Data Fellow Jobs

THIS IS A NON-CIVIL SERVICE POSITION

CITY OF BALTIMORE

MAYOR’S OFFICE OF PERFORMANCE AND INNOVATION

CITY DATA FELLOW

OPENING DATE: 4/28/23

CLOSING DATE: Continuous

SALARY: $65,000

Job Duties

Help city government agencies leverage their data as a Data Fellow with the new City Data Fellows program in the Mayor’s Office of Performance & Innovation! As a Data Fellow, you will:

• Have the support, guidance, and management of the Mayor’s Office of Performance & Innovation
• Have a seat at the table with leaders in city government who will use your work to inform their decision-making
• Be paired with an agency staffer (a “Departmental Champion”) who is close to the issues and data and needs your help!
• Demonstrate to the city agency that hiring you permanently after your fellowship ends is a wise investment
• Use the power of data to improve city government service to our citizens

Here are some examples of the type of work you might do once you’re matched with an agency:

• Database design and implementation. Some agencies may identify data that they would like to begin capturing, or have captured but is either paper or is otherwise not stored in a way that it can be efficiently used. You might design a relational database that could be used for future applications.
• Automation of manual tasks. Many agencies have data reporting requirements or use basic metrics to drive decisions, but rely on manual calculations or repeated analysis procedures that could be automated, saving employees time.
• Improvement of spreadsheet models or tools. Sometimes a spreadsheet really is the best tool for the job. Microsoft Excel is a powerful tool, but is not always used to its fullest extent. You might improve existing spreadsheet tools with formulas, pivot tables, and macros, for example.
• Process workflow and optimization. Many city government processes and workflows could use some new thinking and rearranging. You might help a city agency use data or technology to improve a process or introduce some much-needed efficiency and standardization.
• Program or policy evaluation. Agencies may already be collecting data that would indicate whether programs or policies are effective, wise investments but don’t currently have the capacity to analyze the data properly to make this assessment. An evaluation will help city leaders decide how to best use their resources.
• Dashboard or analytics tools. Dashboards are a good way of using data to drive day-to-day operations or for strategic decision making.

Knowledge, Skills And Abilities

We expect:

• By the sixth month, you’ll have refined your solution by gathering feedback and producing better analysis, and you’ll also likely have identified a side project or two with your Departmental Champion and agency
• By the third month, you’ll prototype your solution, begin to gather feedback from users and stakeholders, and have some baseline data for your success indicators
• In the first month, you will understand the problem, you’ll access and explore relevant data, propose one or two ideas on how to solve the problem, and propose some success indicators for how we’ll know your solution is working

A little about the program:

• The City Data Fellows program is a new program that launched in the summer of 2019, contingent upon the new fiscal year budget being approved
• The motivation for the new program is to add data and problem-solving capacity to city government agencies

A little about us:

• The Innovation Team is currently funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies; we use data and human-centered design to bring new ideas to one Mayoral priority at a time
• CitiStat is City Hall’s performance management and accountability team; we use data to measure city agency performance and progress towards Mayoral goals
• The Innovation Team has primarily focused on recruiting & hiring for the Baltimore Police Department
• The recently formed Mayor’s Office of Performance & Innovation combines the Innovation Team (formerly the Mayor’s Office of Innovation) and CitiStat

Minimum Qualifications

You should apply if:

• You’re committed to the City of Baltimore and care about serving fellow residents
• You’re excited about furthering the cause of data-driven performance in Baltimore city government
• You have a technical background - science, technology, engineering, and math - or have picked up data analysis and/or some programming knowledge in your education or early career
• You can demonstrate your ability to derive insights from data and communicate those insights to a non-technical audience

TO APPLY:

Application Instructions:

• Write a 300 word statement on why you should be a City Data Fellow.
• We request that your resume and statement be submitted as Microsoft Word rather than PDF document.

Apply Online: www.baltimorecity.gov

BALTIMORE CITY IS AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER