Behavioral Health Data Scientist; Human Services Data Scientist

Are you a skilled data scientist who excels at creating efficient and beautiful scripts, packages, data pipelines, and dashboards to support program performance measurement? Do you have a commitment to social justice and enjoy working collaboratively with partners to facilitate data-informed decision making? Are you interested in putting your skills to work to make a difference in your community? The Performance Measurement and Evaluation Unit within the Department of Community and Human Services (DCHS) is seeking a savvy Data Scientist to join our team of analytic experts!

The Department of Community and Human Services values diverse perspectives and life experiences. The Department encourages people of all backgrounds to apply, including people of color, immigrants, refugees, women, LGBTQ, people with disabilities, veterans, and those with lived experiences.

King County's Department of Community and Human Services (DCHS) provides equitable opportunities for people to be healthy, happy, self-reliant, and connected to community. DCHS manages a wide range of programs and services to assist the county's most vulnerable residents. The department maintains a pro-equity focus aimed at developing the systems and standards necessary to achieve better outcomes for all county residents, regardless of race or income.

This Data Scientist position is centrally located within the Performance Measurement and Evaluation (PME) unit of the DCHS Director's Office and will support the data and evaluation needs of Behavioral Health and Recovery Division (BHRD). PME is a unit of dedicated and talented data scientists and evaluators. The PME Unit provides evaluation expertise, data management, and analytics across DCHS programs. PME collaborates with staff and community partners to design frameworks, measure outcomes, and drive continuous improvement.

By fostering data-driven decision-making and sharing findings through reports and dashboards, PME strengthens equity and service effectiveness.

BHRD provides high-quality behavioral health services to help ensure people with mental health and substance use disorders receive the services they need. The specific focus of this Data Scientist role will be supporting BHRD’s crisis and commitment services, including programs or services designed to provide intervention, outreach, or prevention all along the crisis continuum, and activities funded by Crisis Care Center Initiative.

You will partner with evaluators, program managers, and other DCHS partners to develop sophisticated tracking measures and dashboards, utilize administrative databases, create shared analytic tools, conduct advanced quantitative analyses, and prepare reports that inform the operation of the behavioral healthcare system in King County.

To be considered minimally qualified applicant must demonstrate a background that provides the knowledge, skills and ability to:

• Perform queries in structured query language (SQL) to extract, clean, and transform data from large, complex administrative databases to make tables for use in the production of performance measures, dashboards, and reports.
• Serve as a subject matter expert in the technical specifications for key performance metrics, as well as understanding the complexities of various programs and how they are reflected in administrative data.
• Develop standardized and streamlined processes using R and Git for producing several performance metrics on Tableau dashboards that can be used across BHRD bodies of work.
• Perform complex data analyses, analyze trends, and construct key performance measures to improve King County’s behavioral health system for the benefit of its clients.
• Lead work with internal and external partners to design, create, and maintain production of key performance indicators, reports, dashboards, and trend analyses to improve performance of King County’s behavioral health and crisis systems.
• Work with stakeholders to identify data needs to support initiatives, improve quality, monitor performance, and assess impacts.