Data Science Engineer

Job Description

Code for America builds technology to make government services work for those who need them most. The Data Science Team helps to define problems and discovers opportunities for all four CfA programs: GetCalFresh (food stamps), ClearMyRecord, GetYourRefund (Earned Income Tax Credit), and Integrated Benefits (combined safety net applications). The Data Science Team also supports the Brigades, Marketing, and Development in order to help expand CfA’s nationwide volunteer network, to share our findings about what works in government programs, and to raise money to expand our efforts.

This position is the first of its kind at CfA and will require a self-starter who finds satisfaction in being helpful, whether that’s improving outcomes for those we serve through analyses, building tools to help others do their jobs more easily, or simply advising a team on how to collect and use data. The responsibilities fall under two categories: data science consulting and data architecture.

Responsibilities

• Data science consulting: Help teams identify how to better use data to support their goals
• Help teams translate near-term interests and goals into questions and identify pragmatic ways to answer those questions
• Determine how to collect the appropriate data (e.g., surveys, instrumenting websites, integrations)
• Support teams with more specialized data tasks, such as modeling, estimation, experiment or survey design
• Support teams by improving how they access, query, and display data (e.g., transforming values to facilitate easier querying, building reusable templates, helping with reporting plug-ins)
• Help teams think strategically about how they may want to use data down the road
• Data architecture: Optimize CfA’s data infrastructure for self-service analytics and reporting, tool standardization, and sharing of insights across teams
• Build pipelines to link data across tools so that in-house users can do their own querying and reporting
• Identify the best ways to store, integrate, and access data across teams
• Understand needs of all key users, work with engineering to evaluate tools, potential pipeline changes, and integrations (changes to mission critical systems will be made by engineering)
• Help teams think through ethical implications of how they are collecting, storing, and using data

While there are immediate projects to take on, in the long run, you will need to understand the priorities of each CfA team you support in order to balance near-term work against longer-term improvements to their data collection and analysis infrastructure.

We’re looking for someone who is:

• A thought partner: Enjoys getting to better ideas through discussion, is able to think clearly and systematically and is able to convey that thinking
• Motivated by being helpful: Is glad to deliver useful results regardless of how technically challenging (and especially, not challenging ) a task might be
• Pragmatic: Can prioritize in light of the organization’s goals and explain those priorities to colleagues, prefers getting to “good enough” on a few projects rather than “perfect” on a single project
• Versatile: Extremely flexible with tools and willing to learn enough about a new tool to get something working, capable of quickly scoping and designing new research projects, comfortable managing a portfolio of projects

Technical requirements:

• Expert fluency with Python or R
• Deep, varied experience with data wrangling and data management
• Experience with a variety of data infrastructures and data integration challenges
• At least five years of highly relevant experience or a Ph.D. and two years of experience

We’re looking for someone who is curious about people, technology systems, and government, but excited to solve real world problems. We strongly value empathy, initiative, and pragmatism.

This role is based in San Francisco, is a full-time opportunity, and reports to the Data Science Manager. The role may begin remotely.

Extra Credit:

• Personal experience with the justice system, social safety net, workforce training, or other mission-relevant government services.

Benefits

Code for America offers full health and dental benefits, a 401k plan with matching funds and a culture that is collaborative, hardworking and fun.

About Code for America

Code for America is a startup non-profit with a great culture and a huge opportunity to make a difference. We work in cross-functional teams, collaboratively and agilely and value high-quality, user-friendly work product. We strive to learn from everything we do and regularly host talks from leaders in the civic technology movement. We respect each other, work hard, and have a great time together. We’re looking for individuals who share our vision, our values, and our willingness to do what it takes to achieve an ambitious mission over the next few years.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Code for America values a diverse workplace and strongly encourages women, people of color, LGBT individuals, people with disabilities, members of ethnic minorities, foreign-born residents, and veterans to apply. Code for America is an equal opportunity employer. Applicants will not be discriminated against because of race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, religion, national origin, citizenship status, disability, ancestry, marital status, veteran status, medical condition or any protected category prohibited by local, state or federal laws.