Associate Senior Data Scientist

World Bank Group • Washington, DC

17h

About The Position

Working at the World Bank Group provides a unique opportunity for you to help our clients solve their greatest development challenges. The World Bank Group is one of the largest sources of funding and knowledge for developing countries; a unique global partnership of five institutions dedicated to ending extreme poverty, increasing shared prosperity and promoting sustainable development. With 189 member countries and more than 130 offices worldwide, we work with public and private sector partners, investing in groundbreaking projects and using data, research, and technology to develop solutions to the most urgent global challenges. For more information, visit www.worldbank.org

ITS Vice Presidency Context:

The Information and Technology Solutions (ITS) Vice Presidential Unit (VPU) enables the World Bank Group to achieve its mission of ending extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity on a livable planet by delivering transformative information and technologies to its staff working in over 150+ locations. For more information on ITS, see this video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=VTFGffa1Y7w
Department Context

The WBG Corporate Solutions Department (ITSCO) is focused on the digital transformation of essential corporate services to ensure WBG operations are seamless, resilient, and future‑ready. Uniting digitalization roadmaps, experience design, process optimization, application delivery, systems management, and technology modernization across some 170 products and services, the department links business ambition with operational excellence—from intuitive employee experiences and precision payroll to data-driven decision making, intelligent automation, and AI enablement. Operating from Washington, Chennai, Sofia, and additional locations in a global delivery model, the team seeks to combine disciplined strategic planning with focused roadmaps, agile product delivery, design‑forward innovation, digital engineering, automation, and AI to produce solutions that are engaging, impactful, and efficient. The goal is a unified, OneWBG corporate backbone—streamlined, connected, and adaptive—that empowers leaders, staff, partners, and shareholders with the processes, capabilities, and insights to advance the WBG's mission at scale.

Unit & Team Context

The Corporate Digital Backbone unit creates an autonomous digital backbone for the orchestration of data, transactions, processes, and insights across the diverse corporate portfolio, e.g. application modernization, technology debt reduction, efficient data exchange, advanced analytics, enterprise integration, automated business processes, and agentic-AI. The Analytics for Corporate team within this unit delivers AI-first data and analytics capabilities for corporate functions that enable data-driven decision-making consistently and efficiently across all products in the corporate portfolio.

Duties and accountabilities:

Role Scope

The ITS Corporate Solutions (ITSCO) department provides specialized IT services to the World Bank Group’s (WBG) most critical corporate functions. We partner with the World Bank, IFC, and MIGA to deliver robust, secure, and innovative technology solutions supporting Budget, Procurement, Human Resources, the Board, External Communications, Travel, Ethics & Internal Justice, and many more. Given the sensitivity and complexity of these functions, ITSCO ensures that corporate data is a strategic asset, driving operational efficiency and informed decision-making across the WBG.

The Associate Senior Data Scientist for the Analytics and Corporate team specifically ensures that corporate data systems are resilient, high-performing, and tailored to the unique reporting and analytical needs of our diverse corporate clients.

The Associate Senior Data Scientist is responsible for leading the extraction of meaningful insights from data assets to support informed organizational decision-making. As a subject matter expert in Data Solutions, this role leads the design and execution of data governance and analytics initiatives, manages collaboration with stakeholders, and leads the development of statistical models, predictive models and machine learning techniques to solve complex business problems.

Senior professional recognized as a subject matter expert in the role area.

• Routinely leads complex projects and integrates work of other (often multi-disciplinary) professional staff and contributes to strategy, analysis and policy formulation.
• Identifies and evaluates overall systemic issues and analyzes complex issues.
• Collaborates and partners with internal stakeholders on matters of strategic importance for the area of focus, may interact with external stakeholders to support department objectives.
• Provides guidance, coaching, and training to more junior staff within the role area, serving as a subject matter expert resource for other professionals.
• Requires comprehensive and in-depth expertise either in a broad area of specialization or in a narrowly specialized field.

Requirements

• Education & Experience: Master’s degree and 8+ years progressively responsible experience; or Bachelor’s with 10+ years; or equivalent combination of education and experience. Advanced degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Information Systems, or a related field is preferred.
• Advanced Analytics and Modeling Expertise: Demonstrated mastery in developing and deploying statistical models, predictive analytics, and machine learning algorithms (including supervised/unsupervised learning, regression, classification, and neural networks) that solve complex business problems, with deep knowledge of probability distributions, hypothesis testing, and experimental design applied to real-world organizational challenges.
• Data Governance and Scientific Rigor: Proven experience designing enterprise-wide data governance frameworks that support reproducible research and model validation, including protocols for feature engineering, model versioning, data lineage tracking, and ethical AI practices that ensure data quality, bias mitigation, and compliance across analytical workflows.
• Strategic Business Translation Skills: Ability to distill complex statistical analyses, A/B test results, and machine learning model outputs into compelling data narratives for executive leadership, translating mathematical insights and model performance metrics into clear business strategies, evidence-based recommendations, and operational improvements that drive organizational impact.
• End-to-End Data Science Solutions: Track record of building complete analytical pipelines from data exploration and feature selection through model development, validation, and production deployment, delivering interactive dashboards, automated reporting systems, and self-service analytics tools that democratize insights across the organization
• Technical Innovation and Thought Leadership: Demonstrated ability to mentor junior data scientists in advanced techniques (ensemble methods, deep learning, NLP, time series forecasting) while evaluating and championing emerging tools and methodologies from academic research and industry that enhance analytical capabilities and accelerate insight generation.

Nice To Haves

• Recommended Certifications: Data Science Council of America (DASCA) Principal Data Scientist; Databricks certified Machine Learning Professional; SAFe DevOps or SAFe Architect.

Responsibilities

• Manages analytical and advisory services or operational work in core areas of data science
• Leads the development of a data governance framework that includes clear guidelines for data classification, ownership, and stewardship
• Leverages statistical concepts, practice, and theory, and knowledge of probabilities to guide clients and/or stakeholders in identifying key operational issues and optional solutions
• Designs and implements data, research and evidence-based solutions to bank-wide institutional directions and strategic vision
• Leads collaboration to develop data solutions and market knowledge and ensure continuous processes improvements
• Manages the development of data models and oversees data processing and cleaning, ensuring effective quality assurance and data visualization
• Leads the development of machine learning and AI tools to accelerate reasoning and analysis to support decision making
• Translates technical analyses in core areas of data science into recommendations for programs, policies, and strategies for social and economic development
• Manages the adoption and suggestion of new concepts and ideas from inside and outside the organization to optimize data solutions

Benefits

• The World Bank Group offers comprehensive benefits, including a retirement plan; medical, life and disability insurance; and paid leave, including parental leave, as well as reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level