Code for America builds technology to make government services work for those who need them most. The Data Science Team supports Code for America’s work in improving access to safety net services, automating record clearance, and making it easier for lower income households to claim tax benefits. As a Manager on the Data Science team, you’ll coach and support team members in doing research and building tools that help us spot opportunities for impact, design and evaluate interventions, and that make data and insights available to the rest of CfA staff. 

Most of the team’s work is about understanding what problems exist in government services, how big those problems are, and how we can address them. We do a lot of descriptive data analysis using case, survey, and event data to identify and size problems. We collaborate with qualitative researchers and designers to identify potential improvements that help more people get through each step in the process. Finally, we love running experiments to evaluate those potential improvements, whether small a/b tests in Optimizely, more extensive changes in website flows and logic, or variations in text and email messages to help people get or keep benefits. 

We’re committed to sharing what we learn from our research so that government agencies and others in the civic tech ecosystem can benefit from what we’ve learned. We document research thoroughly and have a knowledge manager on staff to help us synthesize findings and reflect on what we’ve learned and what questions we ought to pursue next. We disseminate findings through our blog, white papers, and in journals when we’re collaborating with academic partners. 

The team has nearly a dozen members and range from social science, human computer interaction, statistics, and public policy. Team members regularly support each other on analyses, interpreting results, storytelling, etc. We lean heavily toward quantitative research with only occasional use of ML. We’re growing and have flexibility with how we allocate staff to managers: depending on how much experience you have with government work, you may want to initially split your time as a manager and an individual contributor.

We’re looking for someone who is:

• Excited to invest in and help develop people. You enjoy coaching, whether that’s giving feedback on a write-up, pairing on analyses, or talking through how to answer a question. 
• An excellent listener. You get to know people’s strengths, preferences, goals, and what challenges they’re facing day to day in their work. You elevate what you are hearing and think resourcefully about how to support your team. 
• A clear communicator, both in writing and speaking. If needed, you can help team members improve their ability to communicate findings to different audiences. 
• A thought partner: Enjoys getting to better ideas through discussion, is able to think clearly and systematically and is able to convey that thinking. 
• Pragmatic: you encourage resourcefulness, “good enough” for the goals and task at hand, and staying focused on real-world impact. 
• A thoughtful empiricist: you make decisions with data and advocate for decisions to be made with data, but you think hard about limitations of the data and can educate others on how to spot those limitations. 

Requirements:

• 10+ years of experience, with some experience as a manager
• Depth in one of: social science, policy, statistics, machine learning
• Expert fluency with Python or R
• Extensive experience with data wrangling and data management
• Solid understanding of a wide range of statistical concepts and methods

Extra Credit:

• Personal experience with the justice system, social safety net, workforce training, or other mission-relevant government services.
• Work experience in or with government agencies

This role is remote, is a full-time opportunity, and will report to a Data Science Director. Salary ranges from $134k - $158k, depending on location. 

Benefits

Code for America offers full health and dental benefits, a 401k plan with matching funds and a culture that is collaborative, hardworking and fun.  

About Code for America

Code for America is a startup non-profit with a great culture and a huge opportunity to make a difference. We work in cross-functional teams, collaboratively and agilely and value high-quality, user-friendly work product. We strive to learn from everything we do and regularly host talks from leaders in the civic technology movement. We respect each other, work hard, and have a great time together.  We’re looking for individuals who share our vision, our values, and our willingness to do what it takes to achieve an ambitious mission over the next few years.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Code for America values a diverse workplace and strongly encourages women, people of color, LGBT individuals, people with disabilities, members of ethnic minorities, foreign-born residents, and veterans to apply. Code for America is an equal opportunity employer. Applicants will not be discriminated against because of race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, religion, national origin, citizenship status, disability, ancestry, marital status, veteran status, medical condition or any protected category prohibited by local, state or federal laws.