Data Scientist

Salary: $32.01 - $53.60 Hourly
Location : Salt Lake County, UT
Job Type: Full Time
Remote Employment: Flexible/Hybrid
Job Number: 44760
Agency: 250 Health & Human Services
Unit: 3105 DHHS DIH Financial Services
Opening Date: 04/10/2025
Closing Date: 4/27/2025 11:59 PM Mountain
FLSA: Exempt
Recruiter: Angie Rhodes, arhodes@utah.gov
# of Openings: 1
Background Check: You must successfully pass a criminal history check.
Location: Cannon Health Building288 North 1460 WestSalt Lake City UT 84116 The Utah Department of Health and Human Services, Cannon Health Building is proud to be a tobacco free campus.
Schedule Code: B - Competitive Career Service - Employment in this position requires a probationary period.
Schedule Code Description: There may be a 12-month probationary period with this position. DHRM rules regarding promotions and transfers apply to current State of Utah employees.
Benefits: This position is eligible for a full benefits package. See benefits tab below for details.
EEO Statement: The State of Utah is committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity, or Veteran status. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. For accommodations, dial 711 or TTY: 800-346-4128.

Job Description
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 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.
Note: as of April 8, 2024, DHHS employees will be working a hybrid schedule, which includes 2 office days per week and 3 telework days.
Why work for the Utah Department of Health and Human Services? In addition to the rich the State of Utah offers, the department offers:

• On-site fitness center, for a minimal membership fee
• UTA Eco Pass, at a discounted monthly rate
• Teleworking opportunities with a minimum 2 office days per week beginning 04/2024.
• On-site day care center at the Cannon Health Building with First Steps Day Care - contact for rates and availability, 385-382-4012 or

For more information on the Utah Department of Health and Human Services, please click
If offered this position, your employment will be contingent upon passing a background check and review. There will be no cost to you for this check. This check will include fingerprinting, which will be available at various DHHS locations for your convenience. Fingerprinting will be completed prior to your first day of employment. You may review the policy by clicking here.
Responsibilities

• Reports total quarterly costs of the Medicaid program to Federal Agencies to procure federal funds.
• Forecasts changes in member enrollment and costs for implementation of new initiatives, including implementing predictive analytics and time-series forecasting for certain problems.
• Automates complex reporting and extract, transform, load (ETL) processes.
• Builds on existing reports to expand their scope and efficiency.
• Builds data visualizations and interactive dashboards, including with open-source tools, preferably Bokeh or Dash in Python or FlexDashboard or Shiny in R.
• Documents the data warehouse, including locations and meanings of key fields and how they can be joined with other data.
• Documents issues with the data warehouse and communicates those issues effectively to the appropriate parties.
• Builds new mathematical paradigms to model unknown enrollment patterns, such as disenrollment trends with the end of the public health emergency (related to COVID-19), as well as predicting enrollment within new benefit programs.
• Categorizes, stratifies, and assigns priorities to risk factors for covered clients.
• Arrays the data in terms of demographics, eligibility components, age, sex, severity of illness, etc., and use of data in conjunction with analysis of various services.
• Provides statistical and accounting data to obtain federal approval for State of Utah waiver requests.
• Maintains areas of the State Plan and Administrative Rules dealing with reimbursement, including interfacing with federal officials to ensure compliance with federal regulations.
• Designs detailed analysis, summarizes findings, and communicates effectively to management and other staff.
• Provides day-to-day monitoring and tracking of assigned reimbursement programs ensuring accurate payment of planned expenditures.
• Independently finds solutions to problems.

Qualifications
(Includes knowledge, skills, and abilities required upon entry into position and trainable after entry into position)

• Create advanced SQL procedures to extract, categorize, monitor, manipulate and organize data for solving agency problems.
• Utilize moderate to advanced skills in Python or R to create workflow programs, import data, and perform high-level analyses.
• Forecast member enrollment using time-series techniques and predictive analytics.
• Store and maintain code and documentation within GitHub repositories.
• Independently evaluate patterns in data to explain variances in utilization and practice patterns.
• Perform advanced mathematical calculations to solve problems.
• Procure and track administration of contracts, grants, or similar agreements.
• Weigh the relative costs and benefits of a potential action.
• Make a decision or solve a problem by using logic to identify key facts, explore alternatives, and propose quality solutions.
• Use logic to analyze or identify underlying principles, reasons, or facts associated with information or data to draw conclusions.
• Assess the operational impact of legislation or audit recommendations on services.
• Understand principles, theories, and practices of the Medicaid/Medicare system.
• Plan, organize and prioritize time and workload to accomplish tasks and meet deadlines.
• Perform statistical sampling, modeling, and analysis techniques.
• Compile, code, categorize, calculate, tabulate, audit, verify, or process information or data.
• Read, interpret, and apply laws, rules, regulations, policies and/or procedures.
• Read and interpret reporting technical specifications from federal regulators.
• Compose and produce reports, documents, and related materials.
• Communicate information and ideas clearly, and concisely, in writing; read and understand information presented in writing.
• Work independently to find new solutions to problems.

