Data Scientist

Position Summary

Due Friday April 19, 2024

About the office

The OAG represents the people of New York State, protecting their rights in the areas of civil rights, housing, environmental protections, health care, labor,  consumer protections, and internet & technology, among others. The current elected Attorney General is Letitia (Tish) James, who started her political career as the first third party candidate in 30 years to win a NYC city council seat, on the Working Families Party line.

About the team and role

Research and Analytics Department

RAD is like a consulting unit working across almost all bureaus in the Social Justice and Economic Justice divisions. We provide research and data support on legal cases that include suing employers for wage theft, holding opioids manufacturers and distributors accountable for their role in the opioid crisis, going after lenders who illegally charge too much in interest, proving illegal price gouging, enforcing environmental protections, identifying illegal landlord behavior, and testing for racial discrimination in a variety of areas.

Applicants for the Data Scientist role should have experience working with data & statistics and be comfortable communicating findings to both technical and non-technical audiences. Eventually, you would be more involved throughout the life cycle of a case, including data requests, intake, exploratory analysis, developing theories, and ultimately conducting analyses that go into lawsuit filings.

You can read more about the team’s work here: https://ag.ny.gov/search?term=research+and+analytics+department&sort_by=date&sort_order=DESC

Salary: $93-$96k

Due: Friday April 19

Full JD: https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/2024-03/rad_nyc_dat_6315_web.pdf

Goal

The Research and Analytics Department in the Office of the New York State Attorney General (OAG) is seeking

candidates for a full-time Data Scientist position. Data scientists at the OAG bring their skills to bear across a wide variety of cases and investigations. The Data Scientist will utilize a vast array of tools to explore datasets, develop new databases, and use statistical modeling to detect anomalies in information pertinent to OAG investigations. The goal of

the data scientist at the OAG is to ensure that our most complicated cases and policy arenas have the benefit of advanced analytical tools, methodologies, and strategic thinking to understand how otherwise elusive trends can be laid bare once we dive into the underlying data.

Purview

As part of an innovative team housed in the Executive Division, you will work with senior staff and divisions throughout the OAG to support the OAG’s major initiatives, investigations, and policy development. Our team researches and writes analytical reports garnering national attention, directs multi-million-dollar grant programs, and supports the OAG’s major investigations. See for example: lawsuit against auto lender for deceptive practices, preliminary report on NYPD response to Protests, JUUL lawsuit and remediation, opioids lawsuit, lawsuit preserving affordable housing from illegal kickback scheme, and the FCC fake comments report. Utilizing a vast collection of public and confidential information, you will work with data covering the breadth of the OAG’s purview building advanced analytic tools to inform investigations that affect the lives of all New Yorkers.

Employing over 1,800 people across New York State, the OAG is both the “People’s Lawyer” and the State’s chief legal officer. The Data Scientist will support OAG work in numerous legal and regulatory arenas, including protecting the rights of investors and consumers, coordinating state-wide criminal investigations, promoting civil rights, economic and social justice, encouraging harm-reducing public health strategies, and preserving the State’s environment. The OAG also advises the Executive branch of the State government and defends actions and proceedings on behalf of the State.

Data can and does play a pivotal role in decisioning on a wide range of the OAG’s work. The Data Scientist will be primarily responsible for:

All aspects of using data to develop and test legal hypotheses, including:

• Brainstorming with legal teams on the data required
• Acquiring data through public sources and assisting legal teams to acquire data from confidential sources
  to ensure the delivery of data sufficient for investigation
• Testing data for reliability
• Distilling and incorporating relevant academic and other analytical research
• Developing and executing appropriate methodologies for data exploration and analysis
• Clearly communicating findings verbally and through written reports and visualizations
• Continuously updating analysis in the face of feedback and new data
• Quantifying uncertainty in analytical findings
• Working closely with legal teams on all the aspects above and providing guidance and recommendations on decision making around data

Additional responsibilities may include:

• Developing predictive modeling to detect anomalies
• Developing or programming new databases or data tools
• Writing fact and expert reports for submission to the court and defending analysis and findings in
  depositions
• Helping to maintain and improve the team’s shared computational infrastructure
• Staying informed of the latest advances in data tools and techniques and sharing newfound skills with
  the team
• Performing other duties as requested

Qualifications/Skills:
• Advanced degree in computer science, mathematics, applied statistics, physics, engineering or similar disciplines with demonstrated research capability or bachelor’s degree and equivalent experience and training
• At least two (2) years of demonstrated qualitative, quantitative, or investigative research abilities
• Git/github familiarity
• Experience with the following technologies:

• Programming, scripting and statistical languages (e.g., Python, R, use of dataframes)
• Data visualization software (e.g., Tableau, d3, altair, plotly, matplotlib, bokeh)
• Relational databases and advanced SQL queries

• Excellent oral, written, and presentation communication skills
  • Ability to communicate technical concepts and results to non-technical audiences
  • Highly organized, self-directed, and curious
  • Personable and positive, with a high level of integrity
  • Interest in public policy and social/economic justice
  • Candidates with additional experience in any of the following are preferred:

• Linux command line tools
• Graph databases (e.g. Neo4J)
• Cloud, distributed, and container computing platforms (e.g. AWS, Redshift, EC2, docker)
• Machine learning frameworks (e.g. supervised and unsupervised methods such as neural networks,
  random forests, and generalized linear models)
•  Analyzing social networks (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram)
• Natural Language Processing or Entity Resolution

The hiring rate for this position is $90,674 – $93,394 plus $3,087 in location pay. As an employee of the OAG, you will join a team of dedicated individuals who work to serve the people of our State through a wide variety of occupations. We offer a comprehensive New York State benefits package, including paid leave, health, dental, vision and retirement benefits, and family-friendly policies. Additionally, the OAG offers a robust Workplace Flexibilities
Program with multiple options for employees, including telecommuting (up to two days per week) and alternative work schedules.