What degree did you study at university?
Stellenbosch University:BSc Mathematical Science (Mathematical Statistics & Operations Research)
BComHons Operations Research
What is your role at Capitec?
Machine Learning Engineer
Why did you choose this career?
Even as a child I loved statistics and data, and particularly enjoyed the statistical side of cricket. I initially started studying BSc Computer Science with some statistical modules, but decided halfway through the degree that I’d adjust my major to be Math. Stats instead of Computer Science – I preferred the thought of working with statistics and solving problems to general programming. I didn’t know much about Data Science at the time, but ended up having an excellent background in both Computer Science and statistics, which has served me very well in my career. I was initially expecting to do more general Data Science work like ML modelling, but ended up starting in the newly-formed Machine Learning Engineering team at Capitec, a sub-team of Data Science. And it’s proven to be an excellent fit; I’ve had the rare opportunity to work alongside some brilliant colleagues and build the platform for machine learning in Capitec, from scratch on AWS – using my statistical and programming education to good effect.
What does your typical day entail?
It depends on whether I’m working remotely or at the office. I usually have 3 days remote, and 2 days at the office per week. I like getting an early start, particularly on my remote days – I start at 7am so that I can get some good work done without interruption, and also so that I can have a little more free time in the afternoon sun after I finish work. I don’t often have many meetings during the day, so I spend the majority of my work time doing what I enjoy: coding a component of the machine learning platform my team works on. The work varies fortnightly, so there’s always something new to work on or to learn. Most recently, I’ve been working with PySpark to build data drift monitoring for the ML models we deploy. I usually work in close conjunction with the rest of my team, so as I code my assigned portion of the work, I’ll have calls with teammates to strategize and solve problems together.
What are the highlights and challenges of your role?
There are some challenges, but they are outweighed by the highlights. It’s often difficult to coordinate with other teams, particularly when we’re dependent upon their work. And planning ahead can sometimes be tricky, since we are generally working on things that haven’t been done before. The highlights are working with such intelligent colleagues, constantly learning new things and having fun challenges to overcome, and seeing my work in action.
How do you keep up to date with all the changes in your field of work?
Since my team works in a wide variety of different areas and we’re learning by working, it’s easy to keep updated in the areas we’re actively working on. If there’s something I don’t know, I just google it when I hear of it, and keep learning.
I’ve also been a part of a data science forum within Capitec, where we discuss new developments and best practices that we may want to implement – I’ve learned a lot through that. Finally, I read Medium and TowardsDataScience articles, and StackOverflow answers. Those always teach me something new.
What do you enjoy doing outside of the office?
I love spending time with my fiancée, friends and family. As my alliteration reveals, I also read a fair bit: the Bible, books on philosophy and theology, and the occasional thriller novel. As I mentioned above, I like being outdoors in the afternoon – playing football, or going for a run. And then in the evenings, I cook and see friends/fiancée, play guitar, or plan my upcoming wedding .