Digital Forensic Specialist; Forensic Scientist | Medicaid Fraud & Abuse | Olympia

Digital Forensic Specialist (Forensic Scientist
3)

The Attorney General's Office is recruiting for a permanent full time Digital Forensic Specialist (Forensic Scientist
3) in the Medicaid Fraud & Abuse Division. This position is located in Olympia, Washington, and is represented by the Washington Federation of State Employees (WFSE).

Forensic Scientist 3 Salary Range (66): $80,820 - $108,780 (Effective 7/1/25) | $82,440 - $110,952 (Effective 7/1/26) The base pay offered will take into account internal equity and may vary depending on the preferred candidate's job-related knowledge, skills, and experience.

The AGO provides a workplace that is understanding of work-life balance and promotes advancement by offering a wide variety of professional development and growth opportunities.

Washington State offers one of the most competitive benefits packages in the nation, including Medical/Dental/Vision for employees & dependent(s);
Vacation, Sick, and Other Leave; 11 Paid Holidays per year;
Public Employees Retirement System (PERS) plans; and Life Insurance. Beyond these traditional benefits, we offer Dependent Care Assistance, Flexible Spending Accounts, Public Service Loan Forgiveness, Tuition Waiver, Deferred Compensation, Employee Recognition Leave, and more. With the goal of employee health and wellness, we also offer:

• Flexible schedules and part-time/hybrid telework options;
• A Wellness Program, an Infants in the Workplace Program, and the Employee Assistance Program, which provides counseling, webinar, and other cost-free support resources;
• Numerous employee-driven affinity groups to foster community and connection, including Bereavement, Elder Care, Parenting, POC, LGBTQ+, Veterans and more. The AGO is a place to belong and make a difference!

The work of the Office's Medicaid Fraud & Abuse Division (MFAD) focuses on both criminal and civil law enforcement. The 75% federally funded MFAD's mission is combating provider fraud, abuse and neglect in residential facilities and involving Medicaid recipients in non-institutional settings.

MFAD's Headquarters is located in Olympia, Washington with some team members also located at the AGO's Spokane Office and Seattle Office. The Division currently has a staff of 84 FTEs, including attorneys, special agents, data scientists, clinical health investigators and professional support staff.

MFAD involves protecting not only the Medicaid program of roughly 22.9 billion dollars annually, but also its most vulnerable persons, typically elderly persons in residential facilities or persons abused or neglected by a Medicaid Provider. In many of our cases, there is no precedent, so MFAD is consistently on the cutting edge of legal theories and issues. The cases range from abuse and neglect of persons in nursing homes, large scale organized individual and corporate civil and criminal fraudulent activity to national whistle blower actions.

Our staff is a highly professional, fun and seasoned analytical investigative team. MFAD is unique in that all cases have an attorney, special agent, and data scientist assigned with legal support. In cases involving digital evidence, a Digital Forensics Specialist is assigned as needed to provide specialized technical expertise. This, and the great people who make up the division, gives MFAD a particularly terrific team atmosphere.

Duties and Essential Functions of a Digital Forensic Specialist (Forensic Scientist
3)

This expert level position within MFAD's Digital Forensics Section serves as a forensic specialist in the Olympia DF Laboratory and MFAD mobile labs, applying research, method modification, or unique approaches to complex digital forensic casework, forensic acquisition, and advanced data analysis while ensuring legal defensibility, evidentiary integrity, and compliance with applicable forensic, data governance, and laboratory standards.

The Digital Forensics Specialist maintains quality processes and ensures operational compliance with all certifications, accreditation, legal standards, and requirements. Responsible for the design, development, and maintenance of digital forensic acquisition, analysis, and digital forensic laboratory systems.

Duties include:

• Responding to requests for assistance for digital forensics at search warrant sites across WA state and in the laboratory.
• Identify, preserve, acquire, validate, analyze, extract, and document electronically stored information (ESI) obtained through legal process, using multiple forensic acquisition methods to collect and preserve structured and unstructured data from diverse digital sources, including computers, mobile devices, IoT devices, and removable media.
• Perform highly complex analyses of digital evidence from computers, mobile devices, cloud services, IoT devices, network traffic, and other storage media. Interpret complex datasets, identify patterns and anomalies, and reconstruct events from multiple evidence sources.
• Document and protect evidence according to laboratory procedures,…