven track record of delivering
  NLP/AI solutions from research to production
  .
• Exposure to
  financial services, telecom, or regulated industries
  is a plus.
• International or multicultural project exposure (Africa, Europe, or Asia).
• Experience mentoring junior data scientists is an advantage.

Soft Skills

• Analytical and research-driven, with a
  pragmatic mindset for applied AI
  .
• Excellent communication skills with both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Fluency in English required; French language proficiency would be a strong plus.
• Passion for developing
  AI with real impact in Africa
  .

Why Join Box Africa?

• Join a
  fast-growing company
  employees, >50% annual growth).
• Work on
  real applied AI projects
  : IDP, credit scoring, fraud detection, multilingual NLP, agentic AI.
• Shape the future of AI in West Africa alongside international experts.
• Contribute to the
  next generation of African AI talent
  .
• Career-defining opportunity: become a
  pioneer in Applied AI in Africa
  .

Benefits

• Relocation & settling-in support
  (housing assistance, logistics).
• Annual round-trip flight ticket
  to home country.
• Relocation allowance
  (moving expenses covered).
• Comprehensive health insurance
  .
• Training & certification budget
  (AI, NLP, Cloud, leadership).
• Annual performance bonus
  tied to company growth.
• International career growth opportunities
  as Box Africa expands across UEMOA and West Africa.

Recruitment Process

1. Initial call (30 min) – Introductory discussion.
2. Technical interview (1h) – Case study (NLP / RAG / IDP / risk scoring).
3. Leadership interview (45 min) – Research, mentorship, impact.
4. Executive meeting (45 min) – Strategy & cultural fit.
5. Final offer.