Data Scientist

Blue Rose Research develops a wide range of cutting-edge products used by the most important progressive organizations in the country. Our research informs short-term and long-term strategy for advancing progressive causes and has a trusted track record among key decision makers.

The team has a storied history, and has worked with central players to develop strategy and direct hundreds of millions of dollars of resources. The work produced by Blue Rose Research is widely regarded as among the most technically sophisticated in the space. If you join us, you’ll be plugging into a diverse team of engineers, data scientists, and political analysts, who are closely connected to some of the most important decision makers in the progressive ecosystem.

We are looking for a data scientist with a focus in analytics to work at the intersection of modeling and analysis, supporting internal stakeholders in delivering guidance to key clients this election cycle. Collaborating with our interdisciplinary team, this role will utilize technical and analytical skills to turn our modeled outputs into insights, conduct analysis based on questions from political strategists, and help automate actionable takeaways on our data. 

We’re a fast and dynamic team, and you’ll be contributing to innovative work that evolves week by week. We’re looking for you to bring your passion for data analytics, a strong attention to detail, and a desire to make a big impact — sometimes under tight timelines.  

We offer a competitive salary, medical, dental, and health benefits, and a work environment that will support your differences. While the work is remote, we do have an office in NYC and a number of folks who work in-person regularly – both in NYC and at shared workspace meetups in DC. Most of our work happens on East Coast time. 

This job posting is for both Senior and Junior-level roles.

You will:

• Help build out a suite of analytics pipelines to take modeled outputs and produce automated reporting on public opinion and voter behavior at a rapid cadence. 
• Build clear data visualizations in R to communicate our modeled results to less technical audiences.
• Analyze data using regressions and other statistical concepts to answer questions from political strategists and clients.  
• Deliver actionable guidance to important internal stakeholders, helping them understand nuances of the model output.
• Build subject matter context and think critically about our data in order to discern real trends versus potential bugs to flag for our machine learning data scientists.
• Use and provide product feedback on existing infrastructure to engineers and machine learning data scientists
• Contribute new ideas to the ways we analyze, interpret, and communicate our data – we strive to deliver the best strategic guidance and believe that everyone on the team is part of that goal. 

Qualified candidates ideally have:

• Experience with SQL and relational databases. Can quickly orient themselves to a new dataset, perform exploratory analysis, spot data quality issues, and justify decisions about how to handle imperfect data. 
• A strong R programming background, or significant experience in python and a willingness to learn R.
• Used Github or other version control tools
• A desire to work in multi-disciplinary teams with engineers, machine learning data scientists, statisticians and political experts. Is excited about working with less-technical stakeholders and seeing how their work impacts real-world decision making. 
• Experience pulling insights from data, building a story around them, and creating effective visualizations to communicate those findings (in ggplot, matplotlib, or similar).
• Has strong oral and written communication skills, especially in a remote environment
• Is solutions-oriented, has strong attention to detail, and is a creative thinker who isn’t daunted by open-ended research questions.
• Is a kind person and a team player who contributes to a warm working environment.

In addition to the above, candidates eligible for a Senior role ideally have: 

• 4+ years of professional data science or data analytics experience, or two election cycles in data analytics or similar role
• Experience with applied statistics and predictive modeling. Understanding of how modeling works and could describe the basics to a non-technical person.
• Experience contributing to R or python packages and a knack for writing reusable and efficient code
• Project management experience – including breaking down large tasks into smaller ones
• Strong problem solving skills, with an ability to proactively identify challenges and propose solutions 
• A strong aptitude for identifying key takeaways from a dataset and producing client-ready deliverables that clearly communicate these findings

Extra points if you have:

• Demonstrated experience leading a cross-functional team to complete a larger-scale project
• Experience designing, building, and owning production-level analytics pipelines using real-world data
• Experience working with the voterfile
• Willingness to engage with the wider progressive political ecosystem and develop domain knowledge in addition to technical insight
• Interest or experience in mentoring more junior team members

We don’t expect every applicant to have expertise in every area listed above. We encourage you to apply if you don’t feel your experience and background sound like a perfect fit. Many of our team members have taken an unusual path to get to where they are today, and our unique and diverse perspectives make us more effective. We also believe strongly in our team’s ability to learn and excel at new skills and challenges. Join us!

The salary range for this position is $90,000 - $150,000 annually, commensurate with experience.

Candidates must be authorized to work lawfully in the United States.