You're seeing this page as if you were . The main menu is still yours, though. Exit from immersion
Shem J.SJ

Shem J.

Senior Data Scientist & AI Engineer

€294/day
London, GB
8-15 years

Average response time: 1 hour

About Shem

I sit at the intersection of science and artificial intelligence — a biochemist and computational biologist who decided the future belongs to those who can talk to machines and make them work.
I specialise in AI automation, prompt engineering, and AI-assisted workflows — designing intelligent pipelines that eliminate repetitive work, building prompts that get precise, high-quality outputs from LLMs, and training AI systems with domain-specific scientific and technical content.
My edge? I bring a researcher's rigour to AI work. Whether it's structuring multi-step automation chains, crafting system prompts for complex scientific tasks, or annotating and evaluating AI outputs, I don't just use AI tools — I understand what's happening under the hood.
What I can do for you:

Custom prompt engineering for GPT, Claude, Gemini, and open-source models
AI workflow automation (content pipelines, data processing, document generation)
AI training data creation — annotation, RLHF feedback, domain QA
Scientific and technical content reviewed through an AI lens

I've worked across freelance platforms building AI training datasets, refining model outputs, and helping teams get dramatically more from their AI stack.
If you want someone who combines analytical thinking with hands-on AI expertise — let's build something sharp together.
  • English

    Native or bilingual

Remote only
Primarily works remotely

Experience

  • Safaricom PLC
    Senior Data Scientist & AI Engineer
    January 2022 - April 2025 (3 years and 3 months)
    Nairobi, Kenya
    • ▪ Lead the design and deployment of ML models for customer churn prediction, fraud detection, and network optimization — serving 40M+ subscribers.
    • ▪ Built and maintained end-to-end ML pipelines using Python, Apache Spark, and Airflow on AWS and GCP infrastructure.
    • ▪ Developed NLP models for customer sentiment analysis and automated support ticket classification, reducing resolution time by 35%.
    • ▪ Collaborated with cross-functional teams (engineering, product, business) to productionize 10+ AI models with robust monitoring and retraining workflows.
    • ▪ Mentored a team of 4 junior data scientists; established best practices for model versioning, documentation, and reproducibility.
    Machine learning artificial intelligence AI Automation AI Agent Computer aided drawing
  • Cellulant Corporation
    Machine Learning Engineer
    March 2020 - December 2021 (1 year and 9 months)
    Nairobi, Kenya
    • ▪ Engineered predictive models for payment risk scoring and transaction anomaly detection across 18 African markets.
    • ▪ Built RESTful ML APIs using FastAPI and deployed containerized services via Docker and Kubernetes on Azure.
    • ▪ Implemented A/B testing frameworks and statistical analysis pipelines to validate model performance improvements.
    • ▪ Reduced false positive fraud rates by 28% through ensemble modelling (XGBoost, LightGBM, Random Forest).
  • Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB Group)
    Data Scientist
    June 2017 - February 2020 (2 years and 8 months)
    Nairobi, Kenya
    Data collection and cleaning
    Exploratory data analysis
    Model Building Model Evaluation
    Data Visualization

Recommendations

Be the first to recommend Shem

Help this freelancer shine by sharing your experience working together.

These freelancer profiles also match your criteria

AgathaA

Agatha Frydrych

Backend Java Software Engineer

4.7

(3)

2

BaptisteB

Baptiste Duhen

Fullstack developer

4.6

(4)

5

AmedA

Amed Hamou

Senior Lead Developer

4

(2)

7

AudreyA

Audrey Champion

Web developer

4.3

(3)

4

Education

  • M.Sc.
    Kenyata University
    M.Sc.
  • B.Sc.
    University of Nairobi.
    B.Sc.

Skill set

Categories