Data Scientist II

Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey empowers our members to achieve their best health.  For over 90 years, we have been New Jersey’s health solutions leader driving innovations that improve health care quality, affordability, and member experience.  Our members are our neighbors, our friends, and our families.  It is this understanding that drives us to better serve and care for the 3.5 million people who place their trust in us. We pride ourselves on our best-in-class employees and strive to maintain an innovative and inclusive environment that allows them to thrive. When our employees bring their best and succeed, the Company succeeds. 

The Data Scientists is responsible for modeling complex business problems, discovering new business insights and finding opportunities through the use of algorithmic, statistical, data-mining and visualization techniques. In addition, this role also integrates and prepares large, varied datasets and designs and builds specialized databases and computing environments (data modelling development and architecture). The incumbents communicate and present results of their research in a structured and clear way that can be easily understood by various business stakeholders and clients. Ultimately, the Data Scientists work closely with various stakeholders across the Corporation to turn data into meaningful insights that is then used to make sound business decisions.

• Works under general direction to model complex business problems, discover business insights and identify opportunities through the use of statistical, algorithmic, mining and visualization techniques.
• Selects pertinent and relevant sources of information in collaboration with company subject matter experts.
• Authorizes and qualifies where information can be stored and what information, external to the organization, may be used in support of various projects and initiatives.
• Assesses the volume of data supporting projects and initiatives, the type of data (i.e. text, images, clickstream or metering data) and the speed or sudden variations in data collection.
• Collaborates with other discipline areas in the Analytics and Data Division to ensure that information used follows the compliance, access/security management, and control policies and that it meets the qualification and assurance requirements of the Corporation.
• Recommends ongoing improvements to methods and algorithms that lead to findings, including new information.
• Presents and illustrates the rationale of findings in easy to understand terms for the business.
• Identifies and determines what data is available and relevant, including both internal and external data sources, leveraging new data collection processes.
• Works with the appropriate teams to support and enhance data collection, integration, and retention requirements based on the input collected with the project/initiative clients and stakeholders.
• Solves client analytics problems and disseminates/communicates results and methodologies.
• Works in iterative processes with the client and other stakeholders and validates findings.
• Validates findings and tests hypotheses through the development of experimental design approaches.
• Assesses, with stakeholders and clients, the expected qualification and assurance of the information in support of projects and initiatives.

Education/Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree required or 12 years of relevant experience in lieu of degree.
• 5+ year of experience using databases, manipulating large datasets, developing ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) routines and various data cleansing and data normalization process and techniques.
• 5+ years of ML model selection, testing, training, monitoring
• 5+ year of experience with a general-purpose programming language such as Python/R (applied to big data frameworks such as Hadoop MapReduce, Spark, others).

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Strong knowledge of advanced statistical and modelling techniques.
• Strong technical and programming skills (Big data frameworks such as Hadoop MapReduce, Java, others), and statistical modeling (such as R/Python/Enterprise Miner).
• Applied experience using applicable machine learning algorithms for varying business needs and providing supporting evidence of recommendations--Linear/Logistic regression models, PCA/SVM, boosting techniques, cluster analysis, neural networks.
• Proficiency in the use of statistical software and packages.
• Proficiency in forecasting/predictive analytics, quantitative analytics, statistical analysis, multivariate testing, and optimization algorithms.

Horizon BCBSNJ employees must live in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut or Delaware

Salary Range:

$108,000 - $147,420

​This compensation range is specific to the job level and takes into account the wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions, including but not limited to: education, experience, licensure, certifications, geographic location, and internal equity.  This range has been created in good faith based on information known to Horizon at the time of posting.  Compensation decisions are dependent on the circumstances of each case. Horizon also provides a comprehensive compensation and benefits package which includes:

• Comprehensive health benefits (Medical/Dental/Vision)

• Retirement Plans

• Generous PTO

• Incentive Plans

• Wellness Programs

• Paid Volunteer Time Off

• Tuition Reimbursement

Disclaimer:
This job summary has been designed to indicate the general nature and level of work performed by colleagues within this classification. It is not designed to contain or be interpreted as a comprehensive inventory of all duties, responsibilities, and qualifications required of colleagues assigned to this job.

Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, protected veteran status or status as an individual with a disability and any other protected class as required by federal, state or local law.  Horizon will consider reasonable accommodation requests as part of the recruiting and hiring process.