Job Summary:

FRDA is looking for a Junior Data Scientist who thrives on learning new technologies and solving complex problems. This role is designed for those who are excited to bridge data science, software engineering, and hardware integration. You’ll support senior engineers and data scientists in developing end-to-end solutions — from building machine learning models to deploying them in production systems and working hands-on with hardware.

Key Responsibilities:

• Assist in collecting, cleaning, and pre-processing both structured and unstructured data.
• Contribute to exploratory data analysis (EDA) and prototype predictive / classification / anomaly detection models.
• Collaborate with software engineers to wrap models in APIs or modules for integration into applications.
• Help build user-facing interfaces or dashboards to expose analytics insights.
• Work with hardware platforms (e.g. sensor systems, edge computing devices) to deploy or test models in constrained settings.
• Troubleshoot problems across layers: database, back-end, front-end, deployment, and hardware interfaces.
• Rapidly learn new languages, frameworks, or platforms as needed to support evolving mission requirements.
• Document system designs, data flows, and assist in knowledge transfer within the team.
• Participate in iterative prototyping, testing, and validation cycles under tight timelines.

Minimum Qualifications:

• A bachelor’s degree in Data Science, Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics / Statistics, or a closely related discipline.
• Solid foundation in Python (or similar languages) for data manipulation/modeling (e.g. NumPy, Pandas).
• Some experience (academic or project) with machine learning or statistical modeling (even at a basic level).
• Experience or coursework in web / full-stack development: JavaScript (or TypeScript), HTML/CSS, frameworks (e.g. React, Node).
• Basic familiarity with databases and SQL.
• Strong problem-solving mindset; ability to debug issues across the software/hardware stack.
• Curiosity and ability to pick up new technologies quickly (cloud, containerization, embedded systems, etc.).
• Good communication skills: able to explain technical content to peers and non-technical stakeholders.
• Comfortable working in dynamic, mission-driven environments with shifting requirements.
• US Citizenship; eligible to obtain and maintain a security clearance.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Active Secret clearance; Top Secret highly desired.
• Experience with deployment tools: Docker, Kubernetes, CI/CD pipelines.
• Exposure to cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure).
• Familiarity with embedded systems, IoT, or edge computing (e.g. Raspberry Pi, Jetson, microcontrollers).
• Exposure to geospatial analytics, signal processing, computer vision, or time-series forecasting.
• Experience working on (or interest in) defense / intelligence / government missions or operating constraints (latency, connectivity, security).
• Prior internship or project work involving full-stack systems or hardware integration.