Senior Data Scientist, Data Analytics & Reporting (N92)

Heluna Health•Los Angeles, CA

6h•Hybrid

About The Position

The Los Angeles County Department of Homeless Services and Housing (HSH) consolidates our countywide response to homelessness. The driving force behind HSH is increasing accountability and transparency, improving care for people experiencing or at risk of homelessness, and streamlining collaboration with partners including services providers, the County’s 88 cities, and unincorporated areas to deliver high-quality, life-saving care. Staff schedules are based on business need and may include the option of a hybrid work schedule where employees work remotely and from the office. The Program Analytics team carries out mission-critical data science and analytics projects in support of programs that provide housing and social services to the most vulnerable people in Los Angeles County. This role offers an opportunity for impact across program areas spanning the Los Angeles County homelessness system, including but not limited to outreach and response to unsheltered people, interim housing and temporary shelters, permanent supportive housing and case management services that sustain people in housing, and benefits entitlement programs. This position supports the Associate Director of Program Analytics in building data science products that help those program teams make better decisions, including by building dashboards, predictive models, and supporting internal program evaluation. The role also includes helping to build out metrics for systemwide performance improvement, including building and maintaining indicators that track the performance of the homelessness system and of individual service providers within that system, to ensure taxpayer dollars are having the maximum possible impact on housing and supporting people experiencing homelessness. The Senior Data Scientist works closely with a team of data analysts and data scientists, providing supervision as needed. Those analysts are tasked with providing critical analytical and reporting support to HSH programs, ensuring data-driven insights inform decision-making and enhance program effectiveness. Key responsibilities include supervising the development and automation of reports and dashboards, improving the quality and accessibility of program data, and ensuring analytics and reporting efforts are aligned with strategic priorities. The role ensures that analytics and reporting efforts align with strategic priorities, enhances the quality and accessibility of program data, and fosters cross-team collaboration to meet organizational goals.

Requirements

Option I: Two (2) years of experience carrying out complex data science projects that included independently developing and applying methods to identify, collect, process, structure, and analyze data using statistical prediction, inference, and optimization to support data-driven program design and management, at a level equivalent of Data Scientist.
Option II: A Bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university in a field of applied research such as Data Science, Machine Learning, Mathematics, Statistics, Business Analytics, Psychology, or Public Health that included 12 semester or 18 quarter units of coursework in data science, predictive analytics, quantitative research methods, or statistical analysis -AND- Six (6) years of experience, including two (2) years in a lead capacity, applying and overseeing the application of machine learning, predictive analytics, data management, and hypothesis-driven data analysis to make actionable recommendations to support program, policy, and operational decision-making.
A Master’s or Doctoral degree from an accredited college or university in a field of applied research such Data Science, Machine Learning, Mathematics, Statistics, Business Analytics, Psychology, or Public Health may substitute for up to two (2) years of experience.
A valid California Class C Driver License or the ability to utilize an alternative method of transportation when needed to carry out job-related essential functions.
Successful clearance of the Live Scan process with the County of Los Angeles.
Advanced experience with using code for analytics and statistical programming (R or Python preferred)
Advanced experience using statistical models and / or machine learning methods for prediction and causal inference, including model validation, sensitivity checks, robustness checks, and so on
Thorough understanding of data governance and privacy protection when working with sensitive data
Ability to translate business requirements into technical data science projects and to communicate results in plain language to technical and nontechnical audiences
Proven ability to own and manage projects, including development of timelines and ability to unblock when things get stuck
Proficiency with modern data visualization methods (e.g., R and Python plot libraries and cloud-based dashboarding tools (e.g., Power BI, Tableau, etc.)
Familiarity with modern DataOps / DevOps practices such as version control, code review, CI/CD patterns, and job orchestration
Designing data models, metrics, and other analytic logic used for performance monitoring and operational reporting

Nice To Haves

Experience validating, deploying, and monitoring statistical or machine learning models in applied settings
Understanding of quasi-experimental and experimental causal inference methods
Deep statistical knowledge (e.g., nonparametric hypothesis testing, Bayesian modeling)
Understanding of Health Insurance Potability and Accountability Act
Proficiency with dashboarding and automating reporting pipelines
Comfort working within agile project management frameworks, including iterative development, sprint planning, and backlog management
Experience working in distributed computing frameworks such as Spark
Understanding of ETL/ELT pipelines, data models, and feature engineering workflows in cloud-based environments
Deep understanding of DataOps / DevOps practices listed above

Responsibilities

Oversees recurring reporting workflows and leads the automation of these processes, including revisions to improve data quality and accuracy and increase analytic value.
Supports the Associate Director of Program Analytics in delivering mission-critical data science projects across the Los Angeles County homelessness system.
Collaborates with division, departmental, and countywide stakeholders to solicit, define, and manage highly complex data science projects from conception through implementation; ensures that projects result in actionable insights and recommendations that can be used to support business decisions and allocate resources; and provides ongoing consultation during program implementation of recommendations as necessary to ensure program fidelity.
Provides technical oversight to small teams of Data Scientists and Data Analysts as necessary to ensure project success.
Leads the discovery process with departmental stakeholders to document business requirements and frame business problems so that appropriate corresponding data science techniques and products can be identified and deployed.
Collaborates with other department subject matter experts to understand, identify, and select available and relevant sources of data for use cases, including internal, external, structured, and unstructured data sources; and provides guidance to other department data experts in the selection and transformation of such sources.
Supports collection, integration, and retention requirements for large sets of structured and unstructured data from disparate sources; acts as a resource for senior data engineers and architects in the selection and design of systems for use by the data science team.
Reviews proposals by Data Scientists and analysts regarding selection and improvement of data science tools and ensures that the team’s tools and systems are well documented.
Conducts and coordinates statistical inference of data and conveys findings and conclusions orally, in writing, visually, in presentations, and by developing interactive tools as appropriate to communicate effectively with a wide range of audiences, including technical and nontechnical staff, stakeholders, and members of the public.
Works with program staff to understand the implications of analyses and to ensure that findings are actionable and support data-driven program, policy, and operational decision-making.
Assists in implementing recommended business process changes in ways retain fidelity to best practices identified through the analysis and recognize the operational realities underlying existing business processes; provides ongoing consultation as recommended changes and new programs grow and evolve, including recommending modifications to adopted goals and metrics.
Coordinates with various functional teams to develop and implement products, services, tools, or business process changes resulting from the analysis.
Creates and validates advanced analytic products (e.g., Recommender Engines, Auto Classification algorithms, Predictive Scoring, geo-spatial clustering, NLP classifier, etc.) and places them in production; works with nontechnical program managers and staff to understand analytic products and to integrate them into departmental programs.
Recommends ongoing improvements to methods and algorithms that lead to findings, including new information.
Creates and monitors performance of automated-detection systems and provides business metrics for overall project to show improvements initially and over multiple iterations.
Provides ongoing tracking and monitoring of performance of decision systems and statistical models and troubleshoots and implements enhancements and fixes to systems as needed.
Develops and maintains a high level of expertise in statistical programming languages and packages and other software tools; provides training and support to Data Scientists and Data Analysts as necessary; and ensures the quality of code and programming logic generated by the data science team.