Senior Data Scientist

BlueFlag LLC; Pittsburgh (Allegheny County); On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Generous annual leave

Comprehensive health plans

401(k) with match

Life insurance

Professional development

Job summary

BlueFlag LLC is seeking a Senior Data Scientist to support a premier data and AI platform for the Department of Veterans Affairs. You will work directly with internal clients to turn operational problems into production machine learning and AI solutions on Databricks in Azure, and help their teams adopt modern cloud tooling.

This role is hands-on, taking models from notebook to production and keeping them running.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, CS, Stats, Math, Systems or related field and 15+ years experience (or commensurate).
• Proficient in Python (pandas, NumPy, SciPy, scikit-learn) and advanced SQL for data analysis.
• 2+ years hands-on with a leading cloud data platform such as Databricks, Azure, AWS, or GCP.
• Experience end-to-end data science workflow, experiment tracking, and model management with MLflow.
• Strong ML foundation: supervised/unsupervised methods, gradient boosting, tuning, and evaluation.
• Experience with Spark/PySpark and large datasets; ability to explain model behavior.
• Familiarity with LLMs, RAG, and agentic AI workflows; governance and bias awareness.
• VA/federal healthcare data familiarity and PHI/PII handling; federal privacy/security practices.
• Mastery in communicating complex results to non-technical stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Consult with internal clients to frame problems, define success metrics, and scope.
• Build data products and workflows from discovery to production deployment.
• Migrate workloads to Python and Databricks, achieving runtime/cost gains.
• Develop, train, and validate ML models for complex business problems.
• Engineer features and reusable pipelines on large datasets with PySpark/SQL.
• Track experiments, register models, and manage versions with MLflow.
• Deploy models for batch and real-time serving; automate retraining with CI/CD.
• Monitor models in production for drift, quality, and alert thresholds.
• Lead AI adoption with RAG, document summarization, and classification use cases.
• Evaluate LLM outputs for accuracy and safety; document governance decisions.
• Create reference use cases with tutorials and training to drive cloud tooling adoption.
• Host office hours with client analysts to upskill teams; present findings to leadership.

Skills

Python

SQL

Databricks

PySpark

ML

Git

Cloud platforms

MLflow

Communication

Education

Bachelor's degree (Engineering/CS/Stats/Math)

Master's or PhD in quantitative field

Tools

Databricks

Azure

Power BI

Unity Catalog

Delta Lake

Job description

BlueFlag is looking for a Senior Data Scientist to support a premier data and AI platform for the Department of Veterans Affairs. You'll work directly with internal clients to turn operational problems into production machine learning and AI solutions on Databricks in Azure, and help their teams adopt modern cloud tooling. This role is hands-on. We want someone who has taken models from a notebook to production and kept them running.

What You'll Do

• Consult with internal clients to frame business problems as analytical or ML problems, define success metrics, and set realistic scope
• Build data products and workflows that support critical operations, from source data discovery through production deployment
• Migrate and modernize client workloads from legacy environments (including R, Stata, and SAS) to Python and Databricks, with measurable gains in runtime, cost, or reliability
• Develop, train, and validate ML models (classification, regression, forecasting, clustering, anomaly detection) for complex business problems
• Engineer features and build reusable, governed feature pipelines on large datasets with PySpark and SQL
• Track experiments, register models, and manage model versions and promotion through MLflow
• Deploy models for batch scoring and real-time serving, and automate retraining with scheduled jobs and CI/CD pipelines
• Monitor models in production for performance, data drift, and data quality, and set thresholds and alerts that trigger review or retraining
• Lead AI adoption with clients, including LLM and agentic use cases such as retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), document summarization, and classification
• Evaluate LLM and agent outputs for accuracy, groundedness, and safety before and after release
• Document models (purpose, data, assumptions, limitations, evaluation results) so they hold up to governance and responsible AI review
• Build reference use cases with tutorials, reference code, and training to drive adoption of cloud tooling for concrete business results
• Host office hours and pair with client analysts and data scientists to upskill them
• Present findings and model results clearly to technical and non-technical audiences, including leadership

Why Join BlueFlag

At BlueFlag, we're passionate about leveraging cutting-edge technology to make a real difference. You'll be at the forefront of cloud innovation, working on projects that directly impact people's lives. We offer a high-growth, entrepreneurial environment that values fresh ideas and authentic teamwork.

If you're ready to take your data engineering career to new heights and contribute to meaningful projects that push the boundaries of technology, we want to hear from you. Join BlueFlag and be part of a team that's shaping the future of AI solutions!

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Statistics, Mathematics, Systems, Business, or a related scientific or technical discipline, and 15+ years of experience (or commensurate experience)
• Proficient in Python (pandas, NumPy, SciPy, scikit-learn) and advanced SQL (window functions, CTEs, query tuning) for data analysis
• 2+ years of hands-on work on a leading cloud data platform such as Databricks, Azure, AWS, or GCP
• Experience across the end-to-end data science workflow, from finding and assessing datasets to production deployment, including experiment tracking and model management with MLflow or similar
• Solid grounding in traditional machine learning: supervised and unsupervised methods, gradient-boosted trees (XGBoost, LightGBM), model selection, cross-validation, and hyperparameter tuning
• Strong applied statistics: hypothesis testing, regression, sampling, and experimental design
• Experience working with large datasets in a distributed environment (Spark/PySpark)
• Sound model evaluation practice: picking the right metrics, handling class imbalance, avoiding leakage, and explaining model behavior (for example SHAP or feature importance)
• Working knowledge of large language models (LLMs) and agentic AI workflows, including prompt design and RAG patterns
• Version control with Git and collaborative development practices (code review, branching, testing)
• Ability to explain technical work to non-technical stakeholders and turn ambiguous requests into defined deliverables
• US Citizen: Must be a citizen of the United States
• Security Clearance: Must be able to obtain a public trust clearance. Must be eligible to work in the United States

Desired

• 5+ years as a data scientist, shipping multiple products that run in operation
• Working experience with Databricks in Azure, including Unity Catalog, Delta Lake, Databricks Jobs, and Databricks notebooks/Repos
• MLOps experience across the lifecycle, such as:
  • Model Serving endpoints for real-time inference
  • Feature engineering and feature tables governed in Unity Catalog
  • CI/CD for ML with Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions, and Databricks Asset Bundles
  • Production monitoring for drift and model quality (for example Lakehouse Monitoring)
  • Champion/challenger or A/B testing of models in production
  • Automated retraining and model lineage and auditability
• Experience with Azure AI services (Azure OpenAI, Azure Machine Learning) or Mosaic AI (Vector Search, Agent Framework)
• Prior experience shipping products that use LLMs or AI agents, including evaluation and guardrails
• 2+ years building visual insights (dashboards and reports) that support operational needs, with Power BI, Databricks AI/BI dashboards, or Tableau
• Prior experience with R, Stata, or SAS
• Experience refactoring R, Stata, or SAS codebases to Python, including validating that results match
• Experience with VA or federal healthcare data, and handling PHI/PII under federal privacy and security requirements
• Familiarity with federal AI governance and responsible AI practices (bias testing, model documentation, human oversight)
• Experience training or mentoring analysts and data scientists
• Master's or PhD in a quantitative field

Benefits

• Competitive salary
• Generous annual leave and paid holidays
• Comprehensive group health and dental plans
• 401(k) with company match
• Life insurance and AD&D coverage
• Ongoing training and professional development opportunities