Technical Analytics Manager / Lead Data Scientist (Fraud Analytics & Investigative Support)

Praescient Analytics is seeking a Technical Analytics Manager / Lead Data Scientist to provide technical leadership for a federal fraud analytics and investigative support program. Based in Fairfax, Virginia with remote work options, the role centers on designing innovative analytic approaches and deploying fraud-detection models to support government oversight. The right candidate will steer model development, validation, and quality assurance to deliver reliable, defensible analytics for government stakeholders.

Position overview

The organization seeks a senior technical leader to direct fraud analytics and investigative support efforts. This role serves as the technical authority for crafting novel analytic approaches, building advanced fraud-detection models, and overseeing validation, quality assurance, and the dependable delivery of analytic products to government customers.

Responsibilities

• Lead the end-to-end lifecycle of advanced fraud detection and investigative analytics solutions, including design, development, testing, validation, deployment, and continuous improvement.
• Develop innovative analytic approaches to identify fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement across large-scale federal benefit programs.
• Design and implement analytic rules, machine learning models, artificial intelligence solutions, natural language processing, anomaly detection, entity resolution, graph analytics, link analysis, risk scoring, and other advanced capabilities.
• Lead technical teams responsible for model development, experimentation, quality assurance, documentation, and production deployment.
• Hands-on development of analytic models using open-source programming languages, frameworks, and data science tools.
• Conduct exploratory data analysis, feature engineering, data profiling, model evaluation, and performance optimization across complex datasets.
• Establish and oversee robust quality control processes to ensure analytic outputs are accurate, reliable, repeatable, and fully documented before government delivery.
• Review technical work products, source code, analytic methodologies, and model outputs produced by contractor support teams.
• Identify technical risks, propose mitigation strategies, and ensure timely delivery of high-quality analytic products.
• Collaborate with project managers, data engineers, graph data scientists, investigative analysts, forensic accountants, and government stakeholders throughout the project lifecycle.
• Present analytic methodologies, technical findings, model performance, and recommendations to government leadership and investigators.
• Support Agile delivery through sprint planning, backlog refinement, technical demonstrations, and iterative model development.

Requirements

• Experience with fraud analysis is required.
• Five or more years of hands-on experience developing analytic rules and models for fraud detection using leading-edge tools and best practices.
• Five or more years designing analytic approaches, managing model development and testing efforts, and conducting thorough quality control.
• Proven ability to ideate innovative analytic use cases to detect and prevent fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement.
• Five or more years tracking project progress, identifying technical risks, and delivering high-quality analytic solutions on schedule.
• Five or more years reviewing contractor-developed analytic models, code, methodologies, and work products prior to final delivery.
• Five or more years developing analytic rules and models using open-source languages and frameworks.
• Strong written, verbal, presentation, and technical communication skills.
• Demonstrated ability to lead technical teams while remaining actively engaged in hands-on analytics development.

Technologies

• Python, SQL, Spark, Pandas, Scikit-learn, TensorFlow, PyTorch
• Azure Databricks, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Fabric, Azure Data Lake
• Power BI, Neo4j, Git repositories, RPA

Preferred qualifications

• Developing fraud detection, fraud prevention, and program integrity analytics supporting pandemic relief, emergency assistance, grants, loans, healthcare, unemployment insurance, disaster relief, financial assistance, or other high-volume federal benefit programs.
• Designing, developing, validating, deploying, and maintaining advanced analytic models utilizing machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), natural language processing (NLP), anomaly detection, entity resolution, graph analytics, link analysis, knowledge graphs, risk scoring, or robotic process automation (RPA).
• Applying open-source programming languages and frameworks such as Python, SQL, Spark, Pandas, Scikit-learn, TensorFlow, PyTorch, or comparable data science technologies.
• Developing analytics within cloud-native environments utilizing Azure Databricks, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Fabric, Azure Data Lake, Power BI, Neo4j, Git repositories, Lakehouse architectures, or enterprise data catalogs.
• Working with large-scale public, non-public, commercial, financial, and law enforcement datasets to identify organized fraud rings, synthetic identities, duplicate entities, eligibility issues, and emerging fraud schemes.
• Conducting exploratory data analysis, data profiling, feature engineering, model validation, performance testing, and quality assurance throughout the analytics lifecycle.
• Supporting Offices of Inspector General (OIGs), law enforcement organizations, oversight agencies, or program integrity initiatives through advanced analytic solutions.
• Developing reproducible analytic workflows that emphasize governance, documentation, transparency, explainability, and enterprise data management best practices.
• Leading technical reviews, mentoring data scientists, and establishing quality standards for analytic products delivered to Government customers.

Location

Remote work option with occasional travel; base location Fairfax, Virginia.

Clearance

Ability to obtain and maintain a Public Trust.

What we're looking for

We seek a technical leader who enjoys solving complex fraud detection challenges while staying actively involved in hands-on analytics development. The ideal candidate writes code, designs machine learning models, reviews technical work products, mentors colleagues, and briefs analytic findings to senior Government stakeholders. They blend innovative thinking with disciplined engineering to ensure each analytic solution is robust and well-documented.

What you can expect from us

• Real opportunity for career growth in an environment that celebrates achievement.
• Ongoing collaboration with multiple teams to ensure client success.
• A team that values ideas and expertise.
• Colleagues motivated by excellence and public service rather than personal gain.
• A workplace dedicated to supporting public safety and government agencies.

Benefits

• Competitive salary based on qualifications and experience
• Comprehensive, Company paid healthcare for you (We pay your premiums and deductibles)
• 401(k) with company match
• Travel & performance incentives
• 3 weeks paid time off (plus Federal Holidays)
• $5K annual training allowance
• $500 book allowance
• Tuition reimbursement program