Senior Data Scientist Associate

Job Description Senior Data Scientist Associate Company: Children's Funding Project Location: Washington, DC • Remote Type: Full-time Salary: $65,000 annually About the Position: Childrens Funding Project is seeking a Senior Data Scientist Associate to join our Fiscal Data Infrastructure Team. You’ll build modern data pipelines to help make sense of messy public budget data by using your expertise with applying pre-trained AI models, LLM APIs, and multi-stage classification pipelines to help us scale our fiscal mapping process to all 50 states by 2028. Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence Responsibilities • Design and maintain classification pipelines that process hundreds of budget documents combining keyword filtering, zero-shot transformer models (BART, DeBERTa), and LLM-powered review for edge cases. • Work with structured and unstructured data, cleaning and transforming raw budget text into standardized funding stream records. • Stay current on AI advancements and help build a culture of responsible AI adoption across the organization. • Develop and implement procedures to ensure data accuracy, completeness, and consistency across our fiscal mapping products. • Analyze public fiscal data to reveal patterns, trends, and insights for publication. • Collaborate closely with fiscal mappers, communications, and strategy teams to align project goals to translate technical outputs into actionable information for non-technical audiences. Qualifications • Bachelor's degree in a quantitative field (Computer Science, Data Science, Statistics, Economics, or similar). • Proficiency in Python for data processing and analysis. • Experience with SQL and relational databases. • Hands-on experience with AI/ML tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, or similar large language models. • Communicates effectively with both technical and non-technical stakeholders. • Interest in public policy, government finance, or work that sits at the intersection of public policy, education, child and youth advocacy). • Experience with Diversity, Equity, Justice and Belonging (DEJB). • Team-oriented attitude with an ability to work independently in a remote environment. Preferred Qualifications • Familiarity with Hugging Face transformers or similar libraries for text classification tasks. • Experience with Azure cloud services (SQL, Blob Storage, Data Factory) or similar platforms. • Familiarity with retrieval techniques (vector databases, embeddings, RAG architectures). • Background in civic technology, government finance, or public interest data work. • Familiarity with Git, command line, and modern development workflows. • Experience leveraging GIS tools (ArcGIS, QGIS) to visualize and analyze spatially referenced data for policy research and program planning Location: This is a fully remote position (employee may work anywhere within the continental U.S.). Some domestic travel is required. To Apply: A cover letter is required for consideration and should address your specific interest in the position as well as relevant professional and lived experiences. Applications must be received by February 27, 2026. Childrens Funding Project is an equal opportunity employer.