SENIOR DATA SCIENTIST / EMERGENCY APPOINTMENT HOMELESSNESS

This examination will remain open until the needs of the service are met and is subject to closure without prior notice. The LA County Board of Supervisors recently declared a local state of emergency for homelessness, and the County is working to revise and expand our response to help all who are affected. We are looking for qualified and passionate individuals to help us in the mission of addressing issues like housing, mental health, and substance use. Under the emergency order, applicants who meet the requirements may be hired for an initial period of up to 90 days, with an opportunity for permanent County employment. During this period, your work performance will be assessed and weighted 100%. Those who successfully pass the assessment will be considered for permanent appointment to Senior Data Scientist.

About the role

Under general supervision, leads the development and application of methods to identify, collect, process, organize, and analyze structured and unstructured data using advanced statistical prediction, inference, and optimization. Effectively communicates results to County, departmental, and divisional decision makers and provides ongoing support to strengthen data-driven program design and management.

Responsibilities

• Collaborates with division, departmental, and countywide stakeholders to solicit, define, and manage highly complex data science projects from conception through implementation; ensures projects result in actionable insights and recommendations to support business decisions and allocate resources; provides ongoing consultation during program implementation.
• Provides technical oversight to small teams of Data Scientists and Predictive Data Analysts to ensure project success.
• Leads the discovery process with departmental stakeholders to document business requirements and frame business problems so appropriate data science techniques and products can be identified and deployed.
• Collaborates with subject matter experts to understand, identify, and select relevant data sources (internal, external, structured, unstructured) and guides other department data experts in their selection and transformation.
• Supports collection, integration, and retention requirements for large sets of structured and unstructured data from disparate sources; acts as a resource for senior data engineers and architects in system selection and design.
• Reviews proposals regarding selection and improvement of data science tools and ensures the team’s tools and systems are well documented.
• Conducts and coordinates statistical inference of data and conveys findings orally, in writing, visually, in presentations, and via interactive tools for technical and non-technical audiences.
• Works with program staff to ensure findings are actionable and support data-driven program, policy, and operational decision-making.
• Assists in implementing recommended business process changes while retaining fidelity to best practices and recognizing operational realities; provides ongoing consultation as changes evolve.
• Coordinates with functional teams to develop and implement products, services, tools, or business process changes resulting from analysis.
• Creates and validates advanced analytic products (e.g., recommender engines, auto-classification algorithms, predictive scoring, geo-spatial clustering, NLP classifiers) and places them in production; integrates them into departmental programs.
• Recommends ongoing improvements to methods and algorithms that lead to findings, including new information.
• Creates and monitors performance of automated-detection systems and provides business metrics for overall project improvement over multiple iterations.
• Provides ongoing tracking and monitoring of performance of decision systems and statistical models; troubleshoots and implements enhancements and fixes as needed.
• Develops and maintains expertise in statistical programming languages and packages; provides training and support to Data Scientists and Predictive Data Analysts; ensures quality of code and programming logic.

Requirements

Option I: Two (2) years of experience carrying out complex data science projects* that included independently developing and applying methods to identify, collect, process, structure, and analyze data using statistical prediction, inference, and optimization to support data-driven program design and management, at a level equivalent to the Los Angeles County class of Data Scientist.

Option II: A Bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university in a field of applied research such as Data Science, Machine Learning, Mathematics, Statistics, Business Analytics, Psychology, or Public Health that included 12 semester or 18 quarter units of coursework in data science, predictive analytics, quantitative research methods, or statistical analysis AND six (6) years of experience, including two (2) years in a lead capacity, applying and overseeing the application of machine learning, predictive analytics, data management, and hypothesis-driven data analysis to make actionable recommendations for program, policy, and operational decision-making.

A Master’s or Doctoral degree in a relevant field may substitute for up to two (2) years of experience.

• License: A valid California Class C Driver License or the ability to utilize an alternative method of transportation when needed to carry out job-related essential functions.
• Physical Class: Light – occasional light lifting (up to 10 pounds), some bending, stooping, or squatting, and considerable ambulation.

Qualifications

• Complex data science projects include artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), or sophisticated algorithms.
• Lead capacity is defined as acting as team or group leader to at least two or more journey or lower-level employees, with responsibility for assigning, coordinating, and reviewing work, ensuring proper methods, and providing technical assistance and training.
• To receive credit for education, include a legible copy of all relevant official documents (e.g., transcripts) showing units and unit system (semester/quarter) within seven calendar days of filing your application. International degrees must be evaluated for U.S. equivalency.