Metropolitan Council's Community Development Division is seeking a Senior OR Principal Data Scientist (Demographic/Socioeconomic Researcher). The finalist for this position will be selected and placed in the appropriate level based on their qualifications.
We will NOT review resumes or cover letters for this position, so please don't attach them. You may still attach DD-214 forms, however, if a veteran and applicable.
This position is eligible for a hybrid (both remote and onsite) telework arrangement. Candidate's permanent residence must be in Minnesota or Wisconsin.
We are the Metropolitan Council, the regional government for the seven-county Twin Cities metropolitan area. We plan 30 years ahead for the future of the metropolitan area and provide regional transportation, wastewater, and housing services.
We are committed to supporting a diverse workforce that reflects the communities we serve.
The Community Development division is responsible for the Council's regional long-range planning efforts; planning and technical assistance to local governments; planning for and funding the regional parks and open space system; delivering rent assistance through the Metropolitan Housing and Redevelopment Authority; and delivering the Livable Communities Act grant programs.
The Community Development Research team collects, disseminates, and analyzes data about demographic trends, development patterns, climate change, parks visitation, equity, and the regional economy. We believe research can improve the lives of residents in our region and see our skills, creativity, and platforms as resources to further shared understanding about regional issues that matter.
This position is part of the Data Development and Analysis team, which is responsible for collecting and analyzing quantitative data, including core functions outlined in state statutes (e.g., population estimates and parks use estimates). This team supports the regional planning process through socioeconomic and land use modeling, and other quantitative data analysis, and produces reports and interactives.
How your work would contribute to our organization and the Twin Cities region:
The Senior or Principal Data Scientist is responsible for overseeing the Council's collection and use of census data as well as creating the Metropolitan Council's annual population and household estimates. They will ingest and analyze U.S. Census Bureau data and disseminate it to the public; seek out new and innovative demographic and socioeconomic data sources; and work with stakeholders to maximize the accuracy and usefulness of Council data products and estimates. They will deliver presentations across the Metropolitan Council, including to Council Members. As needed, they will also develop other data products to support Council staff across the organization. The Senior or Principal Data Scientist will use a variety of statistical modeling approaches applied to a variety of data sources and types (e.g., time-series, spatial, hierarchical, etc.) to provide actionable insights to inform and guide regional planning efforts and operations. A key part of their work will be to conduct socioeconomic and land use analysis and modeling for long-range forecasting of land uses, households, population, and employment.
Senior Data Scientist: The Senior Data Scientist will develop and implement statistical models, develop web-based interactive visualizations, and coordinate project work.
Principal Data Scientist: The Principal Data Scientist will act as the project manager for analytical projects with multiple stakeholders and coordinate work efforts across functional areas. They will also provide work direction and training, and advise data scientists, researchers, and business partner teams.
Senior Data Scientist
Any of the following combinations in completed education (degree field of study in the social sciences - demography, economics, geography, sociology, or related field; public policy; urban/regional planning; data science; applied data analytics; or other related quantitative field) and work experience (in demographic and socioeconomic research that includes creating, summarizing, and analyzing data; and advanced data analysis and statistics, including development and deployment of regression, machine learning models, econometric modeling, and the manipulation of datasets, one year of which is leading research projects):
- Associate degree with six years of experience
- Bachelor's degree with four years of experience
- Master's degree with two years of experience
Principal Data Scientist
Any of the following combinations in completed education (degree field of study in the social sciences - demography, economics, geography, sociology, or related field; public policy; urban/regional planning; data science; applied data analytics; or other related quantitative field) and work experience (in demographic and socioeconomic research that includes creating, summarizing, and analyzing data; and advanced data analysis and statistics, including development and deployment of regression, machine learning models, econometric modeling, and the manipulation of datasets, one year of which is leading research projects, including defining project goals, scopes and project design):
- Associate degree with seven years of experience
- Bachelor's degree with five years of experience
- Master's degree with three years of experience
What additional skills and experience would be helpful in this job (desired qualifications):
- Experience manipulating and analyzing major sources of demographic and socioeconomic data (decennial census, American Community Survey, migration data, etc.)
- Experience with both summary data (information on geographic areas) and microdata (information on individual households and people)
- Experience with methods for creating population estimates
- Experience with statistical software packages/languages (for example, R, Stata, SAS)
- Experience disaggregating data to highlight variation across different demographic and socioeconomic groups
- Racial and social equity experience and/or training along with demonstrated capacity to participate in conversations about race and equity, and integrate equity initiatives into work products and processes
- Experience communicating complex technical subjects to non-technical audiences
- Experience writing SQL and extracting information from relational databases
- Experience working with socioeconomic or land use forecast models
- Experience with spatial data manipulation and analysis (for example, with geographic information systems software or R/Python)
What knowledge, skills and abilities you should have within the first six months on the job:
Knowledge
- Thorough understanding of the Council's population estimates model.
- Advanced knowledge of decennial census and American Community Survey data, including both summary data and microdata.
- Statistical analysis techniques (e.g., generalized linear models, multilevel or mixed model analysis, econometric models, time-series modeling, etc.).
- Academic/industry research methods.
- Database systems (primarily relational).
- Machine learning models (e.g., Random Forests, Support Vector Machines, Neural Networks), web-based, interactive visualization and modeling tool development.
- Thoughtfully organizing and documenting processes for developing data products.
Skills
- Project management (organization, administration, and completion of projects).
- Intermediate level applied mathematics and statistics.
- Intermediate level in a statistical analysis software package (R, Python, SAS, etc.).
- Intermediate level data visualization (e.g., 'ggplot2' package in R, Shiny, D3 in JavaScript, Tableau).
- Intermediate level SQL.
- Data mining with structured, unstructured, and semi-structured data.
- Using data creatively - for example, finding new applications for existing data; combining multiple data sources to generate more comprehensive information; or devising inventive ways to generate new data.
Abilities
- Use GitHub to collaborate with others.
- Read and understand complex academic and technical papers.
- Write summary reports, technical papers, and literature reviews.
- Utilize statistical analysis to analyze data, identify trends, and determine the root causes of trends.
- Guide and lead full analytics project management life cycle ranging from analysis design to datasets publishing and data visualization.
- Communicate, deploy, and train users on analytic solutions.
- Lead, guide, and mentor Data Scientists, Associate Data Scientists, and Interns.
- Participate in conversations about race and equity and identify opportunities to integrate equity initiatives into work.
- Work with stakeholders to arrive at common understandings of problems and mutually agreeable solutions.