Senior/Staff Data Scientist (ACF)

Skylight; United States; Remote; USD 120,000 - 230,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical insurance

Dental insurance

Vision insurance

Disability insurance

Life and AD&D insurance

FSA options

401(k) with dollar-for-dollar match

Generous PTO + holidays

Professional development allowance

Tech purchase allowance

Skylight swag

Job summary

Skylight is hiring a Data Scientist to turn complex government data into actionable insights. You will build data pipelines, create visualizations, and develop AI-powered tools that support public-interest outcomes.

The role blends analytics, lightweight engineering, and consulting with senior leaders to shape data-driven decisions. The position is fully remote within the United States, offering competitive salary ranges and strong benefits.

Qualifications

• Experience applying data science to real-world public-interest problems.
• Ability to organize data and build scalable data pipelines.
• Strong communication of complex findings to non-technical stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Engage executives to frame questions and seek answers despite ambiguity.
• Organize data and build pipelines using Palantir Foundry and Power BI.
• Build AI agents and integrate them into workflows.
• Visualize grant and program data with Tableau and Power BI.
• Analyze large structured and unstructured data to uncover trends.
• Develop lightweight tools and automations with Credal and Power Apps.
• Propose solutions and choose appropriate tools, favoring open-source.
• Communicate findings through leadership-ready visualizations.
• Develop predictive models and ML algorithms when needed.
• Collaborate in cross-functional teams with UX researchers, PMs, engineers.

Skills

Data visualization

Data pipelines

AI agents

Power BI

Tableau

Databricks

Palantir Foundry

Low-code

Cross-functional teams

MLOps

Education

Tools

Palantir Foundry

Power BI

Tableau

Databricks

Power Apps

Credal

Job description

Skylight is a digital consultancy using design and technology to help government agencies deliver better public services.

We’re at the forefront of a civic movement to reinvent how all levels of government serve families, patients, and many others in today’s digital world.

If you want to play a part in driving this critical movement forward, we’d love for you to join our growing team of public interest technologists.

The work we do matters.

About the job

At Skylight, data scientists organize, synthesize, visualize, and analyze data to help government stakeholders and product teams make informed decisions. They apply a variety of analytical models to find meaningful insights in both structured and unstructured data, and they communicate these insights in an easily digestible format.

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) is expanding surge support and capacity for its new Data Capacity and Digital Services organization within the Office of Administration, through the option year of our Task Order 1 contract. The team works with enterprise-serving organizations like ACF Tech and the Office of Grants Management to help programs deliver on ACF’s mission, including priorities focused on reducing grantee burden; reducing waste, fraud, and abuse; and modernizing legacy systems.

You’ll help answer hard questions with data. This role also flexes into lightweight engineering: when a problem calls for a small tool or automation built with AI, DataBricks, or Power Apps rather than a model, you build it.

What to know going in

This work calls for a consultant’s skill set: you’ll interface directly with senior leaders, and much of the work isn’t scoped in advance. This isn’t a team where you take tickets off the top of a backlog. Alongside delivery, we do a lot of technical consulting and capacity building, so people who take initiative and are comfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity tend to do best here.

While the scope of this role is likely to evolve over time, the majority of this work may not focus directly on predictive analytics or statistical analysis. Rather, the majority of your work would be focused on data ingestion, data storage and processing, and data visualization.

What you’ll do

• Engage executive and program stakeholders to frame the right questions, then take the initiative to go find the answers, even when the ask is ambiguous or the audience is tough
• Organize data and build data pipelines, using tools like Palantir Foundry and PowerBI
• Build AI agents, integrating them into workflows, validating outputs
• Visualize grant and program data using Tableau and PowerBI
• Analyze large amounts of structured and unstructured information, including grants and program data, to discover trends and patterns
• Build lightweight tools, prototypes, and automations with platforms like Credal and Power Apps when a quick solution beats a long one
• Propose solutions and strategies for business challenges, and select the right tools, frameworks, and languages for the job, with a preference for open-source, and low/no-code solutions
• Communicate findings through data visualization that leadership can act on
• Build predictive models and machine-learning algorithms, at times, and
• Collaborate with others as part of a cross-functional team that includes user experience researchers and designers, product managers, engineers, and other functional specialists

