What are the responsibilities and job description for the Data Scientist position at State of Utah?
Job Description
Division of Integrated Healthcare
Love to swim in data and improve its value to end users? Come work for the Office of Financial Services within the Utah State Medicaid program as a Data Scientist.
Medicaid is a valuable public good that around 15% of Utah’s population accesses every year. The Data Scientist role allows you to directly impact the individuals who rely on these services by providing reports, visualizations, and predictive analytics to the legislators, federal agencies, and advocacy groups in charge of improving access to care and health outcomes. For information about Utah’s Medicaid program please click here .
This position requires advanced programming experience with SQL and relational databases. Critical thinking is a must as the right answer is not always obvious or known. Having extensive experience with the Python programming language is also strongly preferred.
A skills test will be administered to assess skills needed for this position prior to interviews being scheduled.
Preference may be given to those with a completed Master's degree in Statistics, Economics, Mathematics, Finance, or a related field as determined by the hiring official.
Why work for the Utah Department of Health and Human Services? Check out the rich benefits the State of Utah offers.
Responsibilities
I. Data Pipeline Engineering & Productionization
Division of Integrated Healthcare
Love to swim in data and improve its value to end users? Come work for the Office of Financial Services within the Utah State Medicaid program as a Data Scientist.
Medicaid is a valuable public good that around 15% of Utah’s population accesses every year. The Data Scientist role allows you to directly impact the individuals who rely on these services by providing reports, visualizations, and predictive analytics to the legislators, federal agencies, and advocacy groups in charge of improving access to care and health outcomes. For information about Utah’s Medicaid program please click here .
This position requires advanced programming experience with SQL and relational databases. Critical thinking is a must as the right answer is not always obvious or known. Having extensive experience with the Python programming language is also strongly preferred.
A skills test will be administered to assess skills needed for this position prior to interviews being scheduled.
Preference may be given to those with a completed Master's degree in Statistics, Economics, Mathematics, Finance, or a related field as determined by the hiring official.
Why work for the Utah Department of Health and Human Services? Check out the rich benefits the State of Utah offers.
Responsibilities
I. Data Pipeline Engineering & Productionization
- Business Logic Translation: Systematically analyze, reverse-engineer, and translate complex, proprietary business logic, rulesets, and calculations (currently residing in End-User Computing (EUC) tools like Microsoft Excel and Access) into robust, version-controlled Python and SQL code.
- Pipeline Engineering: Design, develop, and maintain efficient, scalable data transformation pipelines using Python and advanced SQL to ensure reliable, high-quality data delivery for core financial reporting, operational metrics, and compliance requirements.
- Code Governance and Auditability: Implement rigorous software engineering best practices, including version control (Git/GitHub), automated testing, and comprehensive code review, specifically establishing controls for the secure and compliant handling of PHI/PII and other sensitive data assets used in state and federal reporting.
- Quality Assurance: Develop and execute detailed data validation and reconciliation tests to ensure that productionized data assets maintain and improve the accuracy and integrity of critical business rules derived from legacy systems.
- Logic Capture and Documentation: Partner directly with internal stakeholders (Finance, Operations, etc.) to conduct deep discovery, formally capture undocumented business processes, and stabilize the computational logic found in fragile EUC tools.
- Solution Architecture: Propose and design controlled data solutions that meet critical compliance and financial reporting needs while strictly adhering to state data governance, organizational security policies, and Federal standards, including HIPAA and CMS requirements.
- Data Lineage and Documentation: Create clear, standardized, and accessible documentation for all deployed data assets, including data dictionaries, detailed transformation logic, and lineage maps, supporting continuity and enabling future stakeholders to utilize reliable, engineered data sources.
- Contribute substantively to the definition of the team's initial technical roadmap, tooling choices, and operating procedures, acting as a foundational member of this new Analytics Engineering function.
- Serve as the internal subject matter expert on data productionization and data structure, providing consultative guidance to stakeholders transitioning from Excel/Access-based logic to production-grade SQL and Python workflows.
- Data Engineering Expertise: Ability to architect and implement production-ready data solutions and data transformation routines using Python (including data manipulation libraries like Polars) and advanced SQL.
- EUC Conversion: Skill in reverse-engineering and translating complex business logic from legacy End-User Computing (EUC) tools (Microsoft Excel and Access, including VBA macros), into stable, version-controlled code.
- Analytical Data Modeling: Experience designing and building reliable analytical data models to deliver high-quality, trusted datasets for stakeholders and leadership.
- Code Governance: Proficiency in software engineering practices, including Git/GitHub, for version control, code review, and maintaining high auditability standards.
- Data Quality & Validation: Experience implementing automated data quality checks, monitoring, and validation processes to ensure solution accuracy and reliability.
- Regulatory Compliance: Strong understanding of data security principles and experience designing systems that ensure technical compliance with HIPAA, CMS, and state data governance policies when handling Protected Health Information (PHI) and PII.
- Policy Interpretation: Ability to read, interpret, and accurately apply state and federal laws, rules, regulations, and policies related to the Medicaid/Medicare system to inform data solution design.
- Stakeholder Partnership: Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to partner with non-technical stakeholders to capture business processes and technical specifications.
- Independent Work: Ability to plan, organize, and prioritize workload, meet deadlines, and work independently to find efficient solutions to technical challenges.
- Risks found in the typical office setting, which is adequately lighted, heated and ventilated, e.g., safe use of office equipment, avoiding trips and falls, observing fire regulations, etc.
- Typically, the employee may sit comfortably to perform the work; however, there may be some walking; standing; bending; carrying light items; driving an automobile, etc. Special physical demands are not required to perform the work.
- Effective July 1, 2021, State of Utah Employees must either reside in Utah or be in the process of relocating to Utah within 30 days of their start date.
- This position may currently be a hybrid of both in-office and remote work days. Please note, a position's eligibility for remote work is established by agency management and is subject to change at their discretion, at any time, and for any reason.
