Data Science Lead

Specific information regarding this recruitment and position are listed below:

• Application Opened: Thursday, September 4, 2025.
• Application Deadline: Thursday, September 18, 2025, at 5:00 PM. PDT
• Compensation: $165,334 to $207,974 Annually
• Work Schedule: Full-time, 40 hours per week.
• Work Location: San Francisco International Airport – ITT Division
• Recruitment ID: RTF0157425 - 159180

APPOINTMENT TYPE: Permanent Exempt. This position is excluded by the Charter from the competitive civil service examination process and shall serve at the discretion of the Appointing Officer.

San Francisco International Airport (SFO), an enterprise department of the City and County of San Francisco, has a workforce of approximately 1,900 City employees and is committed to being a diverse, equitable, and inclusive employer.

SFO is more than an airport—we are a dynamic organization where employees collaborate with a wide range of stakeholders to support global travel, economic development, and public service. We are recognized as a leader in environmental sustainability, equity, and forward-thinking infrastructure, and continue to be at the forefront of transforming the travel experience.

Our mission is to deliver an airport experience where people and our planet come first.

Our Vision, Mission, and Core Values shape our culture and operations as we continue to build a supportive, purpose-driven workplace where all employees can thrive.

Learn more about careers at SFO at flysfo.com, and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Bluesky and Threads.

​​Working under general administrative of the Information Technology and Telecommunications (ITT) Innovation and Solutions team reporting to Data Engineering/Data Science Manager. The Data Science Lead is responsible for big data analytics from a data science and data engineering perspective providing expertise in data manipulation, visualization, building and optimizing classifiers using machine learning and deep learning-based techniques.  The goal is to optimize the guest experience at SFO to reduce costs for the airport to run its operations and increase revenue.​ 

You are excited about this opportunity because you will:

• Define the roadmap for integrating video analytics, structured and unstructured data, and Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML) capabilities into business strategies. 

• Identify opportunities to leverage video data for insights, automation, and innovation. 

• Align data science initiatives with organizational goals, ensuring measurable business impact. 

• Lead the development of solutions for extracting insights from video, structured and unstructured data. 

• Research, prototype, and deploy advanced AI/ML models for structured (3rd Party applications, APIs, streaming data) and unstructured data(video/audio/other). Oversee model lifecycle management, from design to deployment and monitoring; ensure scalability, performance, and accuracy of AI/ML solutions 

• Work closely with Data Engineers, Architects and CI/CD Engineers to design data pipelines that handle structured and/or unstructured data efficiently. Implement real-time and batch processing capabilities for data streams. Proficiency in DataOps or MLOps methodologies and processes for integration and automation in cloud environments.  

• Lead a team of data scientists, machine learning engineers, to provide mentorship and foster innovation. Collaborate with stakeholders across departments to understand requirements and translate them into technical solutions. Promote knowledge sharing and best practices within the team and across the organization. 

• Stay current on emerging trends and technologies in video analytics, computer vision, and AI/ML. Experiment with state-of-the-art algorithms in machine vision, advanced Generative AI models, and time-series analysis models. Foster partnerships with academic institutions, research labs, or technology vendors to stay at the forefront of innovation. 

• Develop metrics and KPIs to evaluate the performance of video analytics systems. Implement continuous improvement strategies by iterating on models and algorithms. Ensure systems comply with ethical guidelines, data privacy laws, and fairness standards. 

• Present findings, insights, and recommendations to executives and other stakeholders. Quantify the Return on Investment (ROI) of analytics initiatives through case studies and success metrics. Drive adoption of AI/ML solutions across the organization by demonstrating tangible benefits. 

Minimum Qualifications:

Education:

An associate degree in computer science or a closely related field from an accredited college or university OR its equivalent in terms of total course credits/units [i.e., at least sixty (60) semester or ninety (90) quarter credits/units with a minimum of twenty (20) semester or thirty (30) quarter credits/units in computer science or a closely related field].

Experience:

Five (5) years of experience with probability and statistics, including experimental design, predictive modeling, optimization, and causal inference.

Substitution:

Additional experience as described above may be substituted for the required degree on a year-for-year basis (up to a maximum of two (2) years). One (1) year is equivalent to thirty (30) semester units/ forty-five (45) quarter units with a minimum of 10 semester / 15 quarter units in one of the fields above or a closely related field.

Desirable Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in applied mathematics, statistics, computer science, physics, engineering, or other relevant technical field.  

• Experience with machine learning concepts: regression and classification, clustering, feature selection, curse of dimensionality, bias-variance tradeoff, neural networks, SVMs, etc. 

• Knowledge in time-series analysis.  

• Familiarity with scripting language and/or shell scripting. 

• Software development life-cycle experience, with proven track record of shipping products. 

• Experience with big data and distributed system technologies like Hadoop, Mongo, Couch, Spark. 

