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Tumaini Consulting is recruiting a Senior AI & Data Engineer for a client in Johannesburg. This permanent role pays R85,000 to R120,000 per month and closes on 28 December 2026. It is a senior, hands-on role for someone who has already shipped production machine learning and AI systems end to end — not a research-only position, and not a first step into AI.
About the company and the work
Tumaini Consulting is a recruitment and staffing agency placing people on a permanent or contract basis in the public and private sectors, with core expertise in engineering, finance, IT, medical, trade and technical, mining and logistics. Its name means “hope” in Swahili. For this role, Tumaini is recruiting on behalf of a client that needs a senior engineer to join a dynamic team and take ownership of AI and data platforms that actually run in production and deliver measurable business results.
Role details and duties
The advert describes the work through its requirements rather than a separate duties list. In practice, the successful candidate will design and ship production-grade machine learning and AI platforms end to end: data ingestion and feature engineering, model training and fine-tuning, deployment, monitoring and retraining. The role also covers building large language model and agentic applications that run in production, and proven data engineering work — batch and streaming pipelines, ETL and ELT into enterprise data warehouses, and data quality, validation and reconciliation at scale. Machine learning workloads are deployed on cloud MLOps platforms, with infrastructure as code and continuous integration and delivery. The role is permanent, based in Johannesburg, and the advertised salary is R85,000 to R120,000 per month. Applications close on 28 December 2026.
Requirements
Only the requirements stated in the original advert are listed here:
- Demonstrated experience designing and shipping production-grade ML and AI platforms end to end: data ingestion and feature engineering, model training and fine-tuning, deployment, monitoring and retraining.
- Hands-on experience building LLM and agentic applications that run in production: retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), multi-agent orchestration (LangGraph, CrewAI or equivalent), tool use and MCP integrations, guardrails and evaluation frameworks.
- Proven data engineering track record: batch and streaming pipelines (Kafka, Spark, Airflow or equivalent), ETL and ELT into enterprise data warehouses, and data quality, validation and reconciliation at scale.
- Experience deploying ML workloads on cloud MLOps platforms (AWS SageMaker or Bedrock, Azure OpenAI, GCP Vertex AI, Databricks) with infrastructure as code and CI/CD.
- Evidence of technical ownership of components, workstreams or platforms within larger systems, with measurable business outcomes such as cost reduction, accuracy, latency or revenue uplift.
Applicants are asked to send transcripts with their applications.
Where to find and apply safely
Apply only through the original Careers24 advert, using the Apply button on this page, which opens that advert. The advert also states that applications can be emailed with an updated CV to [email protected] or made via www.tumaini.co. Never pay anyone to apply for a job, and never share banking details or passwords as part of an application.
Practical tips
This advert is written for evidence, not buzzwords. Lead with the production systems you have owned: what the platform did, the scale it ran at, and the measurable outcome — cost saved, accuracy gained, latency cut or revenue lifted. Be ready to talk through a retrieval-augmented generation or agentic system you shipped, including how you handled guardrails and evaluation, and a pipeline you built with Kafka, Spark or Airflow. Include your transcripts, as the advert asks for them, and make sure your CV shows ownership of components or workstreams rather than just participation in a team.
How the process works
Submit your application through the original Careers24 advert before 28 December 2026, with your updated CV and transcripts. Correspondence will only be conducted with shortlisted candidates, and the advert states that if you have not heard back within three days, you should consider your application unsuccessful — so apply early and keep your phone and email monitored in the days after you apply.
Important information
This post is for information only. It summarises the original Careers24 advert for Tumaini Consulting’s Johannesburg client and is not the employer. Always confirm the salary, requirements and closing date in the original advert before applying, as details can change. This is a different vacancy from the older Senior AI & Data Engineer remote listings for the Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng posted on 15 October 2026.
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