Data Scientist

About the Lab
The California Policy Lab creates data-driven insights for the public good. Our mission is to partner with California's state and local governments to generate scientific evidence that solves California's most urgent issues, including homelessness, poverty, criminal justice reform, and education inequality. We facilitate close partnerships between policymakers and researchers at the University of California to help evaluate and improve public programs through empirical research and technical assistance. CPL's UCLA site sits within CCPR and is a dynamic and growing organization with 20 full-time employees, a half dozen graduate student researchers, and numerous faculty affiliates. CPL is extramurally funded by over 20 different federal and foundation grants supporting over 60 major research projects.

The Role
The California Policy Lab is seeking an experienced Data Scientist to contribute to our organization's proven track record of bridging the gap between academic researchers and government policymakers. The Data Scientist will have the opportunity to work on a portfolio of projects applying machine learning to public policy research in homelessness, criminal justice, poverty, education, and labor.
The successful candidate will be experienced in engineering data pipelines and implementing predictive models in real-world environments. He or she will be passionate about using data science to find innovative solutions to the problems facing California policymakers and citizens. This position requires an individual who is able to work as a part of small research teams running multiple projects concurrently. We seek highly organized individuals with superior written and verbal communications skills and excellent time management ability. The Data Scientist also will be required to follow coding guidelines established by CPL and to contribute to the organization's efforts to build detailed documentation of the data we use.

Percentage of Time:
100

Shift Start:
9:00 am

Shift End:
5:00 pm

Qualifications for Position

19
Records

Qualifications

Required/Preferred

Applicants must have a bachelor's degree in computer science, statistics, economics, mathematics or other relevant field, or equivalent combination of education and experience; master's degree preferred. Applicants must also have at least one year of relevant professional experience (two to three years preferred)

Required

Strong SQL skills

Required

Strong skills in Python or R

Required

Strong skills in data visualization

Required

Attention to detail and ability to organize and document workflow

Required

Strong initiative and a resourceful approach to problem-solving

Required

Superior verbal and written communication skills, including the ability to communicate technical results and recommendations to non-technical stakeholders

Required

Ability to work independently and as part of a team

Required

Strong interpersonal skills

Required

Ability to multi-task with demanding timeframes

Required

Ability to work discreetly with sensitive and confidential data

Required

Experience working in an academic or think-tank environment preferred

Preferred

Substantive knowledge or experience in at least one of our core research areas ? homelessness, poverty, or labor

Preferred

Substantive knowledge of SQL database internals, including query optimization, indexing, and execution plans

Preferred

Substantive knowledge of the design and implementation of ETL pipelines, relational databases, and data warehouses. Experience with cloud computing and Big Data frameworks a plus

Preferred

Substantive knowledge of quantitative research methods including machine learning and statistics. Knowledge of causal inference methods a plus

Preferred

The ability to work comfortably in both Python and R

Preferred

Project management experience

Preferred

Experience with Business Intelligence (BI) platforms

Preferred

Additional Posting Information

Bargaining Unit:
99-Policy Covered

Application Deadline:
07-26-2021

External Posting Date: