Principal Data Scientist

Maximus has an exciting opportunity for a Principal Data Scientist to join the USS program, supporting both the enterprise and our government clients. We are seeking an accomplished, hands‑on individual contributor and collaborative team player to help drive innovative, secure, and mission‑focused AI solutions in support of USS objectives.

You will be responsible for architecting and optimizing scalable, secure AI systems and integrating AI models in production using MLOps best practices, ensuring systems are resilient, compliant, and efficient. This role requires strong systems thinking, problem‑solving abilities, and the capacity to manage risk and change in complex environments. Success depends on cross‑functional collaboration, strategic communication, and adaptability in fast‑paced, evolving technology landscapes.

This position will be focused on strategic company‑wide initiatives but will also play a role in project delivery and capture solutioning (i.e., leaning in on existing or future projects and providing solutioning to capture new work).

This is a remote position.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Make deep dives into the data, pulling out objective insights for business leaders.
• Initiate, craft, and lead advanced analyses of operational data.
• Provide a strong voice for the importance of data‑driven decision making.
• Provide expertise to others in data wrangling and analysis.
• Convert complex data into visually appealing presentations.
• Develop and deploy advanced methods to analyze operational data and derive meaningful, actionable insights for stakeholders and business development partners.
• Understand the importance of automation and look to implement and initiate automated solutions where appropriate.
• Initiate and take the lead on AI/ML initiatives as well as develop AI/ML code for projects.
• Utilize various languages for scripting and write SQL queries. Serve as the primary point of contact for data and analytical usage across multiple projects.
• Guide operational partners on product performance and solution improvement/maturity options.
• Participate in intra‑company data‑related initiatives as well as help foster and develop relationships throughout the organization.
• Learn new skills in advanced analytics/AI/ML tools, techniques, and languages.
• Mentor more junior data analysts/data scientists as needed.
• Apply strategic approach to lead projects from start to finish.

Job‑Specific Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Develop, collaborate, and advance the applied and responsible use of AI, ML, simulation, and data science solutions throughout the enterprise and for our clients by finding the right fit of tools, technologies, processes, and automation to enable effective and efficient solutions for each unique situation.
• Contribute and lead the creation, curation, and promotion of playbooks, best practices, lessons learned and firm intellectual capital.
• Contribute to efforts across the enterprise to support the creation of solutions and real mission outcomes leveraging AI capabilities from Computer Vision, Natural Language Processing, LLMs and classical machine learning.
• Maintain current knowledge and evaluation of the AI technology landscape and emerging developments and their applicability for use in production/operational environments.

Minimum Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in related field required.
• 10–12 years of relevant professional experience required.

Job‑Specific Minimum Requirements

• 10+ years of relevant Software Development + AI/ML/DS experience.
• Professional programming experience (e.g., Python, R, etc.).
• Experience with AI/ML.
• Experience working as a contributor on a team.
• Experience leading AI/DS or analytics teams.
• Experience mentoring junior staff.
• Experience with program management.

Preferred Skills and Qualifications

• Master's in quantitative discipline (Math, Operations Research, Computer Science, etc.).
• Experience developing machine learning or signal processing algorithms.
• Ability to leverage mathematical principles to model new and novel behaviors.
• Ability to leverage statistics to identify true signals from noise or clutter.
• Experience working as an individual contributor in AI or modeling and simulation.
• Use of state‑of‑the‑art technology to solve operational problems in AI, machine learning, or modeling and simulation spheres.
• Strong knowledge of data structures, common computing infrastructures/paradigms (stand‑alone and cloud), and software engineering principles.
• Ability to design custom solutions in the AI and advanced analytics sphere for customers. This includes the ability to scope customer needs, identify currently existing technologies, and develop custom software solutions to fill any gaps in available off‑the‑shelf solutions.
• Use and development of program automation, CI/CD, DevSecOps, and Agile.
• Experience managing technical teams delivering technical solutions for clients.
• Experience working with optimization problems like scheduling.
• Experience with data analytics and visualizations.
• Cloud certifications (AWS, Azure, or GCP).
• 10+ years of related experience in AI, advanced analytics, computer science, or software development.

Equal Opportunity Employer Statement

Maximus is an equal opportunity employer. We evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, disability, veteran status, genetic information and other legally protected characteristics.

Compensation

• Minimum Salary: $156,000
• Maximum Salary: $235,000