Data Engineer – Risk Intelligence & Engineering

Let's Write Africa's Story Together!

Old Mutual is a firm believer in the African opportunity and our diverse talent reflects this.

Job Description

Are you passionate about using data to fundamentally rethink how insurance works? Are you energized by the idea of designing the future model of insurance—one that’s fast, fair, predictive, and personal? At Old Mutual Insure, we’re building exactly that.

As a Data Engineer, you will be joining a small high-performance team modernising the 2nd-line risk function. We believe in a code-first approach to risk: no manual reporting and no tick box compliance. We are replacing manual oversight with automated pipelines, real-time monitoring, and code-first governance.

Responsibilities will include the following:

• Engineering end-to-end solutions that automate the validation and benchmarking of insurance models and monitor risk exposure, such as:

  • Supporting the development and maintenance of statistical and machine learning models to assess credit, market, operational, and emerging risks

  • Enabling predictive models for early warning indicators of risk events

  • Deploy LLM-based agents to parse regulatory changes and graph theory for fraud network detection

• Building robust ETL processes to ingest structured and unstructured data

• Ensuring data quality, integrity, and compliance with regulatory standards

• Collaborating with 1st Line and other stakeholders to develop best practice frameworks and policies

• Challenging data lineage and recommend improvements for reliability

• You care about clean code, type hinting, unit testing, and CI/CD, and structured codebases. Notebooks are only for experimentation

• A systems thinker. Instead of patching problems, you investigate the source and repair the system

• Eager to grow, learn, and experiment with new technologies and methodologies

• Comfortable with uncertainty and unstructured complex problems

• Understands how data drives commercial outcomes

• Understanding of risk management processes

• Keeps up with new tools, AI trends, and best practices

• Works fluidly across business and technical teams

• Delivers with discipline, quality, and impact

• Brings fresh ideas to complex challenges

• Makes sense of messy, ambiguous data environments

• Follows through and learns from feedback

• Simplifies, automates, and scales where possible

• Handles competing deadlines and tasks with resilience, structure, and delivery focus.

Knowledge, Skills and Experience required:

Bachelor’s degree in one of the following (or equivalent experience):

• Data Science / Data Engineering

• Statistics

• Computer Science

• Actuarial Science

• Engineering

• Applied Mathematics

• Advantages – Risk Management

• 4+ years of experience in data science, data engineering, risk analytics, software engineering, or actuarial environments, preferably in financial services

• Experience with cloud platforms (e.g. AWS, Azure, Databricks)

• Comfortable working in a version-controlled environment with review processes

• Bonus: Proficiency in production-grade Python and modern Python stack technologies

• Bonus: Experience with containerisation and deploying machine learning models

• Bonus: Experience with Generative AI, specifically using large language models (LLMs) for unstructured data parsing and automated event detection

The Recruitment Process:

• TA Interview: This will be a discussion with our Senior Talent Acquisition Specialist to give you an understanding of our business, our culture & values and more context on the role. It will also allow us the opportunity to get to know you more and ensure OMI can meet your career aspirations.

• Panel Interview: This will be with 2 members of the Senior Leadership of the Hiring Team and 1 member of the HC Leadership Team.

• Technical & Psychometric Assessments: These will depend on the role and will sometimes happen concurrently with Vetting through an external service provider & Internal Verification.

• Final Feedback.

All About OMI:

https://www.oldmutual.co.za/about/old-mutual-insure/

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/old-mutual-insure_i-work-at-old-mutual-insure-of-course-activity-7161674472469524483-w0j6?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

Please note that, unfortunately, we cannot accept any applications after the closing date

Skills

Action Planning, Business Requirements Analysis, Computer Literacy, Data Compilation, Data Controls, Data Engineering, Data Management, Data Science, Executing Plans, IT Architecture, IT Network Security, Machine Learning (ML), Policies & Procedures, Risk Analytics

Competencies

Business Insight

Collaborates

Cultivates Innovation

Drives Results

Ensures Accountability

Manages Ambiguity

Manages Complexity

Optimizes Work Processes

Education

Bachelor Commerce: Computer Science And Engineering (Required), NQF Level 7 - Degree, Advance Diploma or Postgraduate Certificate or equivalent

Closing Date

13 January 2026 , 23:59

The appointment will be made from the designated group in line with the Employment Equity Plan of Old Mutual South Africa and the specific business unit in question.

The Old Mutual Story!