Machine Learning Engineer at KoraPay

Korapay is a payment infrastructure servicing a wide band of businesses making local and international payments. We are a marketplace for digital financial services across Africa. Our vision, which is at the core of what we do every day, is to create a world void of digital financial barriers across Africa. We are committed to delivering reliable, secure, and easy to use digital financial solutions to every single customer with a guarantee that it is improving their lives.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Machine Learning Engineer 

Location: Lagos (Remote)
Job type: Full-time

About the Role

• We’re looking for an exceptional Machine Learning Engineer to join the team responsible for Kora’s data architecture and AI strategy to optimize and automate processes, identify and maximize growth opportunities, as well as innovate and build AI products. 
• As a member of the AI and Data team at Kora, you will work with cross-functional teams to understand current processes, identify machine learning opportunities, develop custom tools, algorithms and models, build custom solutions to optimize deployment workflows, and develop solutions to business problems using machine learning.
• The role demands that you are exceptional at problem-solving, able to code to manage big data, capable of extracting valuable insights and coding to automate the extraction of the insights, make predictions, and recommend for decision and action.
• Being a tech company that values innovation, competence is also required in designing custom-made solutions from data to aid Kora in achieving her unique objectives and goals.

What You’ll be Doing

• As a tech and data-driven company, we enable our people and teams to take responsibility and initiatives to identify areas of improvement and solve problems sustainably. The following, therefore, represents what you will be doing:
• Understanding Kora’s objectives and developing models that help to achieve them, in a way they can be measured and tracked.
• Collaborating with the engineering and product development teams to extract value from Kora’s data and create AI solutions and products.
• Identifying valuable data sources, automating data collection processes, establishing new systems and processes, and looking for opportunities to improve the flow of data.
• Documenting machine learning processes.
• Creating data science prototypes, transforming them, and applying appropriate machine learning algorithms and tools.
• Ensuring that algorithms generate accurate recommendations.
• Harnessing Kora’s data (structured and unstructured), preprocessing them, and turning them into useful information, tools, and insights.
• Presenting information using data visualization techniques.
• Keeping abreast of developments in data science and machine learning and continuously researching to ascertain the quality of output and outcomes..
• Coordinating the data acquisition process, verifying data quality, and finding available datasets that could be used for insights and training.
• Creating automated anomaly detection systems and constantly tracking their performance.
• Designing machine learning systems and self-running AI solutions to automate predictive models.
• Developing machine learning algorithms to analyze data  and solve complex problems to discover trends and patterns to optimize our processes and maximize growth opportunities.
• Training and retraining machine learning systems and optimizing existing machine learning libraries and frameworks.

What You’ll Need
You’re qualified if you are/have:

• B.Sc in Computer Science, Management Information Systems, Engineering, Data Science or relevant field.
• 3+ years of experience developing custom solutions to optimize deployment workflows and develop solutions to business problems using data science and machine learning.
• A portfolio featuring your works, especially showing live solutions and already in use.
• An out-of-the-box thinker and enjoy thinking up new ways to disrupt the status quo.
• Passionate about delivering an exceptional user and customer experience.
• A passion for listening and learning from users.
• Data-driven in your approach and can serve as a data champion and leader.
• The ability to take responsibility for the data architecture and development process as well as work as a self-directed member of the team.
• Exceptionally driven and autonomous with a self-starter mindset and deep enjoyment of collaboration.
• Someone who frequently loves to and can speak fluently in data as well as dig deep to explore and see patterns.
• Finally, you bring positive energy, are comfortable with change, and can manage your own workload effectively.
• Experience in data engineering and data analysis is a big advantage.
• A systems thinker: we're building a full payment ecosystem. 
• Great attention to detail.
• Great in the effective use of data science and machine learning tools and software (tableau, python, numPY, jupyter, etc.)
• A portfolio of relevant projects and works done in terms of business problems solved using data science and machine learning. It should illustrate your involvement and how you contributed to solving the specific problems. This is required for consideration.

Working hours:

• Given that we are an all-remote company and hire almost anywhere in the world, we don’t have a location requirement for this role. However, your working hours must coincide with 9:00 am - 5:00 pm WAT for at least 40 hours/week.

Benefits

• Health insurance
• Sponsored and tailored training
• Paid parental Leave
• Paid time-off
• Day off on your birthday 
• Employee resource groups that provide supportive communities within Kora
• Great company culture and the opportunity to work with a highly collaborative team building something great!
• Flexible work style
• Annual performance bonus
• Low-interest loans
• Employee assisted programs

How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should:
Click here to apply

Interview Process

• Below is the interview process you can expect for this role. It may look like a lot of steps, but rest assured that we move quickly and the steps are designed to help you get the information needed to determine if we’re the right fit for you… Interviewing is a two-way street, after all!
• We expect the interview process to take a maximum of 3 weeks and an average of 2.5 hours in total. Please note that the interview is virtual.
  • Introduction Stage - we have initial conversations to get acquainted with you and overall experience.
  • [15m] Recruiter Screen - Abayomi Ishmael 
  • [7 days max] Take-home Assessment/Project 
  • Project Review:  The Product Management team Feedback from the Recruiter (Abayomi Ishmael)
  • [60m] Live Case Interview (Product Management team) - We proceed to evaluate your ability to understand the user, understand the problem, find a solution and execute your plan based on the take-home assessment/project.
  • [60m] Product Interview with the hiring manager - At this stage, we aim to give you more information about the role and assess your fit for the role based on your experience building products.
  • [60m] Cultural Fit Interview (Our Core Values) - At this stage, you'll engage in a conversation with Kora's Head of People and Culture, and the Head of Product Management. The aim is to understand you better and assess the alignment of your beliefs and values with Kora's distinctive culture. We'd like to emphasize that there are no right or wrong answers expected. However, we encourage you to maintain a positive attitude during this session.
  • Please note that you are welcome to ask questions and inquire during this process. We assure you of complete transparency throughout the interview process.

Note: We recognize imposter syndrome is real - any candidate who does not perfectly fit every characteristic of this role is still strongly encouraged to apply.