[Hiring] Data Scientist @American Institutes for Research

Role Description

AIR is seeking a Data Scientist to join the Project Success and Innovation (PSI) team and the Employment and Economic Opportunity Program (EEOP), providing advanced technical expertise to support innovation development, scaling efforts, and applied research and analytics across project teams.

Within PSI, the Data Scientist will contribute to AIR’s Innovation Lab by:

• Co-designing, developing, and scaling solutions that strengthen and amplify effective practices across diverse technical and operational workflows.

Within EEOP, the Data Scientist will lead end-to-end quantitative workflows, including:

• Establishing and maintaining reproducible analytic environments.
• Managing and quality assuring complex datasets.
• Reviewing and strengthening junior staff members’ code.
• Conducting advanced statistical analyses, including:
• Causal approaches (experimental and quasi-experimental designs).
• Non-causal approaches (descriptive, predictive, and explanatory modeling).
• Expanding AIR’s capacity to responsibly apply machine learning methods.
• Translating technical findings into clear, actionable products for clients, partners, and other stakeholders.

Candidates hired for the position may work remotely within the United States (U.S.) or from one of our U.S. office locations. This does not include U.S. territories.

Responsibilities

The responsibilities for the position include:

PSI (approximately 50%)

• Build and maintain shared analytic tools, including code libraries, project templates, and pipelines.
• Write documentation, training materials, and onboarding guides.
• Support project teams adopting new tools and workflows.
• Prototype and test new tools and platforms, including machine learning and AI applications.
• Help maintain deployed tools by triaging issues, fixing bugs, and tracking user feedback.
• Contribute to work plans, timelines, and progress tracking for PSI activities.

EEOP (approximately 50%)

• Conduct quantitative analyses on research and evaluation projects.
• Serve as lead analyst on discrete studies or analytic components.
• Manage, clean, and quality-assure complex datasets from multiple sources.
• Build and document reproducible analytic workflows and quality control procedures.
• Review analytic code produced by research associates and other junior staff.
• Contribute to study design and analytic planning discussions.
• Draft analytic sections of client reports, technical memos, and presentations.
• Track deliverables and timelines for assigned analytic tasks.
• Contribute technical content to proposals.

Qualifications

• Master's or doctoral degree in a quantitative field (statistics, computational social science, etc.).
• Coursework or applied experience in causal inference and statistical modeling.
• Experience with complex survey data, sampling, and large-scale datasets.
• Experience applying quantitative methods to education, health, or social policy questions.
• Experience or familiarity with machine learning and AI methods.
• Interest in building tools that other people use.
• Familiarity with data common in applied social research.
• Experience with restricted-use or confidential data.
• Prior work building or maintaining code used by others.

Skills

• Proficiency in R and/or Python.
• Working knowledge of Stata.
• Familiarity with version control (Git and Github).
• Familiarity with literate programming and reproducible reporting tools.
• Ability to communicate effectively with colleagues of varying technical experience.
• Ability to write clearly about technical work for non-technical readers.

Disclosures

• Applicants must be currently authorized to work in the U.S. on a full-time basis.
• Employment-based visa sponsorship is not available for this position.
• American Institutes for Research is an equal employment opportunity/affirmative action employer.
• AIR adheres to strict child safeguarding principles.
• All selected candidates will undergo reference and background checks.
• AIR maintains a drug-free work environment.

Accessibility Notice

If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the employment process due to a physical or mental disability, please send an email to Taliba Boone at [email protected] or call 202.403.5000.

Anticipated Annual Salary Range

$114,000 — $140,000 USD