Data Science Lead (contingent)

Intro

MO helps government leaders achieve their mission by designing intuitive and sustainable customer experiences that build trust and improve satisfaction. We use human-centered design to modernize and transform customer and employee experiences. We’re a small team of interdisciplinary creatives with mission, impact, and service to others deeply rooted in our DNA. We’re naive enough to believe we can change the world and bold enough to take the chance to do it.

We combine design thinking with agile delivery methods to drive visionary, human-centered products to market. Our custom solutions range in size from completely revamping an entire application to refreshing small pieces of a larger product. Everyone at MO directly impacts the direction and success of the company, and we own our roles. We value integrity, curiosity, courage, and excellence, fostering a culture of accountability and collaboration while continuously challenging each other to grow and improve. At MO, we delight in creating products and experiences that improve lives.

Overview

Are you looking to make an impact? We’re seeking a Data Science Lead with a systems and Data Science mindset to support our client in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Through your data science expertise, you’ll help reduce barriers to care and benefits—improving the lives of Veterans, Caregivers, Survivors, and Family Members.

We’re looking for someone with strong data science leadership skills and a talent for turning insights into action. This role is ideal for individuals who excel at developing measurement frameworks and shaping data-driven narratives that inform executive decision-making. If you’re experienced in making sense of complex service environments, refining measurement models, and creating tools that support leaders, we encourage you to apply.

In this role, you’ll collaborate with service designers, product managers, and fellow data professionals to develop data strategy and ensure VA’s transformation efforts are measurable and evidence-based. You’ll guide the development of tailored artifacts—dashboards, analyses, and interactive tools—that surface key insights and support strategic planning.

How will you spend your time? 75% of your time will be dedicated to billable work, with the remaining 25% focused on growing our data practice at MO, contributing to our culture, and supporting business development.

What makes a successful candidate? You have a track record as a data science capability leader on high-performing teams. You thrive in ambiguity, build systems from the ground up, and navigate evolving problem spaces. Experience in client services (e.g., consulting or digital agencies) is helpful but not required. A passion for our mission and civic design is essential.

What You'll Do

As a Data Science Lead at MO, you’ll lead data strategy and insight generation to inform and improve Veteran-facing services. Your work will directly support decision-makers across the VA. Responsibilities include: 

Measurement Strategy Development: Own and evolve the data strategy by defining metrics that align data collection with product goals and Veteran outcomes. 

Cross-Functional Leadership: Collaborate with Product and Service Design Leads to translate journey-level goals into measurable performance indicators that reduce friction, create impact, and track improvement over time. Manage a team of Senior Data Scientists, providing strategic direction, technical guidance, and prioritization across workstreams.

Stakeholder and Client Management: Engage executive stakeholders and cross-functional product teams to align on measurement priorities, identify data gaps, and build consensus around what matters most. 

Insightful Communication and Visualization: Provide strategic guidance over the creation of clear, actionable data artifacts—such as dashboards, data analyses, reports, diagrams, and interactive tools—using advanced analysis techniques to support strategic planning and decision-making across VA leadership and product teams.

Professional Curiosity: Keep abreast of the latest developments in data science; bring good practices into a constrained technical and policy environment – with a strong commitment to accessibility.

• Design-Integrated Thinking: You understand how data supports product and service design, and you’re excited to co-create measurement frameworks. You can make sense of messy data and help teams define meaningful, measurable outcomes.
• Data Strategy: Demonstrated experience spearheading data strategy approaches and mixed method data analysis in complex product spaces. Experienced in data analysis tools like Python/R/SQL, web development technologies like HTML/CSS, and visualization tools like PowerBI, Tableau or D3/Observable. You guide the development of reliable models, scalable pipelines, and meaningful metrics, and easy to understand data visualizations that drive decision-making. You balance technical rigor with practical impact, ensuring insights are accurate, actionable, and aligned with stakeholder goals.
• People-centric Advocacy: Demonstrated commitment to social impact design. Experience as a people (customer/user) advocate and a nuanced understanding of the challenges posed in the public sector. Experience surfacing variation in user experiences and outcomes, enabling and unblocking engagement teams—and supporting efforts to improve service access, responsiveness, and reach. Experience leading a team of data scientists and working with mixed-methods analysis.
• Consultative Mindset: Skilled in understanding client expectations, working as an agile team, managing and prioritizing multiple high-profile, medium-to-high complexity projects, and ensuring accountability in delivering against customer needs. You know how to tell a story with data. You can shape findings into narratives that resonate with product teams, executives, and partners—helping drive alignment, uncover insights, and inspire action.
• Cross-Disciplinary System Implementation: Experience working with cross-functional teams of product managers, developers and service designers to ensure the successful adoption of deliverables, maintaining consistency and accessibility across civic tech products.

• A fun, dynamic working environment with an energetic and diverse team
• A REMOTE first work environment
• An inclusive culture where everyone is welcome
• Competitive compensation commensurate with experience
• Opportunities for career growth
• Full health benefits (85% medical premiums for employees and dependents, dental, vision)
• 401K plan
• Unlimited Paid Time Off (PTO)
• Short- and Long-Term Disability in addition to Life Insurance (company sponsored)

We're MO

The Company reserves the right to conduct background and/or reference checks on all prospective employees. Your job offer is contingent upon satisfactory completion of such background and/or reference check as applicable. Additionally, this position may require a government background investigation to be completed and adjudicated dependent on your role and project . This offer will be withdrawn if any of the above conditions are not satisfied.

In support of the  Colorado Equal Pay Transparency Act, and others like it across the country, MO job descriptions feature the starting range we reasonably expect to pay to candidates who would join our team with little to no need for training on the responsibilities we've outlined above. Actual compensation is influenced by a wide range of factors including but not limited to skill set, level of experience, and responsibility.