Senior/Staff Data Scientist (HHS)

About Skylight

Skylight is a digital consultancy using design and technology to help government agencies deliver better public services. We’re at the forefront of a civic movement to reinvent how all levels of government serve families, patients, and many others in today's digital world.

If you want to play a part in driving this critical movement forward, we’d love for you to join our growing team of public interest technologists. The work we do matters.

About the job

At Skylight, data scientists transform complex data into insights that drive better public services. In this role, you’ll play a key part in a major modernization effort at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). You’ll collaborate with colleagues in product, design, engineering, security, and data engineering to deliver production-ready analytics and machine learning solutions that are secure, explainable, and easy to use. And your impact will extend well beyond delivery — you’ll establish practices, documentation, and tools that empower federal teams to maintain and scale these capabilities into the future.

What you’ll do

• Identify high‑value questions, design experiments, and ship production‑ready analytics and machine learning solutions with clear measures of impact
• Build reliable workflows for data prep, feature engineering, evaluation, and monitoring, partnering with data engineers to integrate models into pipelines and applications
• Apply responsible AI practices — privacy, security, fairness, and explainability — and document choices with model cards and decision records
• Translate findings into decisions through narratives, dashboards, and accessible visualizations
• Mentor teammates, write clear documentation, and enable federal partners with playbooks and training so capabilities grow over time

What we're looking for

Minimum qualifications

• Proven experience designing, validating, and deploying statistical or machine learning models in production with measurable outcomes
• Strong coding and analytical skills (e.g., Python or R, SQL), version control, testing, and reproducible workflows
• Fluency in experiment design and evaluation — choosing appropriate methods, managing drift, and establishing monitoring and retraining approaches
• Understanding of data privacy, security, and compliance needs for sensitive data, and how to integrate controls into delivery
• Ability to communicate complex ideas clearly to technical and non‑technical audiences and to influence decisions across teams
• Commitment to capacity building through mentoring, documentation, and knowledge transfer
• Ability to work successfully in a professional services environment
• Passion for creating better public outcomes through great government services
• A mindset and work approach that align with Skylight’s core values
• Ability to travel for work from time to time

Nice-to-have qualifications

• Experience operationalizing analytics and machine learning on modern cloud platforms (e.g., Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure), including MLOps practices
• Background with natural language processing, large language models, or retrieval‑augmented systems in enterprise settings
• Exposure to regulated environments and governance — for example, Authority to Operate (ATO), the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP), the Federal Information Security Modernization Act (FISMA), or Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) contexts
• Prior experience in civic tech, government, or other highly regulated environments
• Experience working effectively on hybrid or distributed teams
• Ability to spend time on-site at HHS in Washington, DC — either by being based locally or by traveling periodically for in-person collaboration

Don’t meet 100% of the criteria but think you can do the job? We’d love to chat anyway! We’re on a mission to build diverse teams, and studies have shown that women and marginalized folks are less likely to apply to jobs if they don’t check every box.

Other requirements

• All work must be conducted within the U.S., excluding U.S. territories. Some federal contracts require U.S. citizenship to be eligible for employment.
• You must be legally authorized to work in the U.S. now and in the future without sponsorship.
• As a government contractor, you may be required to obtain a public trust or security clearance.
• You may be required to complete a company background check successfully.
• Some of our available roles are on federal contracts that require a degree or additional years of experience as a substitute.

Position type

This is a full-time, exempt position.

Location

This is a remote-friendly role. You can be based anywhere in the U.S. Candidates in the Washington, DC area, or those willing to travel there periodically for in-person collaboration, are especially encouraged to apply.

Care package

Salary

We want to give you the most competitive salary possible. After all, you deserve it! To that end, we use the results of our interview process to determine what salary is most appropriate given your current level of seniority. For a Data Scientist at Skylight, the current salary ranges are as follows:

• Associate Data Scientist: $90,000–$125,000
• Data Scientist I: $120,000–$140,000
• Data Scientist II: $135,000–$160,000
• Senior Data Scientist: $150,000–$185,000
• Staff Data Scientist: $170,000–$203,000
• Principal Data Scientist: $180,000–$230,000

Benefits

Your well-being is important to us, so we focus on supporting you in a variety of ways:

• Medical insurance, dental insurance, vision insurance
• Short-term and long-term disability insurance
• Life and AD&D insurance
• Dependent care FSA, healthcare FSA, health savings account
• Dollar-for-dollar 401(k) match up to 10% of your salary with no vesting period
• Flexible paid time-off-policy (generally around 25 days per year), plus 11 paid federal holidays
• Up to 12 weeks paid-time-off for all eligible new birth, adoption, or foster parents
• Performance rewards, including annual salary increase, annual performance bonus, spot bonuses, and stock options
• Business development / sales bonuses
• Referral bonuses
• Annual $2,000 allowance for professional development
• Annual $750 allowance for tech-related purchases
• Annual swag budget of $100 to display your Skylight pride with some merchandise (hoodies, hats, and more)
• Dollar-for-dollar charity donation matching, up to $500 per year
• Flexible, remote-friendly work environment
• An environment that empowers you to unleash your superpowers for public good

Interview tips

We want you to have a great interview experience with us! Here are some tips to help you prepare for a successful interview:

• Visit our join page to learn more about how our interview process works.
• Check out our Career Pathways framework to learn more about the different roles within Skylight and the skills needed to do them.
• If you’d like to request reasonable accommodations during the application or interviewing process, please contact our recruiting team at recruiting@skylight.digital.

We participate in E-Verify and upon hire, will provide the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm that you’re authorized to work in the U.S.

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, national origin, sex, religion, age, disability, veteran status, or any other category protected by applicable law.