Data Scientist

As we serve vulnerable youth, all employees working for Covenant House Vancouver must be fully vaccinated for COVID-19. Proof of vaccination status will be required prior to your start date.

Since 1997, Covenant House Vancouver has provided relentless support for youth experiencing, or at‑risk of experiencing, homelessness. We provide support to young people age 16 to 24 who have experienced a wide range of early life and ongoing, complex trauma; including physical, sexual and emotional abuse and neglect. Our purpose is to serve all youth, with absolute respect and unconditional love, to help youth experiencing homelessness, and provide a safe and supportive environment for all youth in need.

Working at Covenant House will be one of the most meaningful things that you’ll do in your life. However, you will be confronted with significant issues in this work and frankly, this work is not for everyone. In the course of doing your work, particularly for those doing frontline work, you will be exposed to the trauma of others. The youth we serve may also experience overdose, physical harm perpetuated by self or others and even death.

Because we provide a relational model of care, the harms our youth experience can impact us in varying degrees.

While we provide training for youth workers on avoiding what we call vicarious trauma (namely, the trauma you can experience or take on by hearing other’s traumatic stories), and a generous allowance for counselling, it is still difficult work that can and does take its toll on many employees. Self‑awareness and self‑care are key. Some candidates and employees decide during the recruiting and probationary periods that this work isn’t for them, and that is totally fair.

We will provide more information on vicarious trauma during recruiting and on‑boarding, to help you decide if Covenant House is the place for you.

As a Data Scientist you will help realize Covenant House’s vision of using data to make meaningful impacts on program service delivery and strategy. You will use curiosity and initiative to deliver data projects and translate those findings to key partners, support the data infrastructure, and support new initiatives. You will apply Covenant House Vancouver’s philosophy, policy, and principles to your work and in how you engage with colleagues across the organization.

How you will contribute:

• Utilize data science skills in a generalist approach, incorporating elements of data analytics, data engineering, and machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI).
• Independently complete complex data analytics and data science projects that inform development of youth services and program strategy. This will include collaboration with the Research, Evaluation and Learning team members and program staff to apply knowledge of the full data pipeline and service delivery to youth experiencing homelessness when delivery projects.
• Maintain and develop data dashboards and communicate findings to program management regularly.
• Identify opportunities to improve data practices, including via process improvement or the implementation of new technologies.
• Develop Python modules and scripts to support the data pipeline and analytics environment.
• Collaborate with the Data Analyst to maintain and develop the data pipeline, including the completion of code review.
• Complete analysis based on ad hoc queries, anticipating needs beyond the initial request, and supporting use of findings in decision‑making.
• Contribute to research and evaluation projects with Covenant House programs and youth.
• Participate in the development, maintenance, and monitoring of AI projects.
• Support the development of other team members’ skills in data projects.
• Act as the lead on data projects as requested.

This position has the opportunity to work a 9‑day fortnight schedule most months of the year, where you’ll work longer days for 9 days and earn every other Friday off.

Who are we looking for?

Education and Experience:

• Bachelor degree in Data Science, Statistics, Economics, Computer Science, Applied Math or Math, or a related discipline
• Proficiency with common data science…