Engineering & IT · Washington, DC

Data Scientist jobs in Washington, DC

Data scientists turn raw data into decisions and products, using statistics, experimentation, and machine learning to answer questions the business could not otherwise settle.

2,910
Open roles today
$48–$120/hr
Typical pay range
$162k
Median, full-time

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01

Open data scientist roles

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Sr. IT Big Data Developer

Diverse Agile Solutions · Washington DC · Full-time

TO-BH-3 Sr. IT Big Data Developer (Data Architect/Engineer) Location: Washington, DC (100% On-site) Client: Federal Reserve... ...successful candidate will collaborate closely with economists, data scientists, researcher…

Posted 3mo ago
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02

What data scientists earn in Washington

Hourly first — that's how the offer arrives

ExperienceHourlyAnnual, full-time
Entry level $48–$66 $100k–$138k
Mid level $66–$90 $138k–$188k
Senior $87–$120 $181k–$250k

Adjusted for the Washington market from national ranges.

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What employers ask for

The skills these listings keep naming

Python (pandas, scikit-learn)SQLStatistics and A/B testingMachine learning fundamentalsData visualizationExperiment designCommunicating with stakeholdersDomain and product sense
04

Interview questions worth rehearsing

With the thing the interviewer is actually listening for

Walk me through a data project that changed a decision.

Structure it as question, approach, finding, action. Projects that ended in a decision — even 'we did not launch' — beat technically impressive analyses that went nowhere.

How would you design an A/B test for a new feature?

Cover the metric, randomization unit, sample size, and duration, plus a pitfall like peeking or interference. Practical rigor is what is being tested.

Your model performs well offline but poorly in production. Why might that be?

Discuss train/serve skew, data leakage, distribution shift, and feedback loops. Listing several plausible causes and how you would check each is the strong answer.

Explain p-values or confidence intervals to a non-technical stakeholder.

Use plain language and a concrete scenario, and resist overstating certainty. They are testing whether your statistics survive translation.

How do you handle missing or messy data?

First ask why it is missing — the mechanism matters more than the imputation method. Then discuss options and how the choice affects conclusions.

When would you not use machine learning for a problem?

When a rule, a query, or a simple heuristic wins on cost and interpretability. Knowing when ML is overkill signals maturity.

How do you decide which metric a team should optimize?

Talk about proxy versus true goals, gameability, and counter-metrics. A story about a metric that backfired is very effective here.

05

Resume tips that move the needle

For data scientists specifically — generic advice costs you here

01

Lead every bullet with the business result — revenue, retention, cost — and put the method second.

02

Specify your stack concretely: Python libraries, SQL dialects, experimentation platforms, and any production ML experience.

03

Distinguish shipped work from research; 'model serving 2M users' and 'notebook analysis' are different claims.

04

Keep one or two public projects or publications linkable, tailored to the industry you are targeting.

05

Name the size and kind of data you worked with — event streams, tabular, text — so teams can map you to their problems.

06

Where this role goes

Typical progression

01 Junior Data Scientist
02 Data Scientist
03 Senior Data Scientist
04 Staff Data Scientist
05 Head of Data Science
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