• Knowledge of both SQL and NoSQL databases. 

• Knowledge AWS Sagemaker, Azure ML, GCP Vertex AI, or Snowflake Cortex. 

• Knowledge of Cloud Data Warehouses like Snowflake, Big query, Redshift, Databricks etc. 

• Experience in Java, Pig, Python, or Scala. 

• Knowledge or experience with security, machine learning, AWS Cloud (S3, EC2, ELB, EMR, CloudFormation) is a plus. 

• A highly collaborative mindset, eager to work cross-functionally with diverse teams and contribute to a shared mission. 

Supplemental Information:

Essential duties require the following physical skills and work requirements: Some positions may require sufficient strength and coordination for lifting, pushing, pulling and/or carrying the weight of computer systems equipment. May require bending, stooping and/or crawling in order to install or repair computer systems hardware. May require hand/eye coordination and manual dexterity for taking apart casings, installing parts and reconnecting computer systems hardware. May involve extensive VDT exposure.

Verification:

Every application is reviewed to ensure that you meet the minimum qualifications as listed in the job ad. Please review our articles on Employment Application and Minimum Qualifications and Verification of Experience and/or Education for considerations taken when reviewing applications. 

Note: Falsifying one’s education, training, or work experience or attempted deception on the application may result in disqualification for this and future job opportunities with the City and County of San Francisco.  All work experience, education, training and other information substantiating how you meet the minimum qualifications must be included on your application by the filing deadline. Information submitted after the filing deadline will not be considered in determining whether you meet the minimum qualifications. 

Resumes will not be accepted in lieu of a completed City and County of San Francisco application. 

Applications completed improperly may be cause for ineligibility, disqualification or may lead to lower scores.

Selection Procedures:

The selection process will include evaluation of applications in relation to minimum requirements.  Applicants meeting the minimum qualifications are not guaranteed advancement to the interview.  Depending on the number of applicants, the Department may establish and implement additional screening mechanisms to comparatively evaluate the qualifications of candidates.  If this becomes necessary, only those applicants whose qualifications most closely meet the needs of the Department will be invited for an interview.

Notes: Applicants who meet the minimum qualifications are not guaranteed advancement through all of the steps in the selection procedure.

Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Security Clearance:

Candidates for employment with the San Francisco Airport Commission are required to undergo a criminal history record check, including FBI fingerprints, and Security Threat Assessment in order to determine eligibility for security clearance and may be required to undergo drug/alcohol screening. Per Civil Service Commission Rule Section 110.9.1, every applicant for an examination must possess and maintain the qualifications required by law and by the examination announcement for the examination. Failure to obtain and maintain security clearance may be basis for termination from employment with the Airport Commission.

What else should I know?

Terms of Announcement and Appeal Rights:

Applicants must be guided solely by the provisions of this announcement, including requirements, time periods and other particulars, except when superseded by federal, state or local laws, rules or regulations. Clerical errors may be corrected by the posting the correction on the Department of Human Resources website at https://careers.sf.gov/.

Additional Information Regarding Employment with the City and County of San Francisco:

• Information About the Hiring Process
• Conviction History
• Employee Benefits Overview  
• Equal Employment Opportunity 
• Disaster Service Worker
• ADA Accommodation
• Right to Work
• Copies of Application Documents
• Diversity Statement

HOW TO APPLY

Applications for City and County of San Francisco jobs are only accepted through an online process. Visit https://careers.smartrecruiters.com/CityAndCountyOfSanFrancisco1/ and begin the application process.

• Select the “I’m Interested” button and follow instructions on the screen

Applicants may be contacted by email about this recruitment and, therefore, it is their responsibility to ensure that their registered email address is accurate and kept up-to-date. Also, applicants must ensure that email from CCSF is not blocked on their computer by a spam filter. To prevent blocking, applicants should set up their email to accept CCSF mail from the following addresses (@sfgov.org, @sfdpw.org, @sfport.com, @flysfo.com, @sfwater.org, @sfdph.org, @asianart.org, @sfmta.com, @sfpl.org, @dcyf.org, @first5sf.org, @famsf.org, @ccsf.edu, @smartalerts.info, and @smartrecruiters.com).

Applicants will receive a confirmation email from [email protected] that their online application has been received in response to every announcement for which they file. Applicants should retain this confirmation email for their records. Failure to receive this email means that the online application was not submitted or received.

Exam Analyst Information:  If you have any questions regarding this recruitment or application process, please contact the exam analyst, Ronnie Jones at [email protected].

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.

The City and County of San Francisco encourages women, minorities and persons with disabilities to apply. Applicants will be considered regardless of their sex, race, age, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition (associated with cancer, a history of cancer, or genetic characteristics), HIV/AIDS status, genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, military and veteran status, or other protected category under the law.