AMVETS Jobs

Data and Technology Analyst - R&S - R024616

Primary Location : DC-Washington

:

Employee Status : Regular

Overtime Status : Exempt

Job Type : Standard

Work Shift: : 1st Shift

:

:

Relocation Provided: : Yes

Compensation Grade Low: : FR PAY GRADE 25

Compensation Grade High: : FR PAY GRADE 26

Minimum Salary: : $107,000.00

Maximum Salary: : $130,000.00

Posting Date : Aug 2, 2024

Minimum Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience

Minimum Experience

4

Summary

Contributes to a variety of technology functions that require intermediate knowledge of multiple IT disciplines. Analyzes, designs, develops, and implements technology solutions and/or strategies to meet the needs of an organization/group. Offers solutions to more senior staff to bridge gaps between business and technology, leveraging broad technological knowledge and skills. Conducts audits of systems to ensure the system continues to function properly and optimally, identify areas for improvement, and verify compliance of the system. Performs routine and non-routine maintenance on systems to ensure optimal functioning and avoid system failure. Identifies and conducts research to advise systems design, data definition, data access, or configuration changes.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Consults with users, diagnosing and resolving problems found in application implementations, suggesting appropriate software solutions and computing platform(s) to meet the generally defined requirements of users, and assisting in other ways on technical and programming issues related to information processing. Explains IT processes and concepts to technical and non-technical audiences and describing technical information at a high-level to communicate how technology processes and concepts directly impact and influence stakeholders.
• Implements software systems and applications using security best practices and change control to meet business requirements. Conducts audits of systems to ensure the system continues to function properly and optimally, identify areas for improvement, and verify compliance of the system.
• Operates system controls to coordinate computer network access and use. Stays up to date on IT security trends and disaster recovery processes to apply this knowledge to recommend security enhancements. Monitors the computing environment for security breaches.
• Installs and maintains distributed processing systems. Develops system access profiles and IT frameworks based on user requirements.
• Thinks through the various aspects that go into designing a system including, but not limited to, business needs, cost considerations, and functionality. Performs routine and non-routine maintenance on systems to ensure optimal functioning and avoid system failure.
• Handles the administration of shared databases and/or maintenance of the security and integrity of data systems; identifies and conducts research to advise systems design, data definition, data access, or configuration changes.
• Collects and analyzes data to identify trends in data, produce data visualizations, and examine data to help provide context for pertinent issues. Complies data findings into visually appealing, easy to follow reports to summarize outcomes.
• Supports division customers with a variety of technology needs that may include: developing new tools for users, maintaining existing web applications in the division, creating web pages, and/or debugging new application breaks. Participates in researching technologies that might enhance user experience.
• Offers ideas in the strategy/planning, product development, product launch, and all stages of product life cycle. With moderate guidance, plans, organizes, and assigns tasks for the development and implementation of large-scale and highly complex information or information security systems. Provides guidance and consultation to project participants and may have some supervisory responsibility for professional staff.
• Maintains knowledge of evolving trends in technology to develop innovative approaches that deliver value; understands business requirements and processes in order to assist in identifying technologies that meet the requirements.
• Develops and/or implements short- and long-term strategies to meet the automation, computing, database, and information management requirements of the division and the Board. Collaborates with team members and shares information/knowledge to ensure the best strategies are implemented. Designs, implements, supports, and maintains automation, computing, and database systems essential to meeting those strategies.

The Advanced Research and Computing (ARC) section is a team of 30 technology professionals and system administrators who collectively design, deploy and support the compute environment for the Board’s Economics Divisions. We support over 800 economists, technologists, and executives.
 
Position Description:
The Data and Technology Analyst (DTA) will join the Data, Analytics and Research Tools (DART) group (within ARC) – a customer service focused team, providing guidance and support in utilizing technology to enhance the Board’s economic research and policy analysis activities. DART oversees the analysis, design, life cycle maintenance, and in-depth support of software applications across a variety of technology platforms and business lines. The team also provides consultation services to advance systematic solutions for researcher needs.
 
