Data Science and Artificial Intelligence Department Director

Key Skills

Aartificial intelligence, AWS, Azure, Data science techniques, Data Visualization, Github, Kaggle, Machine learning techniques, matplotlib

Job Description

The Aerospace Corporation is the trusted partner to the nation’s space programs, solving the hardest problems and providing unmatched technical expertise. As the operator of a federally funded research and development center (FFRDC), we are broadly engaged across all aspects of space— delivering innovative solutions that span satellite, launch, ground, and cyber systems for defense, civil and commercial customers. When you join our team, you’ll be part of a special collection of problem solvers, thought leaders, and innovators. Join us and take your place in space.

At Aerospace, we are committed to providing an inclusive and diverse workplace for all employees to share in our common passion and aspiration – to carry out a mission much bigger than ourselves.

Responsibilities

The Data Science and Artificial Intelligence Department (DSAID) seeks a creative and enthusiastic Director to lead a diverse team of engineers, data scientists, and programmers with a passion for researching, prototyping, understanding, and building AI and data enabled tools across the space enterprise. We are an innovative and collaborative department that makes meaningful contributions across National Security Space (AF, NRO, etc.) and Civil and Commercial customers (NASA, MDA, DHS, commercial space, autonomous vehicles, etc.).

An ideal candidate is a community-focused leader, focused on setting department strategy and priorities, aligning with corporate and customer priorities, developing staff, and furthering efforts spanning internally funded R&D and customer support for mission-critical space systems.

Primary technical functions include:

• Lead technical teams and contribute to technical tasks
• Coordinate between DSAID and Aerospace customer facing organizations to: determine tasking, report progress, resolve technical issues, and deliver results 
• Propose technical efforts aligned with customer needs – plan tasks, schedules, and labor estimates
• Discover opportunities for additional, expanded, or new business. Aid in the evaluation and pursuit of new business opportunities 
• Connect across technical and customer-facing organizations to understand mission needs and technical capabilities 
• Manage and contribute to internal research and development activities, coordinate corporately across organizations and with strategic focus areas 

Primary managerial functions include:

• Assess and execute staffing needs, reassignments, transfers, terminations, performance improvements, career development, and promotional actions 
• Form annual department hiring plans, lead department management team to hire and onboard technical staff, align with corporate hiring plans 
• Develop and manage technical staff in data science, machine learning engineering, and AI research 
• Recommend and execute specialized technical computing needs 
• Monitor and evaluate processes, techniques, and performance; design and implement more effective and efficient processes 
• Review team deliveries to customers to ensure technical accuracy
• Ensure team compliance with security monitoring, processes, and corporate policies
• Communicate activities, accomplishments, and recommendations to leadership and staff
• Participate in technical exchanges, team building, and education across organizational boundaries

Duties, responsibilities and activities may change, or new ones may be assigned as needed.

Minimum Requirements 

• Bachelor’s degree from an accredited program in Computer Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, Physics, Applied Mathematics, or related field(s)
• 12 or more years of progressively responsible professional engineering/scientific experience
• Demonstrated ability to effectively organize and lead technical teams
• Demonstrated ability to rapidly learn and apply new technical skills
• Demonstrated written and oral communication skills, with ability to establish and maintain positive working relationships with customers and management/staff across organizations
• Experience with at least two different programming languages (e.g. Java, Python, C/C++), including familiarity with machine learning and deep learning libraries in Python 
• This position requires ability to obtain and maintain a security clearance, which is issued by the US government. U.S citizenship is required to obtain a security clearance
• Some travel may be required

How You Can Stand Out 

• An advanced degree from an accredited program in Computer Science, Data Science, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or related field(s) 
• Demonstrated ability to efficiently manage teams to deliver analysis and insights from data that is often large, unstructured, or unprocessed 
• History of effective cross-disciplinary leadership and teaming 
• Experience leading teams to create effective data visualizations or user interfaces (e.g. matplotlib, seaborn, plot.ly, dash, tableau, react) and communicating results to technical and nontechnical audiences 
• Experience implementing and guiding teams toward software and machine learning development best practices (e.g. code, model, and data set version control, experiment tracking and reproduction) 
• Demonstrated contributions to open-source software repositories (github, kaggle, etc) or publication record in data science or machine learning conferences/journals 
• Familiarity deploying ML models within applications or on cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, etc.) 
• Active security clearance 

We offer a competitive compensation package where you’ll be rewarded based on your performance and recognized for the value you bring to our business. The grade-based pay range for this job is listed below. Individual salaries within that range are determined through a wide variety of factors including but not limited to education, experience, knowledge and skills. 

(Min - Mid - Max)

$122,952 - $202,011 - $281,070

Pay Basis: Annual

Ways We Reward Our Employees

During your interview process, our team will provide details of our industry-leading benefits.

Benefits vary and are applicable based on Job Type. A few highlights include:

• Comprehensive health care and wellness plans
• Paid holidays, sick time, and vacation
• Standard and alternate work schedules, including telework options
• 401(k) Plan — Employees receive a total company-paid benefit of 8%, 10%, or 12% of eligible compensation based on years of service and matching contributions; employees are immediately eligible and vested in the plan upon hire
• Flexible spending accounts
• Variable pay program for exceptional contributions
• Relocation assistance
• Professional growth and development programs to help advance your career
• Education assistance programs
• An inclusive work environment built on teamwork, flexibility, and respect

We are all unique, from diverse backgrounds and all walks of life, yet one thing bonds all of us to each other—the belief that we can make a difference. This core belief empowers us to do our best work at The Aerospace Corporation.