Data Science Manager

Over 13,000 unaccompanied young people are surviving homelessness on their own in Washington state. Black, Indigenous, and other youth of color as well as LGBTQ+ young people appear among that number in heavily disproportionate rates over their white, straight, cisgender peers. Lack of housing stability, supportive connections, and necessary services significantly impacts a young person’s transition to adulthood, leaving their economic, social, civil, and political rights unrealized. But what can be done? Is this an unchangeable inevitability? Or is it possible to not just prevent but ultimately end youth and young adult homelessness in our state?

A Way Home Washington answers that final question with an unequivocal “yes.”

Who We Are

A Way Home Washington (“AWHWA”) (awayhomewa.org)is a statewide movement to prevent and end youth and young adult homelessness, prioritizing the existing disproportionality of homelessness rates among young people of color and LGBTQ+ youth. Partnering with young people, communities, agencies, and leaders across Washington state, we work to realign local and state youth-serving systems to meet the needs of young people in ways that matter most to them and result in safe and stable housing. By engaging stakeholders on a local level and creating a statewide network, we connect communities and provide opportunities to discuss common barriers and solutions for ending youth and young adult homelessness.

Throughout our history, we have focused on integrating evidence-based practices with quality, real-time data. We apply Continuous Quality Improvement to test, learn from, and develop innovative solutions to systemic barriers. Ending youth homelessness won’t be achieved by maintaining the status quo; outside-the-box thinking is required to create cutting-edge initiatives and measurable results. We are guided by the principle “Nothing about us without us,” knowing our duty to ensure that youth and young adults hold key roles in shaping and influencing the systems change that lead to ending youth homelessness and housing insecurity.

A Way Home Washington is a fiscally sponsored organization of Third Sector New England, Inc. (TSNE) (tsne.org).

AWHWA is currently seeking a Data Science Manager to lead high impact, innovative and scalable data analytics projects that will inform the AWHWA and Anchor Community Initiative Strategy. This position will provide Anchor Communities in WA with the data transformation tools and applications to produce a YYA By-Name List to use in their work of reducing and ending youth and young adult homelessness. The Data Science Manager will use data transformation, statistical applications, programming, analysis and machine learning modeling to identify racial and other disparities in communities’ homeless response systems, uncover housing gaps, and research and evaluate promising new approaches to service delivery.

This position will work closely with the coaching staff and Data Team to help communities harness insights, track progress, and most importantly, to use their community data to take action on racial and LGBTQ2S+ disproportionality to reach a functional end to youth and young adult homelessness.

Our team is united in our passion for using data and technology to drive an end to youth and young adult (YYA) homelessness. We believe deeply that data systems and analysis must be able to reflect the dynamic nature of YYA homelessness and be rooted in achieving equitable outcomes for young people of color and LGBTQ+ young people. In the ever-shifting field of youth homelessness, our ideal candidate will be comfortable in uncertainty and possess the agility to continually seek out new solutions that align with those values. Our ideal candidate will possess an expert knowledge of data science/analytics and a proven ability to design and execute analytics projects using real world data.

Essential Functions

• Work with Data & Evaluation Director and ACI Team to identify high impact data analytics projects that will “clear the path” for Anchor Communities, with a particular focus on:
• reducing and ending racial/LGBTQ+ disproportionality in YYA homelessness;
• understanding scalable and innovative approaches to ending YYA homelessness in Washington eg. predictive modeling such as housing gap analysis, cash transfers, universal basic income;
• deeply understanding and preventing inflow into homelessness;
• Design, implement, and maintain community data transformation tools;
• Prepare accessible data dashboards in partnership with the Data Infrastructure Manager inclusive of summaries, presentations, reports, and other work products for AWHWA staff, funders, communities, young people, policymakers, and other stakeholders, as needed;
• Collaborate with young people with lived experience, partners, consultants and other entities working to end youth homelessness; to facilitate alignment and knowledge sharing.
• Design and implement efficient and reproducible data processing/scraping pipelines;
• Advise and provide subject-matter expertise to state and local agencies on improving homeless system data quality and infrastructure;
• Partner with the Data Coaching Managers to provide specialist technical assistance to communities and implement scalable solutions to barriers to quality, real-time By-Name Lists through the maintenance and troubleshooting of community-specific Python transformation packages;
• Use data insights to advise communities to rapidly develop, test, implement and spread system changes that will reduce the number of YYA experiencing homelessness;
• Create other custom, scalable data tools for communities, as needed.
• Ensure that data processes are sustainable by creating cheat sheets, standardization and maintenance documentation.

We will consider exceptional candidates who demonstrate a strong combination of the specific qualifications and skills described below.

