Data Scientist ​/ Emergency Appointment Homelessness

Position: DATA SCIENTIST / EMERGENCY APPOINTMENT HOMELESSNESS
EXAM NUMBER:

PH1763C-EA

TYPE OF RECRUITMENT:

OPEN COMPETITIVE - EMERGENCY

FIRST DAY OF FILING:

The application filing period will begin on Thursday, July 17, 2025 at 8:30 a.m. (PT) - Continuous.

We will keep accepting applications until the position is filled. The application window may close unexpectedly once we have enough qualified candidates.

The LA County Board of Supervisors recently declared a local state of emergency for homelessness, and the County is working to revise and expand our response to help all who are affected. We are looking for qualified and passionate individuals to help us in the mission of addressing issues like housing, mental health, and substance use. If you are looking for a new career that will directly benefit the population of LA County, this may be the opportunity for you.

The County of Los Angeles Department of Public Health is seeking qualified candidates to fill emergency Data Scientist vacancies related to the homelessness crisis.

Under the emergency order, applicants who meet the requirements may be hired for an initial period of up to 90 days, with an opportunity for permanent County employment.

Before the end of your initial work period, you will be assessed on your work performance. This assessment will be weighted 100%.

Those who successfully pass the assessment will be considered for permanent appointment to Data Scientist.

The Data Scientist positions are located within the Evaluation Section of the Health Outcomes and Data Analytics (HODA) Division of the Substance Abuse Prevention & Control (SAPC) Bureau. The Data Scientist will support data collection and evaluation of services for the CalAIM JI Initiative. The Data Scientist will handle local and state data reports, evaluate program effectiveness (e.g., treatment linkage, timely access, care coordination), and collaborate closely with SAPC's System of Care, IT, Sage Management Divisions, and external stakeholders.

DEFINITION:

Under general supervision, develops and applies methods to identify, collect, process, organize, and analyze structured and unstructured data using statistical prediction, inference, and optimization; effectively communicates results to County, departmental, and divisional decision makers to support data-driven program design and management.

CLASSIFICATION STANDARDS:

This is the second working level in the professional data science/analysis series.  Positions allocable to this class work under the general direction of a Data Science Supervisor or supervisor or manager responsible for the data analytics, research, or statistical function of a department, independently performing duties of considerable difficulty to complete moderately complex projects or major aspects of large/complex projects that may be divisional, departmental, or Countywide in scope.  

Incumbents deploy techniques such as data extraction, transformation, and loading; classical statistical analysis and machine learning, including predictive and prescriptive modeling and optimization; and data visualization, to generate critical information and knowledge and effectively communicate findings to technical and nontechnical stakeholders to support data-driven program design, management, and decision-making.  Incumbents work with data sets characterized by large volume, moderate complexity, and significant heterogeneity, integrating data from various sources, requiring direct collaboration with data engineers and other IT staff to design and provide feedback on data systems and processes necessary to support their work.

Data Scientist is distinguished from the Senior Data Scientist in that the latter applies subject-matter expertise to identify new and emerging business problems, whereas the Data Scientist works under general supervision to develop methods of interrogating data in order to solve previously identified business problems.  The Data Scientist is distinguished from the Predictive Data Analyst in that the latter applies well-established analytic principles, methods, and procedures within existing data systems and architectures to complete well-defined, routine to moderately difficult functions and projects, whereas Data Scientists may develop or assist in developing new analytic methods, functions, and data architectures as necessary to complete complex projects, including those involving unstructured data.

Positions in this class differ from those that plan, design, conduct and evaluate research projects involving complex experimental designs and data analysis, programming, and processing of data, and preparing reports and recommendations based on research findings, in that these classes do not employ machine learning or big data as part of their analyses.

* Handles data requests from California and Los Angeles County Correctional Facilities regarding individual's substance use disorder (SUD) treatment history by verifying Releases of Information (ROI) and conducting data mining and analysis across multiple datasets in Sage (e.g.,…