Principal AI Engineer

Principal Machine Learning Engineer - Johannesburg (Hybrid) / Cape Town (Remote)

Full-time | Permanent

A leading technology and data-driven organisation is looking for an exceptional Principal Machine Learning Engineer to join their Intelligent Data team. This is a senior, high-impact role driving the architecture, strategy, and delivery of advanced AI and machine learning systems.



The Opportunity

You will provide both technical and strategic leadership, shaping the next generation of real-time AI solutions. The team builds high-performance, production-grade systems with a strong emphasis on engineering excellence, governance, and scalable design.

Examples of the types of projects you may contribute to include:

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Real-time fraud prevention systems analysing behavioural and financial signals to stop fraudulent transactions instantly.
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Advanced event-driven telemetry solutions processing real-time device data to reduce false alerts and automate critical decisioning.
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Cutting-edge LLM-based initiatives within an organisation with several years of production experience in applied generative AI.

This role suits a hands-on engineering leader who is passionate about building robust platforms, driving ML strategy, and inspiring a world-class technical team.

Key Responsibilities

Technical & Architectural Leadership

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Lead the design and architecture of complex, real-time, scalable ML systems.
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Resolve advanced engineering challenges and guide high-level architectural decisions.
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Provide deep expertise in data streaming and event-driven tooling.
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Evaluate new technologies and keep the practice at the forefront of industry innovation.

Strategic Contribution

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Partner with leadership to define and evolve ML strategy and platform direction.
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Research emerging tools and trends (LLMs, Generative AI, AI assistants) and apply them to real use cases.

Team Leadership & Mentorship

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Coach, mentor, and uplift a high-performing technical team.
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Drive best practices, code quality, and engineering excellence.

Thought Leadership & Communication

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Represent the ML discipline effectively, presenting to internal and external audiences.
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Contribute to content, talks, and community engagement.

Ideal Candidate Profile

This individual is a rare combination of technical depth, architectural thinking, leadership, and communication excellence.

Non-negotiables:

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Hands-on ML Engineer: Proven track record building full end-to-end ML and AI application ecosystems.
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Streaming & Platform Expertise: Strong experience with Kafka, Flink, Beam, or similar.
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Multi-cloud engineering: Strongest in AWS, with exposure to GCP and Azure.
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Technical versatility: Deep experience across Python, Go, Java, C#, or similar languages.
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Leadership: Demonstrated ability to mentor, lead, and inspire engineering teams.
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Communication: Ability to translate complex concepts for both technical and non-technical audiences; public speaking or content creation a plus.

Technical Skill Matrix

CategoryTechnologies / Concepts
Cloud PlatformsAWS, GCP, Azure
Data StreamingKafka, Flink, Beam
ProgrammingPython, Go, Java, C#, JavaScript
ArchitectureMicroservices, Event-Driven Architecture, Kubernetes, Docker
Data & MLStructured & unstructured data, semi-supervised learning, ML ops tooling
DatabasesSQL (MS SQL, MySQL), NoSQL (MongoDB), Graph (Neo4j)
ProcessAgile (Scrum, Kanban)