Democratic National Committee
Washington, DC
201-500 employees
We are fighting for a better, fairer, and brighter future for every American.
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Senior Data Scientist
Senior Data Scientist
The Democratic National Committee’s Tech Team is hiring a Senior Data Scientist to build and evaluate predictive models to help candidates and state parties optimize their strategy and voter contact programs. The DNC’s data science models will help Democrats win elections all across the country by providing foundational guidance on strategy, resource allocation and effective voter outreach.
In this role, you will be a subject matter expert in data science at the DNC. You will partner with Product Managers, Engineers and Analytics Engineers to elevate our strategic impact and empower Democratic initiatives.
We’re looking for a strong technical collaborator who can work effectively and positively to deliver on outcomes for our users.
Who we are:
- The DNC Data Team team, which you will be a part of, is a team of analysts, analytics engineers and data scientists focused on providing best-in-class data products and insights that help Democrats up and down the ballot win elections. The three verticals of the Data team are Strategic Analytics, Data Science and Analytics Engineering. This role will be part of the Data Science group and report into the Director of Data Science. On a day-to-day basis, you will be part of our multidisciplinary Scores team and priorities will be directed by our Product Manager for Scores.
- As part of the DNC Tech team, you will be collaborating with Product Managers, Engineers, Security and IT to build and deliver technology used by candidates and organizers in all 50 states and 3,413 counties across the United States to analyze data, organize campaigns, raise money, and get out the vote on election day.
- We are a fully remote, distributed team living in 19 states and from a variety of backgrounds. Some of us have worked in political campaigns, others in public sector tech, and others in industry. We value diversity in perspective, lived experience, and the many paths one may take into working in political technology. We believe deeply in the promise of breaking the boom-bust cycle of political tech work and building technology infrastructure that will support campaigns from cycle to cycle and will improve with every iteration.
Who you are:
- We're focused on equipping Democratic candidates and campaigns around the country with the data and analytics resources they need to win, and are looking for a Senior Data Scientist with a diverse range of experiences and skill sets to help us tackle numerous projects. Whether 2020 was your first time volunteering for a campaign or you've been working with electoral data teams for multiple cycles, we'd love to talk to you.
- Build new predictive models for more efficient voter outreach. In cases where a new model is needed, help leverage our existing data and identify new data sources to create new and better predictions.
- Collaborate with the Scores team to deliver results. Partner across functions to deliver timely and high quality data products to our users.
- Evaluate vendor-provided models for purchase. Where we do not have sufficient data to build models in-house, drive validation and evaluation of vendor models to meet user needs. Empower DNC tech team leadership with the technical understanding and context to make balanced build vs. buy decisions.
- Improve and extend our internal record linkage tooling to build a fuller picture of voters. Help us maintain a premier voter file and help campaigns identify the impact of their programs through probabilistic matching.
- Increase Fairness, Accountability and Transparency in Machine Learning. Ensure we are empowering users with the right training and documentation to leverage our data products to the greatest effect.
- Mentor colleagues, both formally and informally. As a senior contributor on the team, you’ll participate in hiring new team members and onboarding them to the organization.
- Manage projects. You’ll be an expert on your work and may be asked to serve as the technical lead for projects with multiple contributors. Help break down work, work with the Product Manager and Data Science Director to identify the minimum viable product, and keep yourself and others accountable to deadlines.
- Promote tech team cultural values. Promote and embody an empathetic, kind, and collaborative workplace where people can do their best work to elect more Democrats. Encourage learning both within data science and cross-functionally, continuing to take advantage of our cross-functional team and fostering an environment of growth and curiosity.
Good candidates are willing to get nerdy about the details while staying focused on our goal of electing Democrats. Among other things, in this role you could help us:
In addition, this role may also include, but is not limited to:
You will be part of the DNC's Data Team and will focus on both 1) the near-term results we need to drive for this election cycle and 2) the long-range development of groundbreaking products for the progressive ecosystem at large.
You might be right for this role if you:
- Have experience doing data science or statistics in a social sciences context, which may include electoral politics.
- Advanced proficiency with R or Python and SQL.
- Multiple years of experience with predictive modeling, record linkage methods, and/or experiment design.
- Have strong written and verbal communication skills, and experience explaining technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences. You won’t just be building data science products, but you’ll be helping us ensure our diverse users trust them and know how to use them for their individual needs.
- Are comfortable with building but also maintaining. We often need to move quickly and with agility to meet campaign deadlines, and sometimes you’ll need to leverage what’s been created already to get products to users when they need them most.
- Are curious, collaborative, and humble – ready to work with a diverse, distributed team to solve interesting problems together.
Do you want to...
- Secure the future of our country? Right now a lot is at stake in our country and our team has a huge opportunity to make a real difference.
- Work with amazing people? We’re building a diverse, distributed team, hiring the best people we can wherever they are—alumni from past Presidential campaigns working out of DC and New York, experienced product developers from the SF Bay Area, and more.
- Never stop learning? There are people who know about politics and people who know about technology and a few who have figured out some things about how to combine the two, but we are blazing a lot of new trails and you should be comfortable exploring and learning from everyone you can.
The starting salary for the Senior Data Scientist position is $115,000 on an annualized basis, commensurate with experience and qualifications. This position is not eligible for overtime wages and is fully remote. This is a full-time, exempt position, that may require work on weekends, and has an end date of November 15, 2024. This position is in the bargaining unit represented by SEIU Local-500.
Benefits:
The DNC offers a generous benefit package, including:
- Paid time off, including Federal holidays, open leave, and personal days;
- Health and dental insurance for employee and dependents;
- 90% paid by the DNC, 10% paid by employee;
- Supplementary vision plans available to employees for purchase;
- Pre-tax Flexible spending account benefits available to employees and dependents.