Computational Social Scientist

Washington, DC | Full‑time | Hybrid

In this role, you’ll apply data science and analytic methods directly to projects, turning large, often unstructured datasets into findings that teams and clients can act on. The work sits at the intersection of data science and social science, pairing computational techniques with an understanding of the social, political, and informational dynamics behind the data.

• Contribute to our data efforts: support internal data science work—apply sound methods, maintain high quality, and ensure reproducibility and defensibility.
• Build and apply classification models, clustering, and other ML/AI approaches to surface insight from large, unstructured datasets.
• Help translate qualitative research questions into structured analytical workflows.
• Design prompts, LLM chains, and agentic workflows that automate classification, thematic coding, entity extraction, and summarization at scale.
• Build and evaluate repeatable analytical products with real quality controls and human‑in‑the‑loop checks.
• Experiment with emerging techniques such as RAG, multi‑step reasoning, and tool‑using agents to extend what we can deliver.
• Handle complex cleaning, transformation, and wrangling so the data stays trustworthy; build dashboards and visualizations (Tableau, Superset, or similar) that make insight clear to clients and colleagues alike.
• Turn findings into actionable recommendations and present them directly to both the internal team and customers with clarity and confidence.
• Support the product and work across teams: work hand in hand with the product team to shape Narrative Analytics around what users actually need; collaborate across analytics, product, and client teams so the work fits together and reaches the people who depend on it.

• Eligibility to work on U.S. Government contracts.
• BS degree in a quantitative or analytical field (data science, computer science, statistics, computational social science, political science, economics, communications, or a related discipline), or equivalent hands‑on experience.
• 2+ years of relevant experience with a bachelor’s or BS degree and a proven track record of leveraging analytics to drive significant business impact; or 1+ year of relevant experience with a master’s degree and strong, practical data analytics project experience or relevant internships.
• Hands‑on experience working with text‑as‑data: media, social media, or open‑source text corpora.
• Working proficiency in Python and/or R, plus solid SQL for pulling, transforming, and validating data.
• Familiarity with core NLP and ML methods (text classification, topic modelling, sentiment and stance detection, embeddings, transformers) and with applying LLMs in real workflows (prompt engineering, structured outputs, integration).
• Ability to explain technical work to non‑technical audiences and to thrive in a fast‑paced, collaborative team.
• Ideal candidates: existing security clearance (SECRET or higher).
• Experience designing structured content analysis or analytical frameworks for text data.
• Experience in information environment assessment, strategic communication analysis, or media landscape monitoring.
• Experience shaping analytical tools or platforms around real user needs.
• Experience with computational social science methods (network analysis, narrative framing, document similarity) that go beyond keyword search.
• Experience translating social science research questions into scalable computational approaches.

If you’re passionate about technology and making an impact, apply today!

Protagonist is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Salary Range: $70,000–$102,000 based on education and level of relevant experience.

Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.