Senior Data Scientist

Join a small, agile AI Lab focused on building generative AI and machine learning solutions that improve productivity, strengthen analytical capabilities, and support consumer protection and community development work. This senior-level role offers the chance to take ideas from research through deployment, working hands-on across model development, application building, visualization, and production maintenance in a collaborative federal environment.
Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and refine machine learning and generative AI solutions that support business and analytical needs
• Build proof-of-concept tools and help transition successful prototypes into production-ready applications
• Create applications that use large language models for summarization, information extraction, document classification, text analysis, and workflow automation
• Develop prompt engineering approaches and retrieval-augmented generation solutions to improve AI performance
• Explore, test, and evaluate emerging AI tools, frameworks, and models for practical use cases
• Apply statistical and machine learning methods across classification, regression, supervised learning, unsupervised learning, and deep learning
• Deploy, maintain, and support AI/ML solutions in cloud or internal environments, including containerized and CI/CD-based workflows
• Build dashboards, visualizations, and web-based analytical applications for technical and non-technical audiences
• Support monitoring, logging, alerting, model versioning, and retraining processes for deployed solutions
• Document technical work, communicate progress, and collaborate with economists, analysts, attorneys, technologists, and leadership
• Contribute to governance, privacy, security, and compliance documentation for AI-enabled systems
• Work within a light agile framework and help shape an emerging AI/ML practice

Skills

• U.S. citizenship and ability to work onsite in the greater Washington, DC metro area
• At least 6 years of hands-on experience developing, deploying, and maintaining AI/ML applications
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Statistics, Machine Learning, or a related field
• Strong Python or R experience for data science and application development
• Proven experience building and supporting production AI/ML solutions
• Experience creating interactive applications and dashboards using tools such as Streamlit, Dash, Flask, or R Shiny
• Strong data visualization skills using Python/R libraries or BI tools such as Tableau or Power BI
• Advanced knowledge of machine learning, NLP, and generative AI concepts
• Experience with tools and frameworks such as Scikit-learn, spaCy, and XGBoost
• Ability to work independently while also collaborating effectively across teams
• Clear communication skills and the ability to explain technical ideas to varied audiences

Preferred Skills

• Experience in federal government, regulatory, supervisory, or policy environments
• Background in financial services, banking supervision, consumer finance, or regulatory data
• Familiarity with agile methods and tools such as Scrum, Kanban, Jira, or Azure DevOps
• Experience with LLM APIs and frameworks such as LangChain or LlamaIndex
• Knowledge of prompt engineering, fine-tuning, vector databases, and semantic search
• Hands-on experience with AWS AI services such as Bedrock, SageMaker, Comprehend, Rekognition, or Transcribe
• Experience with production web applications and strong visual design/data storytelling skills
• Exposure to MLOps practices, including monitoring, versioning, retraining, and deployment pipelines
• Experience with AWS services, Databricks, and infrastructure as code tools such as Terraform or CloudFormation
• Familiarity with responsible AI practices, model explainability, and work involving sensitive or regulated data
• Understanding of federal IT governance requirements, including privacy and security considerations

Horizontal is committed to fostering a welcoming, respectful, and inclusive environment where different perspectives and experiences are valued. We encourage candidates from all backgrounds to apply and are dedicated to supporting equity and belonging throughout the hiring process and beyond.


By applying for this position, you acknowledge and agree that Horizontal Talent may contact you regarding your application using automated technology, including phone calls, SMS/text messages, or email, which may be delivered by our virtual AI recruiter, Alex.

Please apply through this online posting or by visiting our Job Board at Applications will be accepted for 4 weeks. For those that join the team, we offer competitive compensation and benefits including medical, dental, vision, and retirement. Check out all we have to offer and how you can become part of the Horizontal Talent Team. The pay range for this role is $60 - $96 per hour based on qualifications and experience.