Director of Data Science

Harnham; Dallas (TX); On-site; USD 210,000 - 320,000; Full time

Job summary

Harnham in Dallas is seeking a senior data science leader to define and drive the enterprise data science roadmap across customer, clinical, and operational domains within a large healthcare system.

You will build and govern models at scale, turn unstructured data into actionable improvements, and grow a high-performing team with executive visibility and broad scope to influence decisions across the organization.

Qualifications

• 12-18+ years of experience in data science, analytics, or decision science.
• 5-8+ years directly leading data science, analytics, or ML teams.
• Track record of data science work that shapes business, customer, clinical, or operational decisions.
• Experience with production-oriented model development, evaluation, and monitoring at scale.
• Ability to translate strategy into execution and communicate with senior leadership.
• Healthcare, life sciences, or regulated-industry experience preferred, not required.

Responsibilities

• Define and execute the enterprise data science roadmap across priorities.
• Lead development of predictive, prescriptive, and optimization models.
• Build semantic data products interfacing with conversational AI layers.
• Convert unstructured data into actionable customer experience improvements.
• Establish standards for model development, validation, deployment, monitoring, and lifecycle.
• Define evaluation frameworks for business value, quality, fairness, and outcomes.
• Partner with AI Engineering and Product to operationalize models in workflows.
• Build, lead, and grow a high-performing data science team.

Skills

Python

R

SQL

Tools

Cloud platforms

LLM evaluation

Job description

Join a large, mission-driven healthcare system as it builds out an enterprise data science function from a position of real influence. This is a senior leadership seat overseeing data science strategy across customer, clinical, and operational domains - with a mandate to move beyond static dashboards toward predictive, prescriptive, and conversational AI-driven decision support.

You'll define how the organization builds and governs models at scale, turn messy unstructured data (surveys, call center interactions, customer touchpoints) into real experience improvements, and build the semantic data products that power next-generation AI interfaces. You'll also build and lead the team doing this work, with a clear mandate to grow both scope and headcount as impact is demonstrated.

What You'll Do

• Define and execute the enterprise data science roadmap across customer, clinical, operational, and business priorities
• Lead development of predictive, prescriptive, and optimization models - forecasting, segmentation, personalization, and recommendation systems
• Build semantic data products that interface with conversational AI/chat layers, not static reporting
• Convert unstructured data into actionable customer experience improvements
• Establish standards for model development, validation, deployment, monitoring, and lifecycle management
• Define evaluation frameworks spanning business value, statistical quality, fairness, reliability, and clinical/customer outcomes
• Partner directly with AI Engineering and Product to operationalize models into customer-facing, clinical, and operational workflows
• Build, lead, and grow a high-performing data science team, including structure, staffing, and operating rhythm

Preferred Technologies & Experience

• Advanced Python, R, and SQL
• Strong foundation in statistical modeling, ML, predictive analytics, and causal inference
• Experience with experimentation design and production-grade model evaluation and monitoring
• Cloud-based analytical environments and modern notebook/ML tooling
• Familiarity with GenAI, LLM evaluation, personalization, and recommendation systems is highly valued
• Exposure to ontology, semantic models, knowledge graphs, or enterprise data products is a strong plus

What They're Looking For

• 12-18+ years of experience in data science, machine learning, advanced analytics, or decision science
• 5-8+ years directly leading data science, analytics, or ML teams
• Demonstrated track record of data science work that shaped real business, customer, clinical, or operational decisions - not just models shipped in isolation
• Experience with production-oriented model development, evaluation, and performance monitoring at scale
• Comfort operating across ambiguity, translating strategy into execution, and execution back into strategic narrative
• Strong executive communication skills - able to present strategy, tradeoffs, risk, and outcomes to senior leadership
• Healthcare, life sciences, financial services, or other regulated-industry experience preferred, not required

Why This Role

• Shape how AI and data science get applied across an entire healthcare enterprise, not a single product line
• Move the organization from static reporting to conversational, model-driven decision support from the ground up
• High autonomy and executive visibility: this role reports into senior leadership with real mandate to set direction
• Build and shape a growing team, with the ability to define its structure and trajectory rather than inherit one
• Work at the intersection of AI, clinical outcomes, and customer experience - where the impact is tangible, not just theoretical