Senior Data Scientist

Description

This position is eligible for teleworking, which is currently one day per week. New hires are eligible to apply 30 days after their effective hire date.

Opening:

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is North America's largest transportation network, serving a population of 15.3 million people across a 5,000-square-mile travel area surrounding New York City, Long Island, southeastern New York State, and Connecticut. The MTA network comprises the nation’s largest bus fleet and more subway and commuter rail cars than all other U.S. transit systems combined. MTA strives to provide a safe and reliable commute, excellent customer service, and rewarding opportunities.

Position Objective:

The incumbent in this position will help lead the Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) Value Realization team in strategy creation, design, and implementation of applications utilizing EAM data, and solve a wide array of analytical problems within our MTA systems. They will use languages such as Structured Query Language (SQL), Python, ArcGIS Python (ArcPy) and R. As well as applications such as Power BI and ArcGIS Pro, and relational database tools such as Oracle, Postgres, Jupyter Notebooks and SQL Server to analyze large datasets, build new ones, and design overall data applications for the business. The incumbent must have expertise, or the ability to quickly understand and build expertise, in different areas of the MTA to support assumptions and business reviews. The incumbent will need to carefully document their work and be able to explain it clearly in response to questions from all levels of the company. They will design all projects and work outputs to support strategic goals to build data systems and processes that are well-structured and sustainable. Due to the size and complexity of the projects they will be working on, the incumbent will also be required to collaborate closely with operators, data/ process owners, IT, Data & Analytics, and EAM across all agencies to achieve successful outcomes.

Responsibilities:

• Designing data-driven technical solutions to meet business needs.
• Designing and carrying out quality controls on output data for validity, accuracy, and usability by the desired audience.
• Working with business partners to understand reporting needs, design appropriate procedures and outputs to achieve them, and carry out other associated work.
• Breaking down large requests/ problems from senior managers into discrete and solvable programming tasks and providing requested Ad-hoc analytics.
• Documenting work in a thorough manner consistent with team standards so that it can be easily understood by teammates.
• Creating documents explaining the work done – both the outputs/ insights and the pipeline – for technical and non-technical audiences.
• Performing statistical analyses on a wide range of datasets.
• Keeping skills current by learning new algorithms, programming languages, and techniques.
• Providing support and instruction (in both business knowledge and coding practices) to less-experienced members of the team.
• Other duties as assigned.

Required Knowledge/Skills/Abilities:

• Strong skills in programming for data analytics, most preferably in Python or SQL, but other languages such as R and Java are valuable.
• Strong skills in database design and management
• Strong skills in GIS Software Applications, preferably ArcPro and Enterprise, as well as Experience Builder and Survey123 Connect.
• Understanding of analytical methods (e.g., probability and statistics, algorithm design).
• Familiarity with transit/ transportation systems, particularly the MTA subway, bus, and railroad networks.
• Exceptional ability to read code and interpret data.
• Familiarity with data processing and management support tools, including MS Office, advanced Excel analysis, and business intelligence tools (e.g., Power BI, Tableau).
• Familiarity with transportation planning theory and practice, especially in large-scale transit systems.
• Ability to collaborate and provide support to all levels of MTA, both technical and non-technical.
• Ability to manage projects and help lead team-based projects.
• Proficiency in data management.
• Experience in documenting processes, as well as performing quality checks.
• Ability to keep up with technical innovation and trends in data science.
• Familiarity with KPI metrics and the ability to create algorithms to calculate them.
• Ability to deconstruct difficult problems into smaller and simpler pieces.
• Ability to think at a policy and strategic level
• Strong written communication skills.

Required Education and Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Management, Statistics, Mathematics, or Transportation Planning. An equivalent combination of education and experience may be considered in lieu of a degree.
• A minimum of (3) years of experience in data science or data engineering, or another position with similar programming and data management content. A Master’s degree may substitute for one year of experience.
• A minimum of (3) years of experience building datasets, automating tasks through scripts, writing database queries, debugging/ maintaining code, and using mapping and asset management software such as ArcGIS Pro and Hexagon or Maximo.
• A minimum of (4) years of experience with Python, ArcPy, and SQL programming.
• Minimum of (3) years of experience with relational databases (e.g., Oracle, Postgres, SQL Server), including writing queries (generally with PL/SQL) to obtain and manipulate data.

The Following is/are preferred:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Management, Statistics, Mathematics, or Transportation Planning/ Civil Engineering.
• Ability to write, edit, and understand Python code, SQL, or R Programming, as well as use GIS Applications
• Familiarity with data exploration/data visualization tools like Tableau, Power BI, Web Focus, etc.

Other Information

May need to work outside of normal work hours (i.e., evenings and weekends)

Travel may be required to other MTA locations or other external sites.

According to the New York State Public Officers Law & the MTA Code of Ethics, all employees who hold a policymaking position must file an Annual Statement of Financial Disclosure (FDS) with the NYS Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government (the “Commission”).

Equal Employment Opportunity

MTA and its subsidiary and affiliated agencies are Equal Opportunity Employers, including those concerning veteran status and individuals with disabilities.

The MTA encourages qualified applicants from diverse backgrounds, experiences, and abilities, including military service members, to apply.