• Belief that preventing and ending youth and young adult homelessness in Washington state is possible;
• Strong experience with data science/analytics, advanced statistics, and machine learning;
• Expert level experience with Tableau software or other data visualization software;
• Expertise in data manipulation and analysis using tools like SQL and Pandas;
• Strong working knowledge of at least one scripting/coding language or data prep tool (R, Python, JavaScript, Google Apps Script, etc) and experience developing reproducible and maintainable code
• Knowledge and practical experience with predictive analytics, advanced statistical and machine learning analysis techniques;
• Experience working with survey/data collection tools such as Google Forms, Survey Monkey, JotForm etc.;
• Experience creating data pipelines and expertise with all the phases of the ETL process;
• Excellent grasp of statistical concepts and methods;
• Emotional intelligence and trauma-informed sensibilities pertaining to professional interactions in a work environment shared by those with lived experience;
• Experience using Homelessness Management Information System (Clarity, ServicePoint, Client Track etc) preferred, but not required;
• Experience applying collective impact, improvement science, user-centered design, or other large-scale problem-solving approaches preferred, but not required;
• Willingness to learn and stay abreast on issues pertaining to youth & young adult homelessness. Existing knowledge of related issues preferred, but not required.

Equipment/Software/Other used:

• Data storage and management
  • Google Sheets
  • Linux scripting
  • Amazon Web Services EC2 Instancing
• Project management
  • Google Suite
  • Asana
  • Outlook
• Data prep and visualization
  • Google Apps Script and Python
  • Jupyter Notebooks
  • Tableau Desktop / Prep/ Server utilities
  • Excel/Google Sheets
  • JotForm/Google Forms/MS Forms etc.
• Web development
  • HTML / CSS
  • JavaScript
  • js / npm
  • GitHub / Git Bash
  • Squarespace

In the spirit of “nothing about us without us,” we strongly encourage BIPOC, persons with disabilities, persons with lived homelessness experience, and LGBTQ+ individuals to apply. We are a non-discriminatory workplace and equal employment opportunity employer committed to building an organization reflective of the community it serves. We believe that everyone has their own superpower that brings niche expertise into their work. We value the unique lived experiences of every individual, and we hope you’ll share your superpower with us.

Physical Demands/Work Environment

The physical demands described here are representative of those for this position. Reasonable accommodations will be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the functions. Work is performed in an office environment and in close proximity to other workers.

While performing the duties of this position, the employee is required to:

• Handle, or feel objects, tools or controls;
• Reach; traverse; sit (usually for longer periods of time); occasionally ascend/descend; and position self (to) move;
• Occasionally lift and/or move up to 25 pounds;
• The noise level in the work environment is usually moderate;
• Job is not subject to significant occupational or environmental hazards;
• Likelihood of personal injury would be relatively slight;
• Environmental and work hazards are not present to a measurable degree.

Compensation and Benefits

Location: Work will be primarily performed in WA State - hybrid/remote.

Compensation:The starting salary range for this position is $87,550 - $113,300 annually, dependent on experience and internal equity within AWHWA. The full salary range possible within the role in the future is $87,550 - $139,050, dependent on experience and performance.

Benefits: This position is eligible for a full benefits package including:

• Generous Paid-Time-Off (PTO): twelve paid holidays, three weeks of vacation, one week of personal holiday, and ability to accrue up to 487.5 hours of health leave time for benefited staff.
• 80% Employer-paid, offering some $0 deductible Health Insurance through Harvard Pilgrim along with several low-deductible plans;
• Low-cost Guardian Dental and Vision.
• Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) for Health and Dependent Care.
• Employer-paid Life, Long- and Short-Term Disability Insurance.
• Employer-paid Pension and Employee-paid 403b plan through TIAA.
• ...and more!

TSNE/AWHWA strives to achieve excellence through a diverse, equitable, and inclusive work environment that embraces all of our individual and collective differences. Black, Indigenous, People of Color, Middle Eastern and North African, Bilingual and/or Bicultural candidates, and LGBTQ2SIA+ candidates are strongly encouraged to apply. We value and honor the unique talents, learning styles, and lived experiences of each individual that enrich and strengthen our workplace culture, and we are proud to be an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer.

All employment conditions are based on an individual’s performance and job qualifications. TSNE/AWHWA prohibits discrimination and harassment of any kind based on race, creed, color, religion, native language, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, national origin, physical or mental disability, age, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, parental status, pregnancy, race-based hairstyles, or any other protected characteristic stated by federal and state law. Regardless of any class’ protection under the law or lack thereof, TSNE/AWHWA celebrates diversity and values the strengths that come with having a diverse team of employees. It is represented in our workplace culture, and it is who we are.

TSNE/AWHWA's EEO statement extends to volunteers, interns, contractors, vendors, and clients.