Data Scientist

About Nava

Nava is a consultancy and public benefit corporation working to make government services simple and effective. Since 2015, federal, state, and local agencies have trusted Nava to help solve highly scrutinized technology modernization challenges.

As a client services company, we guide agencies constrained by legacy systems to a future with sharp user experiences built on secure, reliable, fault-tolerant cloud infrastructure. We bill for our time, offering our expertise and problem-solving approach to help our government partners enhance their digital products and services. People are at the heart of our work, from members of the public who rely on benefit programs to government agency staff. Through human-centered design and modern engineering best practices, we help our government partners understand user needs and deliver on their missions more effectively. This focus gives everyone at Nava the opportunity to do work that is meaningful, impactful, and deeply connected to public good.

This role is open for multiple levels and titles. Final title/compensation will be determined by how your interview weighs against our core competencies during your interview cycle.

Position summary

A data scientist uses data, statistics, and programming to help projects make better decisions and build predictive models that solve our clients’ problems. The data scientist works across the full data lifecycle, from collecting raw data to communicating insights to stakeholders in clear, actionable ways. Additionally, this role is  responsible for exploring data using visualization libraries and business intelligence tools to identify relationships, trends, and anomalies that might not be obvious from raw data alone. These visualizations support both exploratory analysis—helping the data scientist generate hypotheses—and explanatory analysis—helping project teams quickly grasp key insights so they can make informed decisions.

All duties will be in service of Nava's values: Be Active Stewards, Delivery over Dogma, Build Together, Innovation Requires New Perspectives, and Progress Takes Work.

What you'll do

• Work with stakeholders to understand business problems and define data-driven questions to answer.​

• Collect, clean, and transform large structured and unstructured datasets from multiple sources.​

• Explore data to find patterns, trends, and anomalies using statistical analysis and visualization.​

• Build, evaluate, and deploy machine learning and statistical models to make predictions or automate decisions.​

• Communicate findings through dashboards, reports, and presentations to both technical and non-technical audiences.​

• Participating in business development activities

• Participating in client stakeholder meetings related to growth

• Attending conferences and networking with potential clients

• Reviewing strategy plans and outlining technical requirements for potential work

• Hiring and growing data scientist talent

Required skills

• 5+ years of experience in data science or applied ML roles

• Experience owning end-to-end analytics from discovery to modeling to storytelling to implementation

• Experience working with large, complex datasets across multiple sources

• Strong proficiency in Python

• Ability to design, train, evaluate, and operationalize ML models at production scale

• Builds and ships advanced statistical/ML models and pipelines using tools like Python and SQL in production

• Strong grasp of probability theory, random variables, common distributions, expectation, variance, and covariance.​

• Solid training in estimation and inference: confidence intervals, likelihood, maximum likelihood estimation, and Bayesian basics

• Ability to choose appropriate statistical techniques for messy, real-world data and explain trade-offs, limitations, and uncertainties.​

• Track record of translating statistical findings into clear, decision-ready narratives and recommendations for stakeholders.​

• Ability to stay current with new methods and tools and apply them thoughtfully to real-world problems.

• Ability to create compelling visualizations (Tableau, Looker, matplotlib, Plotly) that clearly communicate patterns, trends, and insights to both technical and non-technical audiences.

• Mastery of probability theory, statistical inference, linear algebra, and optimization.

• Extensive experience designing and interpreting experiments (including A/B tests and causal inference methods such as DiD, IVs, and matching).

• Strong intuition for model assumptions, uncertainty, and bias/variance tradeoffs; fluency with a broad range of statistical and machine-learning models and diagnostics.

Compensation

$100,800 — $122,850 USD

Other requirements

All roles at Nava require the following

Legal authorization to work in the United States

Ability to meet any other requirements for government contracts for which candidates are hired

Work authorization that doesn’t require visa sponsorship, now or in the future

May be subject to a government background check or security clearance, depending on the contract

Perks working with Nava

Health coverage  — comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans to support your overall health needs

Insurance coverage  — Nava provides disability, life, and accidental death insurance at no cost

Time off  — vacation, holidays (including Juneteenth), and floating holidays to rest and recharge

Company holidays  — enjoy 12 paid federal holidays each year on top of your regular PTO

Annual bonus  — when Nava meets its goals, eligible employees receive a performance-based annual bonus

Parental leave  — paid time off for new parents, plus weekly meals delivered to your home

Wellness program  — full platform offering physical, mental, & emotional health resources & support tools

Virtual care — see doctors online with no copay through a virtual visit program (depending on available providers)

Sabbatical leave  — earn extended unpaid leave after continuous service for personal growth or rest

401(k) match  — Nava matches 4% of your salary to support your retirement savings plan

Flexible work  — remote-first environment with flexibility built around your schedule and responsibilities

Home office setup  — company laptop & setup assistance provided via Staples for remote work needs

Utility support  — monthly reimbursement to help offset eligible home office utility expenses

Learning opportunities  — internal training programs and resources to help grow your professional skills

Development opportunities  — LinkedIn Learning access & an annual allowance for courses, tuition, & certs

Referral bonus  — get rewarded when you refer great people who join the Nava team

Commuter benefits  — pre-tax commuter programs to support in-office travel when applicable

Supportive culture  — A collaborative and remote-friendly team environment where people genuinely care

Location

We have fully remote options if you reside in one of the following states:

Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, DC, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin

*If you are not living in one of the states listed above, unfortunately, you will not be considered for a position at this time.

Stay in touch

Sign up for our  newsletter  to find out about career opportunities, new partnerships, and news from the broader civic tech community.

Please contact the recruiting team at [email protected] if you would like to request any form of reasonable accommodation during the application or interviewing process.

We participate in E-Verify. Upon hire, we will provide the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm that you are authorized to work in the U.S. This role requires you to work from the contiguous United States.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Nava is committed to providing equal employment opportunities without discrimination or harassment on the basis of race, gender and/or gender identity or expression, color, creed, religion, religious creed, age, national origin, ethnicity, disability, veteran or military status, sex, sexual orientation, reproductive health autonomy, pregnancy, childbirth, and medical conditions related to pregnancy or childbirth, genetic information, domestic violence victim status, marital status, citizenship status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Nava prohibits any such discrimination or harassment. This policy applies to all employees, applicants, contractors, and temporary workers of Nava.