Data Scientist Specialist

Clarification from the agency

Current United States Postal Service Office of Inspector General, United States Postal Service and United States Postal Inspection Service and Postal Regulatory Commission Employees only.

The RISC Directorate conducts innovative research and analysis on Postal Service operations in support of auditors and agents. Our team develops analytical products that facilitate lead generation and provide critical insights for audit and investigative activities. Our methods frequently involve statistics or complex, multi-step analyses of large and disparate data systems. This position is with RISC's Strategic Foresight & Oversight (SFO) team, which provides proactive oversight and insight into postal operations, finances, and emerging market risks. Through qualitative and quantitative analysis of USPS and postal/parcel market data, the SFO develops postal and industry intelligence and provides senior OIG leadership with awareness and clear options regarding emerging issues of strategic importance. Bring your skills and voice to our team!

The successful candidate will work extensively in a collaborative, team environment that involves audit and investigative clients, subject matter experts, project team leaders, and executive stakeholders. RISC's work has a strong customer focus, requiring effective written and verbal communication skills to understand the needs of the client and to give structure to complex problems with undefined or ambiguous solutions. Our team requires candidates with strong analytical skills to develop fitting methodologies that maximize the impact for the client and allow successful project execution. The candidate will exhibit effective communication skills which include the documentation of analytical methodologies and briefings and presentations of technical content to executive leadership, stakeholders, peers, and other audiences.

The USPS OIG uses a Pay Banding system, which is equivalent to the Federal GS scale. Grade and salary determinations will be made based upon a candidate's education and professional experience.

This position is being advertised at the Specialist Band level, equivalent to a GS-14. The salary range for this position is $143,913.00 - $187,093.00. The salary figures include locality pay.

Please note that the duties and responsibilities associated with this position may vary based upon the agency's needs at the time of hire. The following description of major duties and responsibilities is only intended to give applicants a general overview of the expectations.

• Works independently and within teams to use the necessary data extraction, manipulation, and aggregation techniques to prepare, clean, normalize, and validate data related to varied projects and tasks.
• Independently research, extracts, evaluates, interprets, and visualizes data and information as actionable intelligence for auditors and investigators to detect, prevent, and respond to fraud, waste, and abuse.
• Advises on the potential benefits/uses of automation to improve the efficiency of program operations.
• Designs experiments, tests hypotheses, and builds scalable models using data science and artificial intelligence (e.g. machine learning) methods.
• Designs, develops, and adapts mathematical, statistical, econometric, and other analytical solutions for audit, investigation, research, and support functions.
• Leads artificial intelligence activities such as natural language processing, predictive analytics, and machine learning model development, training, evaluation, testing, refinement, deployment, and maintenance.
• Translates complex technical findings into an easily understood narrative.
• Prepares comprehensive documentation for requirements, test plans, user manuals, technical diagrams, and training materials.
• Develops project communications and maintains effective working relationships between project teams, stakeholders, and management.
• Provides advice on issues affecting projects, such as data access, quality, and storage.
• Contributes to and presents training and conference materials to large audiences.
• Independently performs comprehensive and efficient data collection and analysis of a variety of data sources to develop trends, descriptive statistics, or other insights.
• Uses expert level knowledge to identify and develop sources of information from structured and unstructured data, criminal intelligence databases, public information sources, internal Postal Service databases, reference manuals, and audit and law enforcement reports.
• Uses relational databases, data lakes, data lake houses, and other data environments to create a variety of analytic products such as business intelligence tools, summary tables, comparison graphs, or temporal, association, and link analysis charts.
• Interacts with other agencies and builds relationships with peers to share information and learn the latest developments in analytical tools and techniques.
• Develops substantial knowledge of database applications and environments and shares expertise with coworkers in support of agency goals and objectives.

Conditions of employment

• Must be a U.S. citizen
• Must be able to pass a drug screening
• Must be able to pass a background investigation
• Must be able to obtain and maintain Moderate Background Investigation security clearance
• Must be able to obtain and maintain a government-issued credit card
• May be required to successfully complete a 12-month probationary period

Qualifications

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

You must meet ALL of the minimum qualifications listed below.

