Data Scientist

Position Summary

We are looking for a data science contractor who will support R&D efforts to prototype Priorities USA’s next generation of digital intelligence tools in addition to experimentation on new data methods to be applied to digital campaigns. This role will sit at the intersection of data science and software engineering, requiring a strong intuition for understanding and applying data & statistical methods as well as the ability to maintain rigorous shared software development standards within a team.

This person will be involved with prototyping, evaluating, and implementing methods and features geared at helping digital media practitioners run more efficient and effective campaigns. The role is ideal for someone with a strong foundation in data science, who is excited by innovation, and is eager to apply those skills in service of progressive causes. The contractor will work directly with the Senior Director of R&D.

This is a remote engagement. Contractors must be based in the United States and will provide their own equipment. We expect availability for regular check-ins during Eastern Time business hours.

Scope of Work

• Explore, prototype, and validate new analytical methods and LLM applications across a range of political, media, and advertising data contexts.
• Build proof-of-concept tools, features, and datasets, and iterate on them based on feedback from digital practitioners.
• Engineer validated methods into modular, sturdy, well-documented pipelines and applications that are ready to graduate into production systems.
• Develop software primarily through agentic development workflows, producing well-specified, reviewable, tested, and documented code.
• Think critically about what data is saying and communicate findings, tradeoffs, and recommendations clearly to technical and non-technical audiences.

Qualifications

• Strong programming skills in SQL and Python.
• Demonstrated ability to apply statistical and data science methods in real-world contexts.
• Strong software engineering habits (version control, code review, testing, documentation).
• Hands-on experience applying LLMs in real projects — e.g., prompt and context engineering, classification or extraction pipelines, evaluation of model outputs, or agentic frameworks.
• Experience working with agentic software development tools (e.g., Cursor, Claude Code, Codex).
• Experience working with GCP (and preferably AWS), including building and maintaining data pipelines.
• Experience using git + GitHub
• Familiarity with cybersecurity best practices
• Strong communication skills and the ability to collaborate across teams with different working styles and levels of technical experience.
• Demonstrated curiosity and self-directed exploration through side projects, prototypes, experiments, or other evidence that you build and try things on your own initiative.
• Experience communicating with diverse groups, working in a multicultural workforce, and bringing a sensitivity and appreciation of cultural differences

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience working with digital advertising, media performance, social listening, or media consumption data.
• Experience working with political, advocacy, or campaign data such as voter files.
• Experience with containerization and orchestration.
• Experience developing front-end applications or dashboards.
• Experience building evaluation frameworks or benchmarks for LLM or ML systems.

Compensation

Compensation for this engagement is $125–175 per hour, commensurate with experience.

Equal Opportunity Employer

People of color, women, people with disabilities, and veterans are strongly encouraged to apply. If you need an accommodation for a disability to apply to this position, please let us know by emailing peopleops@priorities.org.

Application Information

Applications will be accepted until the role is filled. Applications should include a resume and a link to a GitHub profile or relevant work samples; a cover letter is optional. The process for selected candidates will consist of a compensated take-home exercise and two rounds of interviews with members of the team. We are aiming for a start date in mid-October.

This engagement runs through December 31, 2026.