Data Scientist – Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning

Company Overviewikona Analytics provides People Analytics consulting solutions for large enterprise customers, with a focus on Human Resources organizations in the Fortune 500. Our mission is to unlock the value in people-related data. We work with clients to do three things: Discover insights at the intersection of HR operations, technology, products, and analytics // Improve data capabilities across the entire HR service delivery model // Unleash the full potential of People Analytics. Our core service offering is called the People Analytics HR Assessment (PAHRA©). The PAHRA© comprehensively maps and evaluates HR data ecosystems and then generates actionable insights through the use of Generative AI Large Language Models (LLMs), Natural Language Understanding (NLU), and statistical anomaly detection methods. The PAHRA© produces a heatmap of over 1000+ measures and a narrative report highlighting the most critical data capability gaps that need to be solved across the entire HR organization. PAHRA© is an x-ray of the HR data ecosystem for People Analytics teams and a stakeholder accountability map for senior HR leadership throughout the organization. Role OverviewWe are seeking an experienced Seniorr Data Scientist with a deep background in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to help lead the next evolution of our PAHRA© service offering. This role is a US-based part-time 1099 contractor position, reporting to the Founder/CEO. Job location is remote, but candidates must be US-based (East Coast preferred but not required). This role will spend approximately 50% of time internally-facing on ikona Analytics infrastructure development and 50% of time external-facing on client project engagements. Key responsibilities include:Partner closely with ikona Analytics Research Leads and Project Managers to deliver PAHRA© project engagements for Fortune 500 HR clients Manage the ikona Analytics PAHRA© AWS environment including API integrations with SaaS providers and with open-source and closed Large Language Models (LLMs) such as GPT-4o, Llama, Claude, and MistralBuild out new scalable infrastructure components of the ikona Analytics PAHRA© tech stack, including enhancements to our proprietary code base and solution architecture design recommendations with SaaS providers Develop, deploy, and optimize machine learning models for PAHRA© text analytics, classification, clustering, anomaly detection, and feature extractionTechnical RequirementsMaster's degree or Ph.D. in Data Science, Statistics, Computer Science, or related field5-10 years of experience in AI/ML, with extensive technical expertise in text analytics, classification, clustering, feature extraction, anomaly detection, and regression modeling.5-10 years experience in Python programming (e.g., tensorflow, pandas, numpy, scipy, sklearn, matplotlib, plotly, seaborn, pytube, beautifulsoup, scrapy).Expert-level proficiency utilizing a full stack of AWS services (e.g., Sagemaker, Comprehend, Lambda, Glue, Bedrock) and running cloud storage and vector database systems (e.g., AWS S3, Qdrant, Pinecone).Experience designing and deploying Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) systems using open-source or proprietary LLMs.About YouYou are entrepreneurial and love to build. You are a driven and innovative data scientist with a passion for ML/AI experimentation and agile iteration. You thrive in dynamic fast-paced environments, know how to deal with ambiguity, enjoy tackling complex challenges, and are comfortable leading technical projects from concept to implementation. You are a technical expert but also skilled at explaining your approach and findings to senior executives in simple language.