Principal Data Scientist (Germantown)

Location: Germantown, MD, US, 20876

Job ID: 114851

DRS RADA Technologies, a subsidiary of Leonardo DRS, specializes in proprietary radar solutions and legacy avionics systems supporting the defense industry globally. The company is a pioneer of AESA tactical radars for active military protection, counter-drone applications, critical infrastructure protection, and border surveillance.

Job Summary

DRS RADA Technologies is hiring a Principal Data Scientist on-site in Germantown, MD. The role involves ensuring data quality and validating machine‑learning models behind mission‑critical systems. The candidate will set technical standards for data integrity, classifier evaluation, and model training processes.

Job Responsibilities

• Own and build data‑quality tooling, checks, and validation frameworks for time‑series and geospatial datasets.
• Lead classifier evaluation and validation, defining rigorous metrics and improving model performance.
• Establish standards for data lineage, feature preparation, and reproducibility.
• Identify and resolve common ML data issues such as misaligned timestamps, invalid labels, class imbalance, and edge cases.
• Help refine the established model‑training process and improve the end‑to‑end pipeline.
• Modernize legacy MATLAB tools and re‑implement them in Python or other suitable languages.
• Mentor data engineers and scientists, document assumptions, methods, and limitations, and champion technical rigor.
• Provide briefings to customers, senior leadership, and internal stakeholders on capabilities and performance.
• Work independently or lead small teams to drive projects to completion.
• Collaborate with customers to understand mission needs, review specifications, and develop solutions.
• Contribute to design assignments with budget, cost, and schedule input.

Qualifications

• Master’s degree in physical science or engineering; PhD preferred.
• A minimum of 12 years of relevant experience.
• Mastery of technologies and application domain with significant experience in multiple engineering disciplines.
• Strong communication skills and team‑player attitude.
• Deep proficiency in Python for data analysis, preprocessing, and modeling.
• Solid foundation in applied statistics, analytics, and machine learning.
• Proven ability to set technical standards and mentor others.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with anomaly detection, time‑series analysis, and predictive monitoring.
• Experience with data‑pipeline and orchestration tooling (e.g., Airflow, Spark, SQL).
• Exposure to geospatial and/or radar data concepts.
• Familiarity with Databricks and/or Azure.
• Experience building data‑governance, lineage, or monitoring frameworks.

U.S. Citizenship required. This position requires an active DOD security clearance or the ability to obtain such clearance within a reasonable time after commencement of employment.

Salary Range: $134,332.00 - $181,349.00

Benefits

• Comprehensive health insurance (medical, dental, vision)
• Employer matching 401(k) retirement plan
• Paid time off: vacation, holidays, sick leave, parental leave
• Tuition reimbursement and professional development support
• Life and disability insurance coverage

Leonardo DRS, Inc. and its subsidiaries provide equal opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibit discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws.