DATA SCIENTIST - EMERGENCY APPOINTMENT (HOMELESSNESS)

County of Los Angeles; California; On-site; USD 110,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

County of Los Angeles seeks an experienced Data Scientist for the Department of Homeless Services and Housing to lead advanced analytics, ML models, and data‑driven decision support. You will collaborate with stakeholders, develop dashboards, and translate complex data into actionable insights for homelessness programs and resource allocation.

A strong background in predictive analytics and ETL is essential.

Job description

Type of Recruitment

Open Competitive - Emergency

Filing Dates

Applications will be accepted from Thursday, October 15, 2026, at 8:00 a.m. (PT) until Thursday, October 22, 2026, 5:00 p.m. (PT). All applications must be received before5:00 p.m. (PT) on Thursday, October 22, 2026, to be accepted.

Exam Number

HH1763B-EA

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. If you are looking for a new career that will directly benefit the population of LA County, this may be the opportunity for you.

The Department of Homeless Services and Housing (HSH) is seeking qualified candidates to fill emergency Health Program Analyst III vacancies related to the homelessness crisis.

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 your initial work period, you will be assessed on your work performance. This assessment will be weighted 100%.

Those who successfully pass the assessment will be considered for permanent appointment to Data Scientist.

Responsibilities

• Collaborates with division, department, and countywide stakeholders to solicit, define, and manage data science projects from conception through implementation, including identifying and developing statements of business problems; conducting exploratory data analysis and data mining; developing model specification requirements; and conducting advanced statistical analyses.
• Develops and presents visualizations of findings and recommendations that can be used to support business decisions and allocate resources.
• Works with departmental stakeholders to document business requirements and helps frame business problems so that appropriate corresponding data science techniques can be identified and applied.
• Collaborates with department subject matter experts to understand, identify, and select available and relevant sources of data for use cases, including internal, external, structured, and unstructured data sources.
• Works with departmental Information Technology organization to support collection, integration, and retention requirements for large sets of structured and unstructured data from various sources and consults with data engineers and architects on the design and architecture of relevant data systems and processes.
• Collaborates with other Data Scientists, Analysts, and IT staff to select, evaluate, improve, and document tools and systems in order to strengthen divisional and departmental analytic capacity.
• Independently conducts advanced analytical studies for the resolution of business problems and transfigures data into critical information by selecting and deploying appropriate advanced statistical techniques such as machine learning, bivariate and multivariate analyses, predictive/prescriptive analytics, and optimization.
• Uses statistical computer scripting, domain-specific, and programming languages and other software and tools to digest, manipulate, prepare, augment, evaluate, analyze, summarize, and visualize data.
• Plans, designs, and manages experiments, consumer surveys, and other data collection projects to augment existing sources of data as necessary to solve business problems.
• Reviews the work of Predictive Data Analysts and other lower-level analysts assigned to project for quality-control purposes.
• Conveys findings and conclusions of work orally, in writing, visually, in presentations, and by developing interactive tools as appropriate to communicate effectively with a wide range of audiences, including technical and nontechnical staff, stakeholders, and members of the public.
• Works with program staff to understand the implications of analyses and to ensure that findings are actionable and support data-driven program, policy, and operational decision‑making.
• Assists in implementing recommended business process changes in ways that both retain fidelity to best practices identified through the analysis and recognize the operational realities underlying existing business processes.
• Works with functional teams to develop and implement products, services, and tools, such as dashboards and reports, emerging from the analysis.
• Contributes to advanced analytic products (e.g., Recommender Engines, Auto Classification algorithms, Predictive Scoring, geo‑spatial clustering, NLP classifier, etc.) and helps place them in production.
• Recommends ongoing improvements to methods and algorithms that lead to findings, including new information.
• Provides business metrics for departmental projects to show improvements both initially and over multiple iterations. Provides ongoing tracking and monitoring of performance of decision systems and statistical models and troubleshoots and implements enhancements and fixes to systems as needed.
• Accesses ongoing training and professional development to maintain familiarity with current industry and academic research to apply the latest and most useful statistical learning techniques to help extract pattern and trends from data.
• Develops relationships with local academic data science programs to foster recruitment of data science interns and is responsible for overseeing their work on departmental data science projects.

