Data Scientist

Why do you need to choose between doing important work and having a fulfilling life? At Ardent, we have both. Ardent employees are committed to solving our customers’ most difficult problems—and we are committed to the well-being, personal goals, and professional development of our employee. We are “All In.” We put forth our strongest effort possible to get the mission accomplished and we do it together. We respect the skills and experience you bring to the Ardent team. And we provide a rewarding environment to help you succeed. 

We offer highly competitive benefits, professional development opportunities, and an exceptional culture that embraces flexibility, innovation, collaboration, and career growth. A collective service mindset underpins our work, and a shared camaraderie to serve clients, colleagues and our communities set us apart. Our full commitment to being "All In" for our employees and our clients is not just our approach, it is our standard. If this sounds like the perfect fit for you, choose Ardent and make a difference with us. 

Ardent’s Data Science + Analytics Practice helps organizations and communities effectively use data to better understand threats to their constituents and infrastructure and to build more intelligent and resilient systems.

We are seeking a Data Scientist to support DHS in advanced research and support in emerging computing capabilities partnering with other SME’s to develop research and capabilities for the agency. This individual should be able to manage tasks and schedules, consume and communicate complex technical details to non-technical audiences, and should have deep knowledge of developing technical trends.  This individual should be able to create AI/ML models, assist with providing data discovery, data analysis, data management, automation, and business intelligence services.

This is a remote role. Our client is located in the Washington, D.C. metro area.

Responsibilities and Duties

• Serve as Data Scientist providing expertise in data science and analytics methods and approaches to solving a wide variety of business problems from public sector and commercial client organizations, especially US federal agencies responsible for national security, homeland security, and public safety.
• Serve as lead statistician and applied math expert, working in cross-functional team alongside to create AI/ML products and solutions.
• Serve as a researcher and investigator; devise and test hypotheses and creatively combine data sources to identify useful metrics for business leaders
• Be comfortable with tools/process/methods to ingest multiple sources of structured and unstructured data to tackle public safety-related problems
• Perform deep dives and ETL of data sources to combine and transform data from multiple sources and domains to discover novel and actionable insights
• Participate in full data lifecycle: collect, clean, prepare, ETL, analyze/exploit, model, and QC data; find new ways to automate this work
• Contribute technical input to data standardization and data governance processes and policies
• Continuously scan for and learn about new datasets and data science methodologies that will improve our services for our clients or enhance our technology products
• Gather, analyze, and compose complex technical information such as analysis of alternatives on technology solutions, technology capability, summaries, and technical requirements documents.
• Assist and lead preparation of technical presentations for delivery by Federal staff

Qualifications

Education level:

• BS and/or MS in data science, ops research, statistics, applied math, engineering, or STEM field

Clearance level: Able to obtain at least Public Trust or equivalent

Experience: 2-5 years of practical experience; will consider PhD post-docs in relevant fields

Specific skills:

• Experience wrangling structured and unstructured data
• Experience with data standardization and data governance processes
• Experience using analytical tools, such as: Python, R/R Studio, SAS, git
• Experience using data visualization tools such as Power BI or Tableau
• A background or specialization in GIS and geospatial data, platforms, libraries (e.g., ESRi, Leaflet, etc.) is a plus.
• Experience with R Shiny is a plus.
• 2+ years experience supporting a federal agency or research organization is a plus.

Personal characteristics:

• Good analytical skills with a focus on critical thinking, problem-solving, numeric reasoning, and creativity
• Curious, lifelong learner willing to learn about new topics, technologies, and domains beyond their existing expertise
• Collaborative team player who can work with and communicate with people from different fields and functional areas
• Creative and tenacious problem solver: someone who can improvise novel ways to answer questions or problems and find ways around obstacles
• Independent worker who can deliver with little direction.

Ardent is an equal opportunity employer. We will not discriminate and will take affirmative action measures to ensure against discrimination in employment, recruitment, advertisements for employment, compensation, termination, upgrading, promotions, and other conditions of employment against any employee or job applicant on the bases of race, color, gender, national origin, age, religion, creed, disability, veteran's status, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.