What we’re looking for

• Can think about and use data strategically to identify the right questions to ask, communicate ideas, surface opportunities to create business value and drive decisions
• Familiar with modern data engineering, including techniques for cleaning and preprocessing data from a variety of sources
• Ability to analyze a data set using the appropriate analytical method and can design, prototype, and build statistical models that are credible, effective, and accessible
• Ability to preserve privacy and security when performing data analysis
• Can articulately communicate your data, models, and findings to technical and non-technical audiences
• Ability to use the appropriate visualization tools to highlight actionable insights, trends, and recommendations from data
• Champion leading practices within data science to your team and others
• Ability to flex into lightweight engineering, building small tools and automations with low-code and AI platforms such as Credal, DataBricks and Microsoft Power Apps
• Experience working on cross-functional teams (product, design, engineering, ops) in iterative delivery
• A mindset and work approach that aligns with our core values

Nice-to-haves

• Experience and interest in policy, public health, or human services
• Experience with grants management data and large, unstructured data sets
• Familiarity with Palantir Foundry and/or Databricks
• Experience delivering AI-forward technology in government, regulated industries, or other public-benefit settings
• A track record of staying aligned and accountable on remote teams

Other requirements

• Some of our available roles are on federal contracts that require a degree or additional years of experience as a substitute.
• All work must be conducted within the U.S., excluding U.S. territories.
• You must be legally authorized to work in the U.S. now and in the future without sponsorship.
• An existing clearance isn’t required to apply, but as a government contractor, anyone hired into this role must be able to obtain a Tier 2 public trust background investigation.
• You must complete a company background check successfully.

Position type

This is a full-time, exempt position.

Location

This is a fully remote position.

Travel

This role may require travel one to two times a year based on client or contract needs.

We want to give you the most competitive salary possible. After all, you deserve it! To that end, we use the results of our interview process to determine what salary is most appropriate given your current level of seniority. For a Data Scientist at Skylight, the current salary ranges are as follows:

• Associate Data Scientist: $90,000–$125,000
• Data Scientist I: $120,000–$140,000
• Data Scientist II: $135,000–$160,000
• Senior Data Scientist: $150,000–$185,000
• Staff Data Scientist: $170,000–$203,000
• Principal Data Scientist: $180,000–$230,000

Your well-being is important to us, so we focus on supporting you in a variety of ways:

• Medical insurance, dental insurance, vision insurance
• Short-term and long-term disability insurance
• Life and AD&D insurance
• Dependent care FSA, healthcare FSA, health savings account
• Dollar-for-dollar 401(k) match up to 10% of your salary with no vesting period
• Flexible paid-time-off policy (generally around 25 days per year), plus 11 paid federal holidays
• Up to 12 weeks paid-time-off for all eligible new birth, adoption, or foster parentsPerformance rewards, including annual salary increase, annual performance bonus, spot bonuses, and stock options
• Annual $2000 allowance for professional development
• Annual $750 allowance for tech-related purchases
• Annual swag budget of $100 to display your Skylight pride with some merchandise (hoodies, hats, and more)
• Flexible, remote-friendly work environment
• An environment that empowers you to unleash your superpowers for public good

Interview tips

Our process includes a preliminary screen, a skills interview, a behavioral interview, and a reverse interview where you meet your potential team — usually four conversations across two to three weeks. Here are some tips to help you prepare for a successful interview:

• Visit our join page to learn more about how our interview process works.
• Check out our Career Pathways framework to learn more about the different roles within Skylight and the skills needed to do them.

If you’d like to request reasonable accommodations during the application or interviewing process, please contact our recruiting team at [e-mail] .

We participate in E-Verify and upon hire, will provide the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm that you’re authorized to work in the U.S.

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, national origin, sex, religion, age, disability, veteran status, or any other category protected by applicable law.

Voluntary Self-Identification

For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self-identification survey.Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiringprocess or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in aconfidential file.

As set forth in Skylight’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy,we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.

If you believe you belong to any of the categories of protected veterans listed below, please indicate by making the appropriate selection.As a government contractor subject to the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), we request this information in order to measurethe effectiveness of the outreach and positive recruitment efforts we undertake pursuant to VEVRAA. Classification of protected categoriesis as follows:

A \"disabled veteran\" is one of the following: a veteran of the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service who is entitled to compensation (or who but for the receipt of military retired pay would be entitled to compensation) under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs; or a person who was discharged or released from active duty because of a service-connected disability.

A \"recently separated veteran\" means any veteran during the three-year period beginning on the date of such veteran's discharge or release from active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval, or air service.

An \"active duty wartime or campaign badge veteran\" means a veteran who served on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service during a war, or in a campaign or expedition for which a campaign badge has been authorized under the laws administered by the Department of Defense.

An \"Armed forces service medal veteran\" means a veteran who, while serving on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service, participated in a United States military operation for which an Armed Forces service medal was awarded pursuant to Executive Order 12985.