Senior Data Scientist

Ignite IT; Suitland (MD); On-site; USD 140,000 - 175,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401(k)

401(k) matching

Dental insurance

Flexible spending account

Health insurance

Life insurance

Paid time off

Professional development assistance

Referral program

Tuition reimbursement

Vision insurance

Job summary

Ignite IT is seeking a Senior Data Scientist to advance the U.S. Census Bureau's Autocoder and assess its use across household surveys and demographics projects.

You will lead analytical methods and experimental design for coding survey write-ins, collaborating with engineers, the Model Evaluation Analyst, and government SMEs to translate evidence into practical recommendations. You will establish performance baselines for ACS Autocoder, analyze coding rates and error patterns, and design

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent professional experience in a related field.
• 8+ years in applied data science or statistics with NLP/text classification experience.
• Strong Python and SQL skills and ability to work with large datasets and ML libraries.
• Experience designing experiments and evaluating models with baselines.
• Experience communicating findings to engineers and nontechnical audiences.

Responsibilities

• Establish baselines and evaluation methods for ACS Autocoder and expansions.
• Analyze coding rates, coverage, error patterns, and category results for improvements.
• Design reproducible experiments with samples, comparisons, and controls.
• Compare LLMs, fuzzy matching, dictionaries, rules, and hybrids by quality and cost.
• Assess data readiness and coding taxonomies for additional surveys and fields.
• Collaborate with Government SMEs to refine prompts, preprocessing, and model config.
• Interpret results and document findings, guidance, and best practices.

Skills

Python

SQL

Data analysis

NLP

LLM applications

Experimental design

Statistical methods

Education

Bachelor's degree in data science, statistics, CS, mathematics

8+ years in applied data science or statistics

3+ years with NLP or text classification

Hands-on LLM application experience

Advanced degree (preferred)

Tools

AWS

Job description

Ignite IT Hubisseeking a Senior Data Scientist to improve the U.S. Census Bureau's LLMAutocoderand assess its use across household surveys and demographic projects. You will lead analytical methods and experimental design for coding survey write-in responses, working with engineers, the Model Evaluation Analyst, and Government subject matter experts (SMEs) to turn evidence into practical recommendations.

Responsibilities

• Establish performance baselines and evaluation methods for the American Community Survey (ACS)Autocoderand proposed expansion efforts.
• Analyze accuracy, industry and occupation joint coding rates, coverage, error patterns, and category-level results toidentifyimprovement opportunities and regressions.
• Design reproducible experiments with representative samples,appropriate comparisongroups, and controls against data leakage; explain uncertainty and limitations.
• Compare LLMs, fuzzy matching, direct-match dictionaries, rules, and hybrid approaches based on coding quality, explainability, feasibility, and operational cost.
• Assess data readiness and coding taxonomies foradditionalsurveys and ACS fields, such as race and ancestry, field of degree, and language.
• Work with Government SMEs to resolve ambiguous cases and refine evaluation criteria; guide engineers on changes to prompts, preprocessing, model configuration, and coding methods.
• Interpret pilot and production results, recommend whether to implement or revise a method, and document findings, reusable practices, and technical guidance.

Required qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in data science, statistics, computer science, mathematics, or a related field, or equivalent relevant professional experience.
• 8+ years in applied data science or statistical analysis, including 3+ years with NLP or text classification and hands-on LLM application experience.
• Strong Python and SQL skills, with experience preparing and analyzing large datasets and using statistical and machine learning libraries.
• Strong experimental design and model evaluation skills, including sampling, class imbalance, error analysis, and reliable comparisons against baselines.
• Experience supporting deployed models, collaborating with engineers, and explaining analytical findings and limitations to technical and nontechnical audiences.

Preferred qualifications

• Advanced degree in a relevant field; experience with survey data, industry and occupation coding, or other detailed classification taxonomies.
• Experience with AWS-based analytical workflows and federal statistical orsensitive-dataenvironments.

Conditions of employment

Conditions of employment.Position contingent on contract award. Must be able to obtain andmaintainapplicable Census Special Sworn Status and Personal Identity Verification (PIV) credentials, follow confidentiality requirements, and support Census core business hours andcoordinatedcritical processing runs.

Benefits

• 401(k)
• 401(k) matching
• Dental insurance
• Flexible spending account
• Health insurance
• Life insurance
• Paid time off
• Professional development assistance
• Referral program
• Tuition reimbursement
• Vision insurance