The Census Bureau’s Office of Survey and Census Analytics (OSCA) leads the agency in applying near real-time prescriptive analytics to transform field data collection operations. OSCA’s mission is to apply expertise in data analytics to better inform decisions that improve surveys and census field operations.

Summary:

This vacancy is for a 1530 Survey Statistician (Data Scientist), GS-7-9 ($53,105 - $84,441) position in Office of Survey and Census Analytics. The base salary is before locality adjustment.  Locality is determined by location. This is an excepted service appointment for 13 months, initially, and may be extended for an additional 1-year (upon supervisory approval). Appointments may not exceed 4 years. Excepted service appointments do not confer permanent status.

If hired for this full-time position, the location will be determined upon selection. You will be expected to temporarily telework to the maximum extent while the headquarters building is being renovated. Once the Census Bureau is permitted to return to the office building, you will be expected to do so within 30 calendar days of receiving notification. At that time, you may be eligible to continue to telework or work remotely two or more days a pay period consistent with the Census Bureau's flexible telework and remote work policies and approval from your supervisor.

Qualifications

Minimum Education Requirement for GS-7:

A. Degree: that included 15 semester hours in statistics (or in mathematics and statistics, provided at least 6 semester hours were in statistics), and 9 additional semester hours in one or more of the following: physical or biological sciences, medicine, education, or engineering; or in the social sciences including demography, history, economics, social welfare, geography, international relations, social or cultural anthropology, health sociology, political science, public administration, psychology, etc. Credit toward meeting statistical course requirements should be given for courses in which 50 percent of the course content appears to be statistical methods, e.g., courses that included studies in research methods in psychology or economics such as tests and measurements or business cycles, or courses in methods of processing mass statistical data such as tabulating methods or electronic data processing.

OR

B. Combination of education and experience -- courses as shown in A above, plus appropriate experience or additional education. The experience should have included a full range of professional statistical work such as (a) sampling, (b) collecting, computing, and analyzing statistical data, and (c) applying statistical techniques such as measurement of central tendency, dispersion, skewness, sampling error, simple and multiple correlation, analysis of variance, and tests of significance.

AND

Specialized experience is experience at a level and difficulty at the next lower grade equivalent to the GS-05.   For the GS-07, you must have one year of experience at a level of difficulty and responsibility equivalent to the GS-05 in the Federal service. Examples include F applying data science theories, principles, methods, and practices; experience using data visualization software such as Tableau, ArcGIS, MATLAB; experience using statistical programming languages and/or software (such as Python, R, SAS, and Stata), systems, databases, and technical resources.

OR

Education: 1 year of graduate level education or superior academic achievement.

Minimum Education Requirement for GS-9:

A. Degree: that included 15 semester hours in statistics (or in mathematics and statistics, provided at least 6 semester hours were in statistics), and 9 additional semester hours in one or more of the following: physical or biological sciences, medicine, education, or engineering; or in the social sciences including demography, history, economics, social welfare, geography, international relations, social or cultural anthropology, health sociology, political science, public administration, psychology, etc. Credit toward meeting statistical course requirements should be given for courses in which 50 percent of the course content appears to be statistical methods, e.g., courses that included studies in research methods in psychology or economics such as tests and measurements or business cycles, or courses in methods of processing mass statistical data such as tabulating methods or electronic data processing.

OR

B. Combination of education and experience -- courses as shown in A above, plus appropriate experience or additional education. The experience should have included a full range of professional statistical work such as (a) sampling, (b) collecting, computing, and analyzing statistical data, and (c) applying statistical techniques such as measurement of central tendency, dispersion, skewness, sampling error, simple and multiple correlation, analysis of variance, and tests of significance.

AND

Specialized experience is experience at a level and difficulty at the next lower grade equivalent to the GS-07. For the GS-09, you must have one year of experience at a level of difficulty and responsibility equivalent to the GS-07 grade level in the Federal service. Examples include  conducting analysis using statistical programming languages and software packages including Python, R, SAS, and Stata; interpreting and analyzing results from data collected; developing and implementing improvements in any aspect of the survey lifecycle; communicating data results in the form of written reports, texts, graphs, charts, tables, and models; experience collaborating and communicating with individuals within the scientific community.

OR

Education: Master's or equivalent graduate degree or 2 full years of progressively higher-level graduate education.

Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religious; spiritual; community, student, social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience.

*Please ensure your resume indicates evidence of the specialized experience listed above.

Major Duties:  

·       Contributes a full range of professional data science competencies to planning and performing continued programs in data science topics to include advanced scientific, statistical, and predictive techniques.

·       Collects, sources, processes, and cleans data. Writes and executes program code to perform complex processes, interprets and analyzes results, and uses data visualization to communicate insights and outcomes to stakeholders.

·       Identifies opportunities to incorporate the latest technology or techniques and to minimize potential negative impact on current projects.

·       Defines data requirements and integration of enabling technologies to collect, extract, engineer, and transform data from traditional and non-traditional sources.

·       Responds to challenges, uncertainty, and risks with innovative, data-driven solutions.

How to Apply

This announcement opens on June 28, 2023 and will close on July 17, 2023.  Interested applicants should submit their resume and a copy of their transcripts to hrd.schedule.a.expert.intern.fellows.hiring@census.gov by ​close of the announcement. Please include Survey Statistician (Data Scientist) in the subject line of your email.

NOTE: Applications not received by 11:59p.m. (EST) will not be considered.  

More information about the Survey Statistician (Data Scientist) position at the US Census Bureau is available here.  

Should you have any questions on the program application process, please email them to the Program Coordinator at: HRD.Schedule.A.Expert.Intern.Fellows.Hiring@census.gov