Data Scientist

KDA Consulting is a Disabled Veteran, Woman-Owned, Certified Disadvantaged Small Business, comprised of a diverse team of professionals driven to tackle the demanding National Defense and Intelligence challenges through IT solutions.  We emphasize teamwork and focus on achieving goals to complete deliverables efficiently, on-time, and under budget. 

We are currently seeking to add a Data Scientist to join our team in Herndon, VA.

The Sponsor requires contractor support to augment its data analytics capabilities.  The Sponsor’s team is responsible for integrating data from across the Sponsor’s office program areas such as personnel, physical and technical, cyber, and protective, as well as external sources, to identify threats, align resources with risk, and streamline processes.  The Sponsor seeks to transform security operations and build new data-driven capabilities for the office. The team works with information in a wide array of formats and subject areas.  It varies significantly in terms of quality and completeness.  The Sponsor’s core responsibilities include identify and acquire new data sources, clean and interpret data, combine with other sources, analyze/visualize/model the data, and deliver products with actionable insights.

Primary Job Duties:

·        The Contractor shall clean and transform data into workable formats.

·        The Contractor shall engage with domain-specific Sponsor experts to rapidly acquire data and process specific insights needed to address customers’ core problems.

·        The Contractor shall engage with Sponsor customers in person and via electronic communication to ensure that deliverables meet customer requirements.

·        The Contractor shall provide timely answers to customer questions.

·        The Contractor shall provide briefings on products to a variety of audiences.

·        The Contractor shall contribute to briefings both as a technical subject matter expert and as a lead presenter.

·        The Contractor shall deliver products such as customized ad-hoc reports and interactive dashboards.

·        The Contractor shall deliver rapid analysis results within a Sponsor-specified period.

·        The Contractor shall develop new tools and methods to provide customers with better insights into mission areas, improve customer efficiency, and highlight concerning or non-obvious patterns in data.

·        The Contractor shall design and implement forecasting models.

·        The Contractor shall refine forecasting model designs based on Sponsor feedback.

·        The Contactor shall engineer solutions to automate work processes and make them repeatable.

·        The Contractor shall automate data feeds from key data sources into centralized analytic environments.

·        The Contractor shall work with multiple stakeholders to identify key security and business challenges and provide data-driven support to risk-based analysis of security issues.

·        The Contractor shall identify and leverage datasets relevant to the question area, and produce actionable insights through data exploration, analysis, visualization, and the application of statistical and machine learning techniques.

·        The Contractor shall work with data in a variety of formats including databases, spreadsheets, and flat files.

·        The Contractor shall translate data findings into compelling stories for both technical and non-technical audiences.

·        The Contractor shall produce artifacts such as analytic white papers, PowerPoint presentations, briefings, and interactive Tableau dashboards.

·        The Contractor shall work in an “iterate fast” environment.

·        The Contractor shall distill customer challenges into key questions that can be answered wholly or in partnership with data and frame results into actionable recommendations.

Required Skills

·        Demonstrated experience engaging with customers to understand and anticipate changing needs and requirements, anticipate substantive questions, and formulate qualitative and quantitative research designs to answer them.

·        Demonstrated experience identifying and extracting data from multiple sources.

·        Demonstrated experience applying qualitative and quantitative methods to the analysis of data.

·        Demonstrated experience highlighting key issues and relationships from a base of information.

·        Demonstrated experience relating and comparing data from different sources.

·        Demonstrated experience drawing conclusions supported by data.

·        Demonstrated experience distilling analyses into formats appropriate for both technical and non-technical audiences.

·        Demonstrated experience describing the value and possible applications of analytical procedures to other data scientists, managers, and customers.

·        Demonstrated experience using statistical concepts and methods with a background in quantitatively rigorous fields such as data science, mathematics, computer science, econometrics, and engineering.

·        Demonstrated experience creating and applying advanced algorithms and models to solve analytic problems.

·        Demonstrated experience managing and transforming structured and unstructured data.

·        Demonstrated experience programming with Python or R core functionality.

·        Demonstrated experience using applicable libraries and packages for data transformations, statistical analysis, visualization, and machine learning.

·        Demonstrated experience interacting and transforming information from database tables using SQL.

Highly Desirable Skills

·        Demonstrated experience building Tableau dashboards.

·        Demonstrated experience with Databricks and Apache Spark.

Job Requirements

·        Active TS/SCI + Full Scope Poly U.S. Government Security is required

·        Bachelor’s degree required, in Computer Science or related field

·        5+ (five) years of relevant professional work experience

·        Ability to maintain discretion and confidentiality

·        Strong interpersonal skills, especially the ability to network and establish professional relationships

·        Ability to prioritize, demonstrated strong organizational skills, and ability to meet or exceed deadlines

Physical Demands: Position will require frequent sitting, standing, and/or mobility within an office setting.  Employee must be able to use hands to complete work at a workstation/computer, be able to reach, type and manipulate with hands, fingers, and arms; lift and/or move up to 20 pounds; talk, see and hear.

Work Environment: Work is performed on client site in a professional office environment with moderate stress and noise levels.  Position requires employee to effectively use a computer, potentially for long periods of time, and to accommodate potentially frequent interruptions.  Candidate should be both customer-focused and present a team approach to overall work.

Schedule:  Business core hours are Monday through Friday, from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. ET. Standard work hours may vary for this position based upon contract requirements. Position will be located onsite at a customer facility in Herndon, VA.

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA): KDA is committed to the full inclusion of all qualified individuals. As part of this commitment, KDA will ensure that persons with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodations in the hiring process. We encourage qualified individuals with disabilities to apply. If a reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process or to perform essential job functions, please contact our HR team at  [email protected]. For persons who are deaf, hard of hearing, deafblind, or deaf-disabled, KDA will provide an American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter where needed as a reasonable accommodation for the hiring processes.

EEOC: KDA is an equal opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran, or disability status.