Data Lead

RESPONSIBILITIES:
Kforce has a client that is seeking a Data Lead in Orlando, FL.

About the Role:
We are hiring a Data/AI Lead to own the core analytics platform for a high-visibility federal defense program. This platform ingests, transforms, reconciles, and models data from multiple government and commercial sources to produce decision-grade intelligence used by government stakeholders.

This is a hands-on technical leadership role. You will be the first dedicated data and analytics hire, operating initially as a senior individual contributor who owns everything from raw ingestion through structured analytical output. As the platform scales, you will hire and lead a small team of data engineers and data scientists.

The data is messy, heterogeneous, and constantly changing. Government logistics and procurement systems were never designed to interoperate, and schemas change without notice. Your job is to make that data reliable, explainable, and precise enough to drive real budget decisions.

What You Will Own:
End-to-End Data Platform:
* Design and operate end-to-end data pipelines: ingestion from government and commercial sources, transformation into unified schemas, validation, quality enforcement, and structured outputs
* Own data quality, monitoring, and alerting, including confidence scoring on analytical outputs so consumers understand trust levels
* Design schemas and versioned outputs for integration with external analytics platforms, ensuring clarity, stability, and auditability
* Orchestrate and schedule all data workflows, including dependency management, retries, failure handling, and SLA monitoring

Analytics, Modeling & Intelligence:
* Build and maintain scoring and risk models that produce prioritized, actionable recommendations (risk scoring, anomaly detection, entity resolution across sources)

REQUIREMENTS:
* 5+ years in data engineering, analytics engineering, or combined data/ML roles with production pipeline ownership
* Strong Python and SQL, with experience building pipelines and analytical models used by downstream systems
* Experience with workflow orchestration tools (Airflow, Dagster, Prefect, or similar)
* Experience with dbt or equivalent transformation frameworks (versioned, tested, documented)
* Deep hands-on experience with PostgreSQL for analytical workloads (complex queries, materialized views, indexing, schema evolution)
* Experience building scoring, ranking, or risk models consumed by decision-makers (not just exploratory analysis)
* Experience with time-series forecasting on sparse, noisy, or irregular data with disciplined backtesting
* Familiarity with ML fundamentals (e.g., scikit-learn, time-series libraries, basic NLP) applied in production
* Experience with entity resolution/record linkage across heterogeneous systems
* Comfort working with messy real-world data and undocumented edge cases
* Ability to explain analytical outputs in operational terms to non-technical stakeholders
* Visa sponsorship is not available for this position

Preferred Qualifications:
* Experience with AWS data and analytics services (S3, Glue, Lambda, RDS, Athena, SageMaker)
* BI and dashboarding experience (Power BI, Looker, Metabase, or similar)
* Experience with columnar storage formats (Parquet, ORC)
* Applied experience with LLMs or NLP for extraction, matching, or document understanding (production use)
* Background in regulated or compliance-driven environments (defense, government, healthcare, finance)
* Exposure to GovCloud or FedRAMP-authorized environments
* Experience in supply chain, procurement, logistics, or industrial analytics
* Experience operating as the primary data owner on small, high-stakes teams

The pay range is the lowest to highest compensation we reasonably in good faith believe we would pay at posting for this role. We may ultimately pay more or less than this range. Employee pay is based on factors like relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, seniority, location, performance, union contract and business needs. This range may be modified in the future.

We offer comprehensive benefits including medical/dental/vision insurance, HSA, FSA, 401(k), and life, disability & ADD insurance to eligible employees. Salaried personnel receive paid time off. Hourly employees are not eligible for paid time off unless required by law. Hourly employees on a Service Contract Act project are eligible for paid sick leave.

Note: Pay is not considered compensation until it is earned, vested and determinable. The amount and availability of any compensation remains in Kforce's sole discretion unless and until paid and may be modified in its discretion consistent with the law.

This job is not eligible for bonuses, incentives or commissions.

Kforce is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, protected veteran status, or disability status.

By clicking ?Apply Today? you agree to receive calls, AI-generated calls, text messages or emails from Kforce and its affiliates, and service providers. Note that if you choose to communicate with Kforce via text messaging the frequency may vary, and message and data rates may apply. Carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages. You will always have the right to cease communicating via text by using key words such as STOP.