Lead Data Scientist

Role: Lead Data Scientist
Location: Bethesda, MD (5 Days Onsite)

We are looking for a Lead Data Scientist to join their growing Data Services team in Bethesda, MD. This is a high-impact role focused on building and scaling end-to-end machine learning and AI solutions that drive strategic decisions and business performance.

You will own the full lifecycle of ML development-from problem framing and model design to deployment, monitoring, and optimization-while mentoring junior team members and influencing data science strategy

Top Skills:

• End-to-End ML System Design:
  Ability to translate complex business problems into scalable ML solutions
• Production ML & Lifecycle Management:
  Experience with deployment, monitoring, drift detection, and automated retraining
• Model Validation & Business Communication:
  Strong in statistical validation, bias detection, and translating insights into business value

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead the design and development of scalable machine learning and AI solutions for complex, multi-dimensional business problems
• Translate business requirements into technical solutions, including feature engineering, algorithm selection, and model architecture
• Build and optimize models through data preparation, training, hyperparameter tuning, and cross-validation
• Establish robust model validation frameworks, including performance metrics, bias/fairness assessments, and error analysis
• Deploy models into production using best practices (CI/CD, automation, error handling, documentation)
• Monitor model performance, detect data drift, and implement retraining and alerting mechanisms
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to junior team members
• Communicate insights, model performance, and trade-offs clearly to stakeholders and leadership

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Data Science, Computer Science, Mathematics, Statistics, Economics, or related field
• 5 8 years of experience in Data Science / ML Engineering / Predictive Analytics
• Strong expertise in designing and implementing enterprise-scale ML/AI solutions
• Proven experience with model training, optimization, and scalable pipelines
• Hands-on experience in ML deployment using Docker, Kubernetes, and CI/CD pipelines
• Expertise in model validation, governance, and performance evaluation
• Strong programming skills in Python and SQL
• Experience working in cloud environments and large-scale data systems
• Ability to mentor team members and drive technical decision-making