Data Scientist

**Position contingent upon contract award**

Text CBP3 to (703) 570-8332 to apply

Job Title: Data Scientist

Location: Washington, DC

Program Overview:

Support U.S. Customs and Border Protections Office of Intelligence (OI) by transforming multi-source data into actionable insights that inform border security operations and strategic decisions. The Data Scientist work across the full data science lifecyclecollection, preparation, analysis, and actionto enable analytic production, close intelligence gaps, and enhance enterprise decision support.

Job Duties:

• Data discovery and preparation
  • Identify, access, and prepare structured and unstructured datasets from CBP and partner systems; perform extensive open-source and classified searches as authorized.
  • Develop database retrieval strategies; design queries and pipelines to ingest, clean, normalize, and enrich data.
  • Evaluate source fidelity, document assumptions/limitations, and maintain robust metadata.
• Analysis and modeling
  • Apply statistical methods and analytic techniques to detect patterns, trends, and anomalies related to TCOs, human smuggling, illicit finance, narcotics, CI/CT, and other mission sets.
  • Build and iterate on descriptive/diagnostic analytics; assist senior analysts with exploratory modeling and hypothesis testing.
  • Generate measures of performance/effectiveness (MOPs/MOEs) and other metrics to assess analytic and collection outcomes.
• Decision support and products
  • Produce clear, well-documented analytical reports, briefs, and dashboards; translate technical findings for non-technical stakeholders.
  • Collaborate with all-source analysts, collection managers, and planners to align data efforts with PIRs/KIQs and operational priorities.
  • Recommend analytical tools, data standards, and process improvements to strengthen repeatable tradecraft.
• Governance and security
  • Adhere to DHS/CBP policies for information handling, privacy, and security; support onboarding/training and recurring status reporting.
  • Support quality assurance of data and methods; contribute to reproducible workflows and documentation.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Active DoD Secret (or DHS equivalent) and ability to obtain/maintain TS/SCI if mission requires.
• Bachelors degree in Data Science, Statistics, Computer Science, Engineering, Economics, or related field (or equivalent experience).
• 2+ years of hands-on data analysis experience in a law enforcement, DHS/DoD/IC, or similar mission environment.
• Proficiency with:
  • SQL and at least one of: Python (pandas/numpy/scikit-learn), R (tidyverse).
  • Data wrangling, exploratory data analysis, and visualization (e.g., matplotlib/seaborn, ggplot2, or BI tools).
  • Strong written and verbal communication; ability to document methods and brief results.

Desired Qualifications:

• Experience building data pipelines and automation (Python/SQL/ETL; Airflow or similar a plus).
• Familiarity with enterprise data stores and logging/auditing in government environments.
• Experience producing metrics/dashboards for operational decision-makers (Power BI/Tableau; Jupyter/R Markdown).
• Exposure to NLP/text analytics or graph/network analysis for entity resolution and relationship mapping.
• Working knowledge of GEOINT or spatial analytics (ArcGIS, PostGIS) is a plus but not required.