Graduate: Data Intern

Introduction

MHA Management Holdings is an established player in the South African long term

insurance market with 30 years of experience in non-traditional sectors. We sell and

administer a full range of funeral insurance products in the trade union environment. We

are focused on client centricity and solving needs for South Africans with innovation,

unique & creative solutions, and products.

MHA's Data & AI team runs a governed, Microsoft-centred data estate for a regulated

financial-services business: on-premises SQL Server and Azure SQL, a Microsoft Fabric

lakehouse, Power BI and SSRS reporting, Python tooling, Azure DevOps for source control

and CI/CD, and an in-house governed AI platform used to accelerate delivery responsibly.

We work production-first. Source control, peer review, gated deployment, auditability,

data quality checks, and documentation are how we ship. They are not afterthoughts.

Everything we handle is treated as sensitive (POPIA / FSP environment), and responsible

data handling is part of the job, not a policy on a shelf.

We hire for fundamentals, curiosity, and ownership. The specific stack is trainable, and we

will teach you our tools and standards. What we cannot teach is wanting to learn, caring

about quality, and following through. The permanent Data & AI Engineer role this graduate

program feeds into does have a day-one bar of SQL, Microsoft Fabric, and working Python.

The graduate program is where you build towards it, which is the whole point of the

training path.

Duties & Responsibilities

The Data Graduate joins a structured, mentored pathway across MHA's Data & AI team:

data engineering first, with applied AI alongside it and exposure to the analytics stream.

You will do real, supervised work on a governed production estate, covering data

preparation, pipeline support, reporting, quality checks, AI-workload data preparation,

and documentation, all under a defined training plan with measurable milestones.

Graduates who grow well here are first in line as the team expands, and the combined

Data & AI Engineer role is the named destination on the team's growth path.

Assist with data extraction, cleaning, validation, and preparation for analytics and

reporting use cases.

• Write and support SQL queries, Python scripts, and repeatable data processing tasks under supervision.

• Help build and maintain dashboards and reports in Power BI and SSRS.

• Support monitoring of scheduled data jobs: spot failures, gather the facts, and log them properly.

• Participate in data quality checks, reconciliations, and issue logging, learning why trust in data matters.

• Contribute to documentation: source-to-target mappings, process notes, data dictionaries, and testing evidence.

• Learn our governance, security, privacy, and change management standards from day one.

• Attend team ceremonies and give clear, honest progress updates on assigned tasks.

Desired Experience & Qualification

Basic understanding of SQL and relational data concepts.

• Foundational exposure to Python or another programming language (coursework or

projects count).

• Comfort with spreadsheets, data structures, and basic analytical thinking.

• Attention to detail and willingness to document work clearly.

• Good written and verbal communication, and genuine appetite to learn.

• Awareness that data is sensitive and that confidentiality is non-negotiable.

Advantageous

• Qualification in progress or recently completed in Data Science, Computer Science,Information Systems, Statistics, Mathematics, Engineering, or related.

• Any exposure to BI tools, cloud platforms, Git, notebooks, or ETL concepts. Portfolio, coursework, hackathon, or capstone evidence of data problem-solving. Show us anything you have built.

• Curiosity about how a regulated financial-services business actually runs on data

What you will work with

• SQL Server and Microsoft Fabric, the governed data estate you will learn on.

• Power BI and SSRS, which make up the reporting layer.

• Python and Git, giving you modern engineering habits from the start.

• Medallion architecture, which is how raw data becomes trusted, reportable data.

• A governed in-house AI platform, where you will learn to use AI tools properly, with

controls, from week one.

• Evaluation and human-review workflows, which are how we decide whether an AI

output is good enough to use and how that decision is evidenced.

Who Thrives here

Personality and growth mindset carry as much weight as the CV in this team.

• You learn fast and enjoy it, because new tools and feedback energise you rather

than intimidate you.

• You verify before you trust, and that includes AI output above all.

• You are curious about how businesses actually run on data.

• You check your work and ask when unsure, with no silent guessing.

• You take small tasks seriously and build trust through follow-through.

• You want a career in data, not just a gap-filler job.

Personal Attributes

• Integrity and values, with the ability to handle sensitive and confidential information.

• Attention to detail and a results-driven quality mindset.

• Strong problem-solving; composure in a fast-moving, dynamic environment.

• Works well in a team and independently; communicates openly.

• Growth mindset, actively wanting to learn and develop.

Package & Remuneration

Basic Salary

Interested?

Join our dynamic team and contribute to the success of our insurance company by ensuring operational excellence, exceptional customer service, and sustainable growth. Apply today and help shape the future of our organization!