Data Scientist Specialist

Summary

The USPS OIG is seeking a highly qualified applicant to fill our Data Scientist Specialist position in the Research and Insights Solution Center (RISC) Directorate located in Arlington, Virginia. Bring your skills and voice to our team!

Duties

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. 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.

Qualifications and evaluation

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.

Education

Education must be accredited by an institution recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. Applicants can verify accreditation here: https://www.ed.gov/laws-and-policy/higher-education-laws-and-policy/college-accreditation. Special Instructions for Candidates with Foreign Education: Education completed outside the United States must be deemed equivalent to that gained in U.S. education programs. You must submit all necessary documents to a private U.S. credential evaluation service to interpret equivalency of your education against courses given in U.S. accredited colleges and universities. For further information visit: https://sites.ed.gov/international/recognition-of-foreign-qualifications.

How to apply

To apply for this position, you must complete the online application and submit the documentation specified in the Required Documents section. 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. The complete application package must be submitted by 11:59 PM (EST) on the closing date, 11/12/2026, to receive consideration. To begin, click Apply Online to access an online application. Follow the prompts to select your USAJOBS resume and/or other supporting documents. You will need to be logged into your USAJOBS account or you may need to create a new account. You will be taken to an online application. Complete the online application, verify the required documentation, and submit the application. You will receive an email notification when your application has been received for the announcement. To verify the status of your application, log into your USAJOBS account, https://my.usajobs.gov/Account/Login, select the Application Status link and then select the More Information link for this position. The Application Status page will display the status of your application, the documentation received and processed, and your responses submitted to the online application. Your uploaded documents may take several hours to clear the virus scan process. You are strongly urged to read and print the entire vacancy announcement.

Required documents

You must submit all required documents by 11:59 PM EST on the closing date of this announcement, Vacancy Announcement EX-27-13B-13097577-PC, 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) 3. UPLOAD SUPPORTING DOCUMENTS which may include: Certificates or Licenses, if applicable. Upload and save as "Certificate" or "License" document. Veterans Preference Documentation. If you are claiming veterans' preference. You must submit the Member 4 copy of your DD-214 Certificate of Release or Discharge from Active Duty, and/or other proof of veterans' preference eligibility, including your VA letter, SF-15 (https://www.opm.gov/forms/standard-forms/), and all required documents related to your SF15 claim. Veterans can request the Member 4 copy of their DD-214 at archives.gov/veterans/military-service- records and can download a copy of their VA letter from Download VA Benefit Letters | Veterans Affairs. If applicable, you are required to submit each veterans' preference document in the application packages. Please name these files as "DD-214" or "SF-15" or "Other Veterans Document." SF-50 if you are or have been a Federal employee to demonstrate tenure and competitive/excepted service for eligibility purposes. (If applicable to you, you are Required to upload each applicable SF-50 and categorize as a "SF-50" document.)

Additional information

Please contact an internal Human Resources Representative if you have any questions about your USPS OIG Employee Benefits. This agency provides Reasonable Accommodations to applicants with disabilities. If you require accommodations for any part of the application and/or hiring process, please send an email to jobs@uspsoig.gov. The decision on granting an accommodation request will be made on a case by case basis.