Data Science Manager
at Code for America
San Francisco, CA or Remote (in the U.S.)
Code for America believes government can work for the people, by the people, in the digital age, and that government at all levels can and should work well for all people. For more than a decade, we’ve worked to show that with the mindful use of technology, we can break down barriers, meet community needs, and find real solutions.
Our employees and active community of volunteers build and transform government and community tools and services, making them so good they inspire change. We merge the best parts of technology, nonprofit, and government to help support the people who need it most. With a focus on diversity, equity, inclusion, and deep empathy for partners in government and community organizations and the people that our partners serve, we’re building a movement of motivated change agents driven by meaningful results and lasting impact. At Code for America, you contribute to exciting work while learning and developing in a supportive and flexible environment. Our compensation and benefits are holistic and thoughtfully curated to represent our employees and our mission. Help us drive real generational change that lasts.
About the Role:
Most of the team’s work is about understanding what problems exist in government services, how big those problems are, and how we can address them. We do a lot of descriptive data analysis using case, survey, and event data to identify and size problems. We collaborate with qualitative researchers and designers to identify potential improvements that help more people get through each step in the process. Finally, we love running experiments to evaluate those potential improvements, whether small a/b tests in Optimizely, more extensive changes in website flows and logic, or variations in text and email messages to help people get or keep benefits.
We’re committed to sharing what we learn from our research so that government agencies and others in the civic tech ecosystem can benefit from what we’ve learned. We document research thoroughly and have a knowledge manager on staff to help us synthesize findings and reflect on what we’ve learned and what questions we ought to pursue next. We disseminate findings through our blog, white papers, and in journals when we’re collaborating with academic partners.
The team has nearly a dozen members and backgrounds range from social science to human computer interaction, statistics, and public policy. Team members regularly support each other on analyses, interpreting results, storytelling, etc. We lean heavily toward quantitative research with only occasional use of ML. We’re growing and have flexibility with how we allocate staff to managers: depending on how much experience you have with government work, you may want to initially split your time as a manager and an individual contributor.
About You:
- Excited to invest in and help develop people. You enjoy coaching, whether that’s giving feedback on a write-up, pairing on analyses, or talking through how to answer a question.
- An excellent listener. You get to know people’s strengths, preferences, goals, and what challenges they’re facing day to day in their work. You elevate what you are hearing and think resourcefully about how to support your team.
- A clear communicator, both in writing and speaking. If needed, you can help team members improve their ability to communicate findings to different audiences.
- A thought partner: Enjoys getting to better ideas through discussion, is able to think clearly and systematically and is able to convey that thinking.
- Pragmatic: you encourage resourcefulness, “good enough” for the goals and task at hand, and staying focused on real-world impact.
- A thoughtful empiricist: you make decisions with data and advocate for decisions to be made with data, but you think hard about limitations of the data and can educate others on how to spot those limitations.
- 10+ years of experience, with some experience as a manager
- Depth in one of: social science, policy, statistics, machine learning
- Expert fluency with Python or R
- Extensive experience with data wrangling and data management
- Solid understanding of a wide range of statistical concepts and methods
Bonus Points If You/Have:
- Personal experience with the justice system, social safety net, workforce training, or other mission-relevant government services.
- Work experience in or with government agencies
What you’ll get:
- Full benefits package with 100% coverage towards select medical, dental and vision plans and contributes 80% of the cost towards dependent and family coverage
- 401k plan with matching funds
- A collaborative, hardworking and fun environment
- Leadership and teammates who value Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity
- Professional development includes bi annual 360 review process and $1000 annual budget
- A manager and org-wide structure that supports and enables professional development
- Compensation: Code for America’s salary bands are transparent internally as a part of our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. We are happy to extend this transparency during the recruitment process. As a part of our equitable hiring practices, we aim to target the midpoint of the 2nd quartile of the range for all new hires. The targets for this role are dependent on the market/geographic location. The targets for this role range from $134k – $158k.
Equal Employment Opportunity
Code for America values a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace and strongly encourages women, people of color, LGBTQ+ folks, people with disabilities, members of ethnic minorities, foreign-born residents, and veterans to apply. Code for America is an equal opportunity employer. Applicants will not be discriminated against because of race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, religion, national origin, citizenship status, disability, ancestry, marital status, veteran status, medical condition or any protected category prohibited by local, state or federal laws.