Senior Data Scientist

The Capabilities, Analysis and Development (CAD) division of Applied Research Associates, Inc.

(ARA) has an outstanding opportunity for a Senior Data Scientist to support a multi‑disciplinary team providing data analysis and visualization support across the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) mission space.

You will support data-driven decision making by analyzing data, developing basic models, creating visualizations, and generating actionable insights as part of a multi-disciplinary team delivering analytical and software solutions for national security missions.

This role is ideal for early-career data scientists passionate about solving real operational problems and building prototypes in an agile environment.

This position is contingent upon award of a contract expected in July 2026.

Essential Functions:


* Coordinate teams as they process, clean, and transform structured and unstructured data.


* Support development of analytics, machine learning and statistical models, and exploratory data analysis.


* Create visualizations to identify patterns, trends, and performance indicators.


* Work with customers to translate user needs into analytic tasks.


* Lead the design, testing, and deployment of data and analytic workflows.


* Build and deploy scripts and tools to automate routine data tasks.


* Help prepare documentation, user guides, and training materials.


* Stay current on emerging technologies, analytic methods, and industry best practices.


* Collaborate with and potentially lead an agile team, and contribute to sprint activities.

Required Qualifications:


* Bachelor’s degree in data science, statistics, computer science, mathematics, or a related field with 8+ years’ experience, or a Master’s degree with 6+ years’ experience.


* Must be a US citizen.


* Must be able to obtain and maintain a DHS Suitability clearance.


* Experience in Agile development practices and collaborative tools such as Jira and Gitlab.


* Experience in project management, coordinating with customers, and establishing scope, budget, and timelines for milestones and product releases.


* Experience performing analysis on large datasets and knowledge of machine learning tools and statistical techniques to produce solutions.


* Proficiency with common data science scripting tools and software (Python, R, SQL, SAS) and data visualization (Tableau, Qlik, Power BI) tools.


* Experience with common data packages such as pandas, NumPy, scikit-learn, pytorch, and data visualization frameworks such as matplotlib, seaborn, and Plotly.


* Experience with APIs, CSV/JSON datasets, relational databases.


* Ability to write clearly and produce documentation, user guides, and training materials.

Desired Qualifications:


* Experience conducting data analyses in cloud environments such as AWS, Azure, Data Bricks, Google Cloud.


* Strong experience with geospatial analyses, as wel...