Senior Data Scientist

Overview

JOB TITLE: Senior Data Scientist

AGENCY SUPPORTED: Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS)

POSITION TYPE: Full-Time, Contingent Upon Award

LOCATION: Onsite – Quantico, VA

CLEARANCE: Active TS/SCI required  

BENEFITS: Health, Dental and Vision, 401(k), Tuition Reimbursement, Flexible Spending Account (FSA), 11 Paid Federal Holidays, 3 weeks' Paid Time Off

ITC Federal, LLC (ITC) connects technology advancements in automation and AI, customer experience, and financial services to solve government mission challenges, enabling smoother operational efficiency and bolstering national security.  We leverage the latest technology innovations and proven approaches to better serve the mission and support the DHS, DOJ, and DoW workforce, customers, and programs, regardless of scale or complexity. ITC is located in Fairfax, VA and offers outstanding compensation and benefits plan and a challenging and rewarding professional work environment.

We are seeking a Senior Data Scientist to support the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) Information Technology Directorate (ITD). NCIS is central to the Department of the Navy’s criminal investigation, counterintelligence, counterterrorism, and security operations. This role directly supports NCIS’ efforts to modernize systems, enhance threat intelligence, improve operational workflows, and strengthen enterprise-wide decision-making.

POSITION OVERVIEW:

The Senior Data Scientist will identify opportunities to improve organizational performance through advanced analytics, develop and oversee predictive and machine learning models, and communicate insights that drive mission-impacting decisions. This role requires deep expertise in data science, strong problem-solving skills, and the ability to translate complex data into actionable strategies for NCIS leadership.

The ideal candidate will bring substantial experience in data science project lifecycle execution, risk modeling, quality assessment, and advanced machine learning techniques—including text analytics, image recognition, and graph analysis. Candidates must also be adept in agile methodologies and experienced in building and maintaining ML/MLOps pipelines across cloud, on-premise, and hybrid environments.

This role requires extensive experience managing large, complex datasets and building models that directly support high-visibility operational mission needs.

NCIS Mission Context

NCIS supports over 2,200 personnel worldwide and is responsible for criminal investigation, law enforcement, counter-terrorism, counter-intelligence, and personnel/security functions for the Department of the Navy. As threats expand globally, NCIS requires advanced analytics capabilities to:

• Fuse law enforcement and intelligence data
• Generate threat warnings
• Increase situational awareness
• Support decision-makers with real-time operational insights

The Senior Data Scientist role directly contributes to the modernization of NCIS’ Information Technology Directorate (ITD), enhancing mission-critical analytics supporting agents, analysts, investigators, and leadership across a complex global environment.

Responsibilities

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Identify data-driven opportunities to improve NCIS organizational outcomes, workflows, and mission effectiveness.
• Collect, integrate, clean, and analyze large, complex, and disparate datasets.
• Design, build, and oversee predictive models, ML/AI pipelines, and advanced analytics algorithms.
• Perform data exploration, data preparation, and feature engineering to support model development.
• Develop solutions for risk modeling, quality assessment, and mission-critical decision support.
• Apply advanced ML techniques including text analytics, NLP, computer vision, graph analytics, deep learning, and other specialized methods.
• Communicate insights through compelling data stories, visualizations, and executive-level briefings.
• Lead mid-level data science staff in executing analytic project tasks and best practices.
• Operate using agile approaches and implement DevOps/MLOps techniques to automate and optimize ML pipelines.
• Build and maintain models across cloud, on-prem, and hybrid environments.
• Utilize distributed computing and high-performance computing (HPC) tools as needed for large-scale data processing.
• Support NCIS leadership with analytics that enhance operational visibility, threat detection, investigations, and resource prioritization.

Qualifications

• TS/SCI adjudicated clearance required at start of contract
• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Operations Research, Statistics, Applied Mathematics, or related quantitative field.
• Equivalent experience in economics, engineering, or physics also acceptable.
• Minimum 10 years of relevant professional experience.
• 3–6 years mid-level experience launching, planning, and executing full lifecycle data science projects.
• Experience in risk modeling and/or quality assessment strongly preferred.
• Deep technical expertise in:
• Statistics and machine learning
• Programming languages (R, Python, Java, C++, MATLAB, etc.)
• SQL/PL-SQL and modern NoSQL / Hadoop-oriented technologies (e.g., MongoDB, Cassandra)
• HPC/distributed computing (MapReduce, Hadoop, Hive, Kafka, Spark)
• Containerization and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes, AWS ECS)
• Experience deploying ML pipelines across cloud, on-premise, and hybrid environments.
• Hands-on experience with commercial or open-source analytical platforms such as:
• RStudio, Spark, KNIME, RapidMiner, Dataiku, Alteryx, H2O
• SAS EM/SAS VDMML
• Azure ML, IBM Watson Studio, Amazon SageMaker, Google Cloud ML
• SAP Predictive Analytics
• Expertise in statistical and data mining techniques such as:
• GLM/regression, random forest, boosting, clustering
• Text mining, NLP, deep learning (CNN, RNN), t-SNE
• Graph analytics
• Strong documentation skills and ability to communicate technical findings to non-technical audiences.
• Knowledge of information security, information assurance, IT, and cyber defense best practices.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:

• Experience supporting federal law enforcement, intelligence, or national security missions.
• Familiarity with NCIS, DoN, DoD, or related mission areas.
• Experience solving vision, text analytics, credit scoring, or failure prediction problems.
• Prior experience working in resource-constrained, high-stakes operational environments.

WORK ENVIRONMENT AND PHYSICAL DEMANDS:

Work is primarily sedentary, performed while using a computer for extended periods of time.

ITC Federal is an equal opportunity employer and will not discriminate against any application for employment on the basis of age, race, color, gender, national origin, religion, creed, disability, veteran status, marital status, sexual orientation, genetic information, military status, disability, or sex including pregnancy and childbirth or related medical condition or on any other basis prohibited by law.