Data Scientist, Python and AWS

About Peregrine

Peregrine Advisors is a rapidly growing AI and data innovation hub helping government solve hard problems and deliver better outcomes. We work across the full lifecycle—from strategy and governance through architecture, engineering, analytics, AI, visualization, and training—for clients including the SEC, PCAOB, DDOT, and DCAA.

Our clients describe our support as “absolutely excellent” and our people as “instrumental to organization’s success.” Winner of the United Nations COP27 Datathon, our work has earned all Exceptional CPARS ratings, SEC Chair’s Awards, the SEC Vision Award, and recognition from FDA leadership.

We are also built differently. Peregrine is the first and only social enterprise organized as a Benefit Corporation and SBA 8(a) company focused on AI and data for government. We believe business success should create client value, social value, and opportunity for our people.

As we enter our next stage of growth, we need dependable, motivated, and skilled people who have a combination of intellectual curiosity and intellectual courage. With new clients, larger programs, and expanding responsibilities, the people joining Peregrine now will have the opportunity to help shape the company we become.

People first. Ownership always.

We solve problems through people, process, and technology—in that order. Technology matters, but people make transformation happen. That principle defines our culture. Trust and motivation come before competence. We hire people we can trust, who care deeply about what they do, take ownership, learn quickly, help one another, and refuse to walk past a problem because it belongs to someone else.

At Peregrine, you are not joining simply to fill a position. You are joining a team, taking ownership of a mission, and helping build a company. If that excites you, we should talk.

At Peregrine Advisors, you will carry analytical questions for a federal agency from the data to a defensible, documented answer. But we hire people, not seats. As the work evolves, you will move to where the hardest problems are.

This is a remote position, although a hybrid arrangement based in the Washington, DC metropolitan area with openness to a variable commuting cadence is preferred. Wherever you work from, occasional travel to DC is part of the job. The initial engagement requires United States citizenship and the ability to obtain a Public Trust determination.

Your first project

Your first project will likely have you transforming client data, structured, semi-structured, and unstructured, into analytic processes and outcomes that help drive mission-critical initiatives. Depending on the assignment, you may:

• Frame analytical questions with the people who own the mission, and turn them into designs that can actually be tested.
• Build analyses and models in Python and Structured Query Language (SQL) on cloud-native data platforms hosted in Amazon Web Services (AWS).
• Build models that earn their place: forecasting, classification, risk scoring, and anomaly detection matched to the question, the data, and the scrutiny a federal decision has to survive.
• Design the evaluation that shows a model is fit for a client environment, with baselines, validation designs, error analysis, documented limits, and documentation that lets someone else verify your results.
• Build analytical features and datasets from large, messy, document-heavy corpora, including text extracted with Amazon Textract and analyzed with foundation models through Amazon Bedrock.
• Harden one-off notebooks into repeatable, reviewed analytical pipelines.
• Put findings in front of decision-makers in plain language, with visuals that carry the argument instead of decorating it.
• Use artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted analysis as standard practice, with language models and coding assistants across the lifecycle and your judgment on top.

Adaptability and a demonstrated capacity to learn new concepts, systems, and tools are what keep you ahead of program needs as projects complete and priorities shift.

Who you are

You are rigorous about method and honest about uncertainty: when the evidence supports a narrower claim, you make the narrower claim. You care what the data is for, not just what it contains, and you would rather spend a day understanding the process that produced a number than a week modeling it wrong. You experiment, fail, learn, and repeat quickly. You would rather own an outcome than be handed a task.

What you bring

• A working command of statistics and machine learning applied to real operational data, not just curated coursework sets.
• The engineering habits that make analysis trustworthy: version control, reproducible pipelines, tested transformations, and documentation someone else can follow.
• The communication craft to make a technical result understandable to the people who depend on it.
• The precision to work where accuracy and auditability are not optional.

When we talk

Be prepared to discuss a difficult problem you worked through, the decisions you made, what happened, and what you learned.

What we offer

You will work alongside developers, engineers, data scientists, architects, and strategists, on work ranging from strategy to implementation. We support your development across assignments and clients through extensive onboarding, sponsored professional certifications such as the Data Management Capability Assessment Model (DCAM) and AWS technical certifications, and rotation across functions to expand your skills and perspective. The mission is real, the problems are hard, and you own what you ship.

What we commit to

As a Benefit Corporation, our commitment runs three ways: real, measurable value for our clients; government that works better for the public; and a team that makes everyone in it better.

We hire people who want to help build the firm, not just work at it. If that is you, apply.

Peregrine Advisors is an equal opportunity employer.

Peregrine exclusively works with OPEN Data Jobs to recruit our team. Register with OPEN Data Jobs to be considered for this and future openings.

Requirements

• 4+ years of applied data science or statistical modeling experience
• Bachelor's degree
• Strong working command of Python and SQL
• Working knowledge of statistics, machine learning, and model validation
• Familiarity with cloud-based data and analytics services on AWS
• Ability to carry an analysis from question to defensible, documented answer
• Proficiency in writing, PowerPoint, and Excel

Preferred

• Master's degree in a relevant field
• Experience with modern data tools and platforms (Amazon Aurora, Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) with Apache Iceberg, AWS Glue, or Trino)
• Experience applying large language models to analytical work (Amazon Bedrock or comparable services)
• Data-visualization craft, from chart design through dashboards and charting libraries
• Federal information technology experience
• Familiarity with AI-assisted developer tooling

Benefits

This is a full-time W-2 position with a salary of $78,000 to $147,000 per year.

Benefits include medical, dental, and vision insurance with the employee premium fully paid and half of dependent premiums; employer-paid life, accidental death, and short-term and long-term disability insurance; a 401(k) matched 100% up to 4% of salary, vesting immediately; unlimited paid time off; and sponsored professional certifications and continuing education.