Data Scientist at Excelity – Herndon, Virginia

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Excelity is seeking a Data Scientist for a project responsible for building the next generation Collection Management Systems for an exciting Government customer with a very critical mission. The candidate will work with the engineering team and customer to ensure successful development of high profile, complex, technical deliverables that are core to the continued success of our award-winning projects.
This position will lead the development and operationalization of AI/ML capabilities to enhance collection decision-making, prioritization frameworks, and enterprise search relevance. The selected candidate will work closely with software engineers, data engineers, product owners, and mission stakeholders to deliver scalable, explainable, and production-ready analytic solutions.
Required Clearance: TS/SCI with CI Poly
Responsibilities:

• Design, develop, test, and deploy machine learning models supporting intelligence collection prioritization and requirements management
• Develop predictive and prescriptive analytics to enhance operational decision-making
• Implement NLP techniques for structured and unstructured intelligence data sources
• Develop ranking, scoring, and relevance models to improve enterprise search capabilities
• Engineer and validate features using large-scale data stored in Elasticsearch/OpenSearch and relational databases
• Productionalize models within containerized cloud environments (AWS, Docker, Kubernetes/OpenShift)
• Partner with Data Engineering teams to build scalable ML pipelines
• Implement model performance monitoring, evaluation metrics, and retraining strategies
• Apply explainable AI techniques consistent with governance and compliance requirements
• Document analytic methodologies, model assumptions, and data lineage
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to junior team members

Required Skills:

• A Bachelor’s degree in an area applicable to the position with 12+ years of relevant experience OR a Master’s degree with 10 years of relevant experience OR a PhD with 8 years of relevant experience; an additional 4 years of experience maybe considered in lieu of a degree requirement.
• Degree in Data Science, Computer Science, Statistics, Mathematics, Engineering, or related technical field
• Advanced proficiency in Python (e.g., pandas, scikit-learn, PyTorch, TensorFlow)
• Experience developing, validating, and deploying machine learning models in production environments
• Strong statistical analysis, modeling, and hypothesis testing experience
• Experience working with large structured and unstructured datasets
• Experience with Elasticsearch/OpenSearch or similar search technologies
• Experience deploying solutions in AWS cloud environments
• Experience with containerization technologies (Docker, Kubernetes)
• Ability to communicate complex analytic findings to technical and non-technical stakeholders

Desired Skills:

• Experience supporting DIA, IC, or DoD mission environments
• Experience with NLP, topic modeling, entity extraction, or document classification
• Experience with graph analytics or semantic modeling
• Familiarity with data governance, model explainability, and RMF/NIST compliance
• Experience in Agile or SAFe development environments
• AWS or cloud certifications
• Experience working in cross-domain or multi-level secure environments

Benefits:

• Competitive salary
• Flexible work schedule
• 100% Health, Dental, Vision, and Life Insurance plans with Flexible Spending Account (FSA)
• Long and Short-term disability coverage
• Generous paid vacation and holiday time
• Safe Harbor 401(k) Retirement Plan with 6% Employer matching contributions
• Reimbursement for professional and training development
• Company-paid memberships to professional organizations

Excelity is an Equal Opportunity Employer