About the Role: 

The primary mission of the Data Scientist is to partner with the Program Team to improve its operational effectiveness and impact. The Program Team sits at the heart of Merit America’s operations, guiding learners through the entire Merit America program, all the way from core curriculum to job placement. The Data Scientist will answer critical questions like what qualities make coaches effective and how we can modify our product to scale their impact. 

The  Data Scientist will report directly to Dan Saber, Merit America’s Head of Data. In addition to partnering with the Program Team, the Data Scientist will work closely with Data, Design, Product, and Engineering.

What You’ll be Doing: 

The responsibilities of the Data Scientist will include, but are not limited to, the following:

Collaboration with the Program Team (30%)

• Become the Program Team’s trusted partner by building strong interpersonal relationships; help them identify and scope data projects that have maximum strategic impact.
• Contribute to the Program Team’s planning process by identifying high-ROI opportunities
• Educate stakeholders on data inputs, data responsibility, and data interpretation.

Analytics and Dashboarding (30%)

• Define, track, and analyze key metrics to gauge the success of the Program Team
• Build dashboards and automated reports to enable self-serve analytics by Program Team leadership.
• Work with the Data Engineering team to identify, instrument, and ELT new data into our warehouse that facilitates the above.
• Use tools like R, Python, or SQL to accomplish the above.

Advanced Analysis and Data Science (40%)

• Partner with Program and Product Teams to launch and analyze experiments that amplify coaches’ impact.
• Identify and tackle potentially abstract topics like the qualities that make for effective coaches.
• Build and deploy machine learning models to improve coaching efficiency (e.g., by identifying learners in need of support and suggesting customized support).
• Use tools like R, Python, or SQL to accomplish the above.

What Makes a Successful Candidate: 

We know that women, people of color, and individuals with disabilities are often less likely to apply to a position if they don’t match 100% of the job qualifications.  Don’t let that be the reason you miss out on this opportunity!  We encourage you to apply if you can demonstrate many of these skills and competencies. Below are the skills that are relevant for thriving in this role:

Must Haves: 

• 2+ years of experience with SQL
• Proficiency in a programming language like R or Python for data analysis
• Strong talent in communicating (oral and written) technical information to non-technical audiences, with a strong sense of stakeholder empathy
• Demonstrated ability to create both long-lasting dashboards and strategic analyses as the business requires
• Be energized by our organizational mission - to provide a pathway to family-sustaining careers for low-wage workers
• Proven history of living within our values
• Sense of deep personal responsibility for our collective success
• Commitment to DEIJ

Nice to Have: 

• Demonstrated ability to support cross-functional teams as they become more data-oriented 
• Some familiarity with tools for analytics engineering (e.g., dbt)
• Experience with dbt for analytics engineering
• Keen interest in building new and repeatable data capabilities for a growing organization
• Demonstrated ability to turn nebulous data requests into concrete projects
• Strong sense of ownership in terms of scoping and prioritizing a roadmap of proactive data initiatives
• Experience leveraging surveys to get signal on hard-to-quantify concepts

Other Logistics 

• This position is full time: 4-day work week (Fridays are an operating day if there is a holiday closure during the week)
• Location:  Remote
• Salary : $99,400

Our goal is to have competitive and equitable compensation.  We have a market-based compensation approach which means that we benchmark each role from reputable data sources. We compare our benchmarks against similarly sized non-profit organizations with comparable annual budgets and geographical areas. We pay the same rate for the same roles and adjust to comply with statutory mandates.