The analyst will maintain the analytical software environment; develop technical solutions to user challenges; support teams of technology analysts and researchers in producing economic data and analyses; and independently conduct data analyses and visualize findings to aid decision-making. Across each of these activities, the analyst will be an advocate for improving the fit between the Board’s technology environment and the objectives of the economic research community.
 
The successful candidate must be able to work independently and collaboratively with researchers, technology professionals, and system administrators to solve problems, develop new procedures, and drive adoption of new technologies. They will take initiative in suggesting and implementing improvements to the Economics Divisions’ computing environment. Deep technical skills, a drive to find solutions, and a customer service mindset will define the successful candidate.
 
Duties and Responsibilities
·         User support:
o   Provide support for users of analytical software across multiple operating systems, domains, and user profiles.
o   Improve the fit between technology and usage while advocating for user focused solutions. Translate user stories and experiences into technical deliverables. Identify trends and propose improvements to prevent user issues.
o   Partner with infrastructure, operations, security, communications, and helpdesk groups to design and deploy user enabling solutions.
o   With guidance, provides support and consulting to colleagues to resolve customer support issues consistent with Board and Section technology standards.
·         Technology provisioning:
o   Maintain and support end user tools including MATLAB, Stata, R, Python, SAS, FAME, and EViews. Perform application maintenance to provide an up to date, maximally usable analytical environment configured to meet business requirements and technical standards.
o   Review application usage practices to inform support and maintenance priorities; to rationalize service and license levels; and to identify training and upskilling opportunities.
o   Research alternative software and cloud solutions to supplement or replace existing tools. Evaluate against requirements and recommend tools and services that are best fit for purpose.
·         Data analysis and visualization:
o   Produce repeatable data analyses, visualizations, or workflow automation routines using ETL / ELT techniques, programming languages and visualization tools.
o   Develop databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL, etc); user interfaces; and analytical products to improve the work of the Section and supported Divisions.
o   Collaborate within the Section and across the Economics Divisions to identify opportunities to automate processes and develop techniques to more rapidly and impactfully visualize results.
o   Review and refactor scripts and other ad-hoc code into robust programs which draw upon CI / CD best practices.
·         Technology Management:
o   Develop technical documentation for systems and projects to provide direction, guidance, or instruction and/or summarize complex information in a succinct and compelling manner.
o   Support active management of our high-performance computing platform.
o   Provide subject matter expertise and guidance on the adoption of new technologies and tools. Think strategically and holistically about current and future requirements.
o   Help maintain the security posture of systems through implementation of Board standards and industry best practices.
 
Required experience and competencies:
 
·         Must have a bachelor’s in Computer Science, Data Science, Mathematics, Statistics, Economics, or a related field and four (4) years of experience.
 
·         Technical skills: Must be proficient in at least two of the following programming languages: Python, R, MATLAB, or Stata; to have experience working with functional and object-oriented programming languages; and have experience translating user stories into technical requirements and specifications. Preference for experience refactoring and improving business scripts; familiarity with Linux system administration activities.
 
·         Data handling: Applicants should have experience
o   creating and evolving physical and logical data models; creating diagrams and technical documentation; contributing to the development of data management and governance practices; and expanding data security and privacy controls.
o   developing data pipelines and workflow orchestration routines or working within existing pipelines as an analyst / data scientist to develop analytics.
 
·         Candidates will have strong/effective verbal and written communication skills.
 
·         The ideal candidate will be curious, creative, have a desire to learn, willing to take initiatives, and have an interest in economics, economic measurement, statistics, and data science.
 
Additional desirable skills experience include:
·         Relational database design, implementation, and maintenance using SQL, PostgreSQL, MySQL.
·         Implementing and maintaining CI / CD pipelines and DataOps segmentation.
·         Experience working with economic data.
·         Interest in applying cutting edge technologies to economic analysis and operational activities.
·         Web development using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc.
·         Administering Linux and Windows environments.