Data Scientist (Databricks, Mosaic AI)

About Peregrine

Peregrine Advisors is a rapidly growing AI and data innovation hub helping government solve hard problems and deliver better outcomes. We work across the full lifecycle—from strategy and governance through architecture, engineering, analytics, AI, visualization, and training—for clients including the SEC, PCAOB, DDOT, and DCAA.

Our clients describe our support as “absolutely excellent” and our people as “instrumental to organization’s success.” Winner of the United Nations COP27 Datathon, our work has earned all Exceptional CPARS ratings, SEC Chair’s Awards, the SEC Vision Award, and recognition from FDA leadership.

We are also built differently. Peregrine is the first and only social enterprise organized as a Benefit Corporation and SBA 8(a) company focused on AI and data for government. We believe business success should create client value, social value, and opportunity for our people.

As we enter our next stage of growth, we need dependable, motivated, and skilled people who have a combination of intellectual curiosity and intellectual courage. With new clients, larger programs, and expanding responsibilities, the people joining Peregrine now will have the opportunity to help shape the company we become.

People first. Ownership always.

We solve problems through people, process, and technology, in that order. Technology matters, but people make transformation happen. That principle defines our culture. Trust and motivation are the foundational pillars of delivery on which our skills stand. We hire people we can trust, who care deeply about what they do, take ownership, learn quickly, help one another, and refuse to walk past a problem because it belongs to someone else.

At Peregrine, you are not joining simply to fill a position. You are joining a team, taking ownership of a mission, and helping build a company. If that excites you, we should talk.

At Peregrine Advisors, you will build, evaluate, and put into production the machine learning and generative AI models a federal agency relies on. But we hire people, not seats. As the work evolves, you will learn new systems and tools, take on greater responsibility, and help develop the firm's capabilities, tools, and lines of business. We move our best to where the hardest problems are.

This is a full-time W-2 position with a salary of $110,000 to $140,000 per year. It is a remote position. The initial engagement requires United States citizenship; dual citizenship and green card holders are prohibited by the contract terms. It also requires the ability to satisfy the required suitability, security, and access requirements.

Your first project

Your first project will likely have you taking models and AI agents from experiment to production on Azure Databricks, with the evaluation evidence to show they work. Depending on the assignment, you may:

• Develop and train machine learning models on Azure Databricks, tracking experiments, models, and versions in MLflow.
• Build reusable features in the Databricks Feature Store, and serve models through Databricks Model Serving.
• Build retrieval and agent applications with Agent Bricks and Databricks AI Search (formerly Vector Search), using Azure OpenAI models through Microsoft Foundry.
• Evaluate model and agent quality with MLflow evaluation, including large language model (LLM) judges, labeled test sets, and human review.
• Monitor models in production for drift and quality, and write the documentation a model review asks for.

You deliver models the agency can trust and explain. You measure quality before and after release, record what each model is for and where it fails, and leave the team pipelines it can retrain and rerun without you.

This is where you start, not the shape of your career here.

Requirements

• 4+ years of data science or machine learning engineering experience, including models deployed to production
• Bachelor's degree
• Python for data science and machine learning, including pandas, scikit-learn, and PySpark
• Hands-on Azure Databricks work, including MLflow for experiment tracking and model management
• Deploying and monitoring models in production, including model serving, versioning, and drift monitoring
• Building LLM applications, including retrieval-augmented generation (RAG)
• Evaluating model and LLM output against defined metrics, test sets, and human review
• Structured Query Language (SQL) and Git-based version control
• Delivery experience in a federal government environment, working to its security, access, and review processes
• Proficiency in writing, PowerPoint, and Excel
• United States citizenship; dual citizenship and green card holders are prohibited by the contract terms
• The ability to satisfy the required suitability, security, and access requirements

Preferred

• Experience on a federal system accredited at Impact Level 5 (IL-5) or higher
• Agent Bricks, Databricks AI Search (formerly Vector Search), or MLflow 3 evaluation for generative AI
• Experience with a second managed machine-learning platform, such as Azure Machine Learning, Amazon SageMaker, or Google Vertex AI
• Azure OpenAI or other models in Microsoft Foundry
• Databricks certification, or a Microsoft Azure AI or data science certification
• Model risk management or model validation experience, including the documentation a model review asks for
• Familiarity with artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted developer tooling

Who you are

You care whether a model works, not only whether it trains. You define what good looks like before you build, test against it, and say so when a model is not ready. You experiment, fail, learn, and repeat quickly. You would rather own an outcome than be handed a task.

What you bring

• Hands-on machine learning on Azure Databricks, including MLflow, feature engineering, and model serving.
• Working experience building LLM applications, including retrieval and evaluation.
• The evaluation discipline that production models demand, including test sets, metrics, and monitoring.

You adapt your development workflow as AI tools evolve, using them to help implement, test, and improve the components you own. You give the tools clear context, review and test their output, and remain accountable for the code you deliver.

When we talk

Be prepared to discuss a difficult problem you worked through, the decisions you made, what happened, and what you learned.

Benefits

Medical, dental, and vision with the employee premium fully paid and half of dependent premiums; employer-paid life, accidental death, and short-term and long-term disability insurance; a 401(k) with an employer match of up to 4% of salary; unlimited paid time off; and sponsored professional certifications and continuing education.

What we offer

You will work alongside developers, engineers, data scientists, architects, and strategists, on work ranging from strategy to implementation. We support your development across assignments and clients through extensive onboarding, sponsored professional certifications such as the Data Management Capability Assessment Model (DCAM) and Amazon Web Services (AWS) technical certifications, and rotation across functions to expand your skills and perspective. The mission is real, the problems are hard, and you own what you ship.

What we commit to

As a Benefit Corporation, our commitment runs three ways: real, measurable value for our clients; government that works better for the public; and a team that makes everyone in it better.

We hire people who want to help build the firm, not just work at it. If that is you, apply.

Peregrine Advisors is an equal opportunity employer.

Peregrine exclusively works with OPEN Data Jobs to recruit our team. Register with OPEN Data Jobs to be considered for this and future openings.