• Bachelor's degree from an accredited college or university

AND

• Must have 2 years of specialized experience with query language (e.g., SQL), programming languages (e.g., Python), business intelligence tools (e.g., Power BI), and analytics platforms (e.g., Databricks)

AND

• Must have at least one year of specialized experience equivalent to the GS-13 that includes organizing and analyzing large amounts of structured and unstructured data sets using data analytics tools; developing and implementing data collection and analysis tools while utilizing programming languages and environments (e.g. Python, Databricks, etc.); and using Python and analytics software to develop complex analytics, predictive modeling, and artificial intelligence solutions

DESIRABLE QUALIFICATIONS

• Knowledge and experience in the law enforcement and/or audit industry
• Knowledge and experience using cloud computing platforms such as Azure
• Knowledge and experience with relational databases and structured query language (SQL)

EVALUATION FACTORS
You must have the experience, knowledge and skills as listed in EACH of the evaluation factors. Failure to demonstrate that you meet all of the evaluation factor requirements as listed below will result in a score of zero (0); an ineligible status, and you will not be referred for further consideration. Include your major accomplishments relevant to the position requirements in your resume.

• Mastery and application of advanced data mining and artificial intelligence principles, concepts, methods, standards, and practices to develop related products and solutions and to interpret and implement related policies, procedures, and governance strategies
• Advanced experience using Python and analytics software to develop complex analytics and artificial intelligence solutions
• Experience planning, conducting, and leading complex analytical projects
• Experience defining problems, assessing alternatives, and recommending solutions for complex data and analysis issues
• Extensive experience ingesting, transforming, analyzing, and visualizing large, disparate data sets
• Ability to communicate effectively, both orally and in writing, complex business and technical information

You will no longer be considered for this position if you: fail to respond to all of the questions in the self-assessment questionnaire; or receive a zero (0) rating on any evaluation factor.

Failure to demonstrate that you meet all evaluation factor requirements will result in a score of zero (0). Upon receipt of a zero score, you will be deemed "not minimally qualified," and you will not be referred for further consideration.

Candidates will be evaluated on the skills that they possess that are directly related to the duties of the position and the experience, education and training that indicate the applicant's ability to acquire the particular knowledge and skills needed to perform the duties of the position. Only those candidates who meet all qualification and eligibility requirements and who submit the required information by 11:59 PM EST on 11/12/2026 will be considered.

How you will be evaluated

You will be evaluated for this job based on how well you meet the qualifications above.

The Human Resources Office will review your resume and supporting documentation to ensure that you meet the minimum qualifications required for this position.

You will no longer be considered for this position if you:

• Receive a zero (0) rating on any evaluation factor
• Fail to attach all required documentation
• Submit a resume that exceeds the two-page limit
• If your application materials indicate that you are not minimally-qualified for this position
• If you fail to qualify on the interview

Only the top-rated candidates will be referred to a review official or the selecting official for further consideration. Top-rated applicants may be required to participate in an interview. Your rating may be further adjusted or rated as ineligible by the review official or the selecting official based on your interview performance. Once all applicant scores are finalized, the selecting official will make a final decision. NOTE: If you receive a zero (0) rating on any evaluation factor or on the interview, you will be considered NOT MINIMALLY QUALIFIED for the position and rated ineligible.

Applicants for this position may be interviewed one or more times as part of the hiring process. During interviews, applicants may not use any AI tool or virtual assistant (such as ChatGPT) to help them answer questions, except for accessibility tools used as part of a reasonable accommodation. Applicants who fail to follow these rules will be disqualified from the hiring process.

You must submit all required documents by 11:59 PM EST on the closing date of this announcement, Vacancy Announcement 13102706, by closing date 11/12/2026.

1. RESUME - IMPORTANT UPDATE: Your resume must not exceed two (2) pages. You will no longer be considered for this announcement if your resume exceeds the two-page limit. It is essential that your resume and supporting documentation provide sufficient information to substantiate your qualifications for the announced position (categorize as "Resume"). Additional guidance on writing a federal resume can be found at: USAJOBS Help Center - How do I write a resume for a federal job?

Make sure your page margins are 0.5 inches. The recommended font styles are Sans-Serif, Calibri, Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, Open Sans, Source Sans Pro, Roboto or Noto Sans. Consider using 14-point size font for titles and 10-point for the main text in your resume. Your resume must be 5MB or less. We recommend saving and uploading your resume as a PDF to maintain formatting and number of pages. The resume builder can help you create a resume using these recommendations and uses the information in your USAJOBS profile to help you get started.

2. COMPLETE OCCUPATIONAL QUESTIONNAIRE. Click the "Apply Online" button and follow the prompts to complete the Occupational Questionnaire. (Required: You must click on "Submit My Answers" button at the end of the Questionnaire to complete this process)

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