Data Scientist

Location: Sacramento, CA
Employment Type: Full-time
Workplace Type: On-site
Salary Range: $130,000 – $210,000 annually

About the Company

For over 30 years, our client has been an industry leader providing Project Management Solutions on Capital Construction Projects. Focusing on the Utilities, Oil, Gas, Water, and other large construction projects, their Project Controls Professionals have worked on some of the largest Capital Construction Projects throughout the U.S.

They are certified as a Federal Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) and a State of California Small Business and Disabled Veteran Business Enterprise (SB/DVBE).

About the Role

We are seeking a Data Scientist for a client supporting large-scale infrastructure and capital construction programs. This role supports enterprise-level decision-making by developing advanced analytics, predictive models, automated reporting tools, and executive-level dashboards.

The Data Scientist will work closely with project controls, cost, schedule, risk, finance, and leadership teams to transform complex program and project data into meaningful insights. This position is ideal for someone who can combine technical data analytics skills with strong business communication and reporting capabilities.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop, maintain, and improve program-wide data models, analytics frameworks, and reporting workflows.
• Build predictive and statistical models to forecast cost, schedule, risk, and performance trends.
• Create automated dashboards, visualizations, and analytical tools using Power BI and other platforms.
• Analyze large data sets to identify trends, anomalies, performance drivers, and improvement opportunities.
• Partner with cost, schedule, risk, finance, and project controls teams to integrate data from multiple sources.
• Support monthly, quarterly, executive, and board-level reporting by preparing accurate and validated data sets.
• Streamline manual reporting processes and identify opportunities for automation.
• Establish and support data quality standards, validation procedures, and reporting governance.
• Gather, validate, and consolidate data from multiple systems, stakeholders, and project teams.
• Present analytical findings, dashboards, trends, and recommendations to executive leadership and stakeholders.
• Support reporting needs for major infrastructure programs, including performance, risk, schedule, and financial reporting.
• Develop Power BI dashboards, project performance reports, Kanban-style views, and workflow visualizations to improve visibility into cost, schedule, risk, and program performance.

Qualifications

• Master’s degree in Data Science, Engineering, Computer Science, Business Analytics, Statistics, or a closely related field.
• Experience producing analytics, modeling, dashboards, and reporting for senior-level or executive audiences.
• Experience developing data strategies, analytics workflows, and reporting processes in a large program, enterprise, infrastructure, or project controls environment.
• Experience supporting large capital programs, public infrastructure programs, construction, transportation, utilities, or project controls environments.
• Experience creating project controls dashboards, Kanban-style views, workflow visualizations, or executive-level reporting tools.
• Experience with Visio, desktop publishing software, or professional graphics tools.
• Strong knowledge of business intelligence, data management, project controls, document control, and management reporting.
• Experience working with cross-functional stakeholders to obtain accurate and timely data inputs.
• Ability to develop and implement methodologies for analytics, reporting, dashboards, visualization, and data quality.
• Strong proficiency with Power BI and other data analytics or visualization tools.
• Experience with statistical tools and modern programming languages such as Python and/or R.
• Strong communication skills with the ability to explain complex data clearly and professionally to technical and non-technical audiences.

Preferred Qualifications

• MBA.
• PMP certification.
• Microsoft Power BI Data Analyst certification or similar data analytics certification.

Ideal Candidate Profile

The ideal candidate is analytical, detail-oriented, and comfortable working with complex data from multiple sources. This person should be able to build strong dashboards and reporting tools, but also understand how to tell the story behind the data. The role requires someone who can work with project controls, finance, risk, schedule, and leadership teams to produce accurate, useful, and executive-ready reporting.

Compensation

The salary range for this position is $130,000 – $210,000 annually. Final compensation will depend on experience, education, certifications, technical skills, and overall qualifications.

Disclaimer

This job description provides only a summary of the typical functions associated with this role and is not intended to represent an exhaustive or comprehensive list of all responsibilities, tasks, or duties. The actual responsibilities, tasks, and duties assigned may differ from those outlined, and additional duties may be assigned. Duties, responsibilities, and activities may change at any time, with or without notice. SmartHire is not legally responsible for any changes to the jobholder’s responsibilities or activities implemented by our clients that differ from those described herein.

SmartHire is posting this position on behalf of our client, and the salary range provided is determined by the client. Actual compensation offered will depend on various factors determined by the hiring company, including candidate qualifications, experience, skills, geographic location, and internal equity considerations. SmartHire is not legally responsible for any changes in salary, benefits, or bonuses made by our clients.