Requirements to Qualify

Option I: Two (2) years of experience applying advanced statistical analyses, including predictive analytics, to produce actionable recommendations to support data-driven program, policy, and operational decision‑making, at a level equivalent to the Los Angeles County class of Predictive Data Analyst.*

Option II: A Bachelor’s degree from an accredited college** 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- Four (4) years of experience applying machine learning, predictive analytics, data management, and hypothesis‑driven data analysis to produce actionable recommendations to support data-driven program, policy, and operational decision‑making. A Master’s or Doctoral 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 may substitute for up to two (2) years of experience.

You MUST meet the above requirement(s) in order to be appointed to fill any vacancies related to this recruitment.

*Experience at the level of Predictive Data Analyst is defined as using machine learning techniques to analyze complex data sets and find statistically significant, meaningful predictive patterns, relevant to program goals, that human intelligence could not identify on its own.

• To receive credit for your education, include a copy of your official diploma or letter/certificate‑AND‑official transcript from an accredited institution within seven (7) calendar days of the end of the filing period. Please submit documentation to [e-mail] and indicate your name, the exam name, and the exam number. The document should show the date the degree was conferred and be in English; if it is in a foreign language, it must be translated and evaluated for equivalency to U.S. standards. For more information on our standards for educational documents, please visit https://file.lacounty.gov/SDSInter/dhr/070812_PPG123.pdf and https://file.lacounty.gov/SDSInter/dhr/205105_PPG_123_ACE_Resource_Guide.pdf; We do not accept password‑protected documents. Ensure documents are unlocked before attaching to your application or sending to the exam analyst.

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

II - Light: This class includes administrative and clerical positions requiring light physical effort that may include occasional light lifting to a 10-pound limit and some bending, stooping, or squatting. Considerable ambulation may be involved.

Desirable Qualifications

• One (1) year of experience within the last four (4) years in one or more of the following:
  • Working with large, fragmented administrative datasets -- including individual‑level records from social services, healthcare, or government programs.
  • Selecting and applying statistical or machine learning models appropriate to the business problem, including model assumptions and limitations.
  • Producing recurring reports or dashboards from administrative data systems using tools such as Tableau, Looker, Power BI, Databricks Dashboards, Sparks, Azure Synapse, or equivalent platforms.
  • Developing dashboards or automated reports that translate analytic outputs into actionable information for program managers or operational staff.
  • Collaborating with data engineers or IT staff to scope data needs, provide feedback on data systems, and integrate analytic workflows into data pipelines.
  • Applying version control (e.g., Git) and basic software development practices, such as code documentation and reproducibility standards.
  • Working on an Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL) process using data input tools to clean and combine datasets.
• Experience presenting data analysis findings to non‑technical stakeholders including homeless service program staff, leadership, and external bodies.

Exam Content

During your initial work period, the appointing department will evaluate your performance. Those who achieve a passing score on this evaluation will be considered for permanent appointment.

Social Security Number

Please include your Social Security Number for record control purposes. Federal law requires that all employed persons have a Social Security Number.

Computer and Internet Access at Public Libraries

For candidates who may not have regular access to a computer or the internet, applications can be completed on computers at public libraries throughout Los Angeles County.

Anti‑Racism, Diversity, and Inclusion (ARDI)

The County of Los Angeles recognizes and affirms that all people are created equal and are entitled to all rights afforded by the Constitution of the United States. The Department of Human Resources is committed to promoting Anti‑racism, Diversity, and Inclusion efforts to address the inequalities and disparities amongst race. We support the ARDI Strategic Plan and its goals by improving equality, diversity, and inclusion in recruitment, selection, and employment practices.

Department Contact

Department Contact Name: Suzy Atajayan

Department Contact Email: [e-mail]

Teletype Phone: [phone]