In this role, you will apply data science and machine learning to analyze complex financial transaction data for a major federal intelligence and law enforcement bureau.  Your analytical models will help identify suspicious patterns, supporting efforts to safeguard the financial system from illicit activity and money laundering.  This work would be performed on-site in Washington, DC.

Key Responsibilties:

• Financial Crime Pattern Detection: Designing, developing, and deploying machine learning models and statistical algorithms to identify complex money laundering techniques—such as structuring, layering, and smurfing—within massive financial datasets.
• Cloud-Native Data Engineering & Analysis: Performing exploratory data analysis, feature engineering, and model validation using Python, PySpark, and SQL across scalable AWS infrastructure, including S3, RDS, and OpenSearch.
• Stakeholder Collaboration & Translation: Partnering directly with compliance analysts and federal investigators to translate complex regulatory requirements into high-impact analytical models and clear visual reports.
• Model Integrity & Workflow Standardization: Building maintainable data pipelines, document model logic to agency standards, and lead peer code reviews to ensure reproducible, high-quality data science practices.

Required Qualifications:

• Active Top Secret SCI clearance
• Bachelor’s Degree or higher in a related field from an accredited college or university
• 4+ years of dedicated data science experience building, validating, and deploying machine learning models using Python and/or R.
• Hands-on experience analyzing Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) or Anti-Money Laundering (AML) transaction data to detect illicit financial patterns.
• Hands-on experience executing queries and managing data pipelines within AWS cloud environments (e.g., S3, RDS/PostgreSQL, OpenSearch, Lambda).
• Strong proficiency with SQL and big-data frameworks (e.g., PySpark, Pandas) to analyze large-scale structured and unstructured datasets. 

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience building intuitive data dashboards and clear visual reports to present findings to non-technical operational teams.
• Demonstrated track record of establishing automated model documentation and reproducible data pipelines in a regulated environment.

Our Culture: What Makes Ascella Employees Great

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Position: Data Scientist
Location: Washington, DC (on-site)
Base Compensation: $160-190K*
Other Compensation: 4% contribution to 401(k), performance bonus, profit-sharing
Paid Time Off: 16 days PTO/year, 11 holidays/year
Benefits: Medical, Dental, Vision, Life, Disability, 401(k)…and more
Position is open until filled, applications accepted on an ongoing basis.

**Note on Compensation: This range represents the good-faith estimate for this position at the time of posting.  Final salary offers are based on the candidate's specific experience, skills, and geographic location.

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Equal Employment Opportunity Statement
Ascella Technologies is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer. We believe that no one should be discriminated against because of their differences, such as age, disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity and expression, religion or sexual orientation. We provide equal employment opportunities to all qualified candidates without regard to age, race, creed, color, religion, sex, national origin, ancestry, disability status, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status or any other characteristic protected by law. Ascella Technologies is committed to providing veteran employment opportunities to our service men and women.