Supplemental Information

• Effective July 1, 2021, State of Utah Employees must either reside in Utah or be in the process of relocating to 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.
• 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.

Benefits:
The State of Utah offers eligible employees a variety of benefits including medical, dental, life and disability insurance, as well as a comprehensive leave program. Please click the following link for a detailed information page: To access a Total Compensation Calculator in Excel format click

FMLA General Notice:
(right click + open link in new tab)
(clic derecho + abrir en una pestaa nueva?)
01

Your answers to the questions on this posting must be supported by the duties, experience, and information listed in your profile's work and education history, not your resume. Please select "YES" to indicate you understand the validity of your claims will be based upon information contained within your application, not your resume. Unsubstantiated claims, exclusion of information, or incomplete answers may result in the disqualification of your application or of the question. Entering "see resume" will be considered an incomplete answer.

• Yes

02

Please indicate how you heard about this specific job posting.

• State of Utah job site (www.governmentjobs.com/careers/utah)
• Referred by a Friend or Family
• Indeed
• Other External Job Board or Site
• LinkedIn
• Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
• DWS job website (www.jobs.utah.gov)
• Advertisement (Digital Ad, Billboard, Print, etc.)
• Professional Network (Association, Membership, Work Colleague)
• University Network (Handshake, School Job Board, Career Center, etc.)
• Contacted by a Recruiter
• Career or Job Fair
• Internship
• Interviewed for different position
• Internal communications (Agency/Division, etc.)
• Other (not listed above)

03

In applying for this position, I understand that any offer of employment would be contingent upon me successfully completing a background screening as per the Utah Department of Health and Human Services Background Screening Policy and that my start date might change if the background check is not back by the original start date. . Link to the policy can be found in the job description.

• Yes

04

Are you a current employee of the Utah Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS)?

• Yes
• No

05

What is(are) your level(s) of educational achievement? Select all that apply.

• Bachelor's degree in a highly technical field (statistics, mathematics, etc.)
• Master's or higher degree in a highly technical field (statistics, mathematics, etc.)
• Bachelor's degree in a not highly technical but related field (business or health administration, etc.)
• Master's or higher degree in a not highly technical but related field (business or health administration, etc.)
• Bachelor's degree in an unrelated field.
• Master's degree in an unrelated field
• No degree

06

Please rate your professional experience analyzing insurance/Medicaid/Medicare data.

• No experience
• Limited (1-2 years)
• Moderate (2-5 years)
• Extensive (5 or more years)

07

Please select all relational database paradigms you have experience using. Select all that apply.

• Oracle SQL
• Amazon Redsift
• Other SQL interfaces (Hive, Databricks, Snowflake, MySQL, etc.)
• Open-source database structures
• Microsoft Access
• Other
• None

08

Please select those you have experience with, specifically using open-source tools (R, Python, etc.). Select all that apply.

• Executing Queries
• Generating Reports
• Extract Transform Load Processes
• Predictive Analytics
• FlexDahsboard or RShiny
• Bokeh or Dash (Python)
• None

09

Please describe experiences you have with open-source tools (Python R, etc.), including how they have been used to solve real-world problems.
10

Please rate your professional experience using SQL.

• No experience
• Limited (1-2 years)
• Moderate (2-5 years)
• Extensive 5 or more years)

11

Please rate your ability to learn new concepts quickly, critically think and solve problems with no obvious/known answer.

• Not good/unable
• Neither good nor bad
• Good
• Excellent

12

Please describe specific situations in which you have had to learn new concepts quickly, critical think, and solve problems with no obvious/known answer:
13

Please indicate your experience using Git/GitHub/GitLab. Please check all that apply.

• Have used these tools with a web-browser interface
• Have used these tools with a client (GitHub Desktop, etc.)
• Have used these tools with a command-line interface
• Have used these tools to store code
• Have used these tools to collaborate on coding projects
• Have used these tools for project version control
• Have used these tools to write/maintain documentation in Wikis
• No experience

14

Please rate your experience with data mining.

• No experience
• Limited (1-2 years)
• Moderate (2-5 years)
• Extensive (5 or more years)

15

Please describe your experience with data mining and your methods for obtaining the various data. Please include specific examples of queries, reports, analyses, and other use of data mining techniques that you have personally created, as well as the programs used.
16

Please rate your experience with time-series forecasting and/or predictive analytics.

• No experience
• Limited (1-2 years)
• Moderate (2-5 years)
• Extensive (5 or more years)

17

Please describe your experience with time-series forecasting and/or predictive analytics to solve real-world problems.
Required Question