Senior Research Scientist - Craft Education

If you’re passionate about building a better future for individuals, communities, and our country—and you’re committed to working hard to play your part in building that future—consider WGU as the next step in your career.

Driven by a mission to expand access to higher education through online, competency-based degree programs, WGU is also committed to being a great place to work for a diverse workforce of student-focused professionals. The university has pioneered a new way to learn in the 21st century, one that has received praise from academic, industry, government, and media leaders. Whatever your role, working for WGU gives you a part to play in helping students graduate, creating a better tomorrow for themselves and their families.

The salary range for this position takes into account the wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions including but not limited to skill sets; experience and training; licensure and certifications; and other business and organizational needs.

At WGU, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their position, and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case. A reasonable estimate of the current range is:
 

Pay Range: $106,700.00 - $165,400.00

Job Description

Responsibilities

Primary Responsibilities

• Drives the documentation of data and research needs in projects of high complexity with a student and equity-centered lens, collaborating with peers, cross-functional partners, faculty staff, and leaders.  Leads the translation of user stories into technical requirements.
• Sets and manages expectations about complex research tasks and activities through clear, timely, and effective communication with partners and stakeholders.
• Identifies adequate data sources and data sets to evaluate hypotheses, build forecasts, and support findings of research projects and experiments.  Answers complex questions requiring extensive knowledge of WGU and Craft data assets across several domains and departments.
• Collaborates with Data Engineering in the development of complex ETL/ELT processes and data pipelines.
• Identifies, investigates, and solves complex data issues, contributing to the accuracy, completeness, consistency, timeliness, and validity of WGU data.
• Collaborates with Data Engineering and other data & analytics partners to define standards and best practices that increase data quality across the university.
• Utilizes software, scripts, and algorithms to perform data-related tasks (e.g., importing, cleaning, transforming, analyzing, displaying) without human intervention.  Plays a leading role in identifying and seizing new automation opportunities.
• Combines data analysis, visualization, and narrative structures to convey information in compelling ways that instigate deliberate action.
• Plays a prominent role in other team members’ development through constructive feedback and sharing of technical and institutional knowledge.
• Conveys information effectively to peers, partners, senior leaders, and, as projects require, external audiences using a variety of resources and formats (synchronous and asynchronous, verbal and written) such as e-mails, presentations, meetings, and workshops.  Is open and responsive to feedback to improve work.
• Defines and owns, in collaboration with communications team, as relevant, communication plans for complex projects and programs.
• Creates and organizes information about processes, projects, operations, data assets, and insights from analyses and research, making it accessible in ways that increase the university’s knowledge and efficiency.
• Drives tasks, activities, and large-scale projects with high levels of autonomy, confidence, and collaboration with peers and partners.  Contributes to organizational discussions and activities to build culture and advance strategic direction.
• Owns the research plan and executes following systematic and structured approaches that ensure the validity, reliability, and meaningfulness of research findings while remaining open to necessary adjustments and adaptations as circumstances require.
• Efficiently organizes, critically reads, and clearly synthesizes across findings and limitations.
• Tracks and reports own progress, dependencies, and challenges diligently.  Breaks down complex goals into concrete tasks and activities, and actively supports leader in project planning.
• Understands and abides by the relevant policies and methods to access, use, transform, store, and delete data in responsible, secure, and compliant ways. 
• Identifies data security risks when dealing with concrete data sets and takes adequate mitigation actions.
• Designs medium-scale solutions and collaborates effectively with other technical specialists (e.g., data engineers) in the construction of data products, systems, and applications.
• Supports leadership in strategic planning and contributes to operational excellence across the department.
• Works actively to improve own skills and knowledge through internal and external, formal and informal, structured and unstructured learning.  Is a lifelong learner and embodies a growth mindset.  Stays abreast of innovative developments in their area of work, and plays an active role in deploying them in the department and at the university.
• Performs other job-related duties as assigned.

This job description includes a general representation of job requirements rather than a comprehensive inventory of all required responsibilities or work activities.  The contents of this document or related job requirements may change at any time with or without notice.

Qualifications

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Advanced knowledge in accessing, retrieving, manipulating, inserting, and deleting data from structured and unstructured databases.
• Highly proficient and experienced in using tools like Tableau and Power BI to present data and information utilizing charts, graphs, and maps, in ways that make it easy to understand trends, patterns, and outliers.
• Highly experienced in selecting and deploying methods and techniques to conduct studies, including A/B testing, quasi-experimental, mixed methods, and others.
• Ability to perform analysis tasks and follows research plans under minimal guidance and supervision.  Has experience working with qualitative research software.
• Highly proficient and experienced in using tools to identify valid and reliable sources of research, using critical thinking, judgment, and reading skills.
• Highly experienced in the creation of surveys that elicit clear and relevant inputs from target groups, and in using them to acquire data to draw meaningful conclusions.
• Advanced experience in the selection and deployment of a variety of mathematical models, forecasting methods (e.g., time series, inferential, regression), descriptive statistics, and classification algorithms to make predictions and identify relationships based on limited sets of data.
• Experience using Python, R, and/or Natural Language Processing in an ML environment is a bonus.
• Comfortable with common project management methodologies and frameworks (e.g., Waterfall, Agile, SDLC).
• Proficient in the MS Office suite, including advanced Excel knowledge.
• Familiarity with flowchart and diagramming tools like Miro, Visio, Lucidchart, and similar applications is a bonus.
• Familiarity with the university’s most relevant KPIs, the drivers that affect them, and plays an active role in their definition and tracking.
• Ability to apply sound judgment, systems-thinking, and analytical skills to assess risks, perform root-cause analyses, make recommendations, and drive cross-functional decisions that contribute to the achievement of WGU’s objectives.
• Ability to perform assigned tasks with very high levels of autonomy, reliability, self-direct, and with a bias for action.  Manages conflicting and concurrent activities with minimal need of supervision.

Education          

• Master’s degree in a related discipline or equivalent experience

Experience

• 7 years of related experience in Economics, Business Intelligence, Research, Learning Science, Behavioral/Cognitive Psychology, or other Social Sciences.

Experience in lieu of education

An equivalent combination of training, experience, credentials, or accomplishments demonstrating the ability to perform the essential functions of this job may substitute for education degree requirements.

Position & Application Details

Full-Time Regular Positions (classified as regular and working 40 standard weekly hours): This is a full-time, regular position (classified for 40 standard weekly hours) that is eligible for bonuses; medical, dental, vision, telehealth and mental healthcare; health savings account and flexible spending account; basic and voluntary life insurance; disability coverage; accident, critical illness and hospital indemnity supplemental coverages; legal and identity theft coverage; retirement savings plan; wellbeing program; discounted WGU tuition; and flexible paid time off for rest and relaxation with no need for accrual, flexible paid sick time with no need for accrual, 11 paid holidays, and other paid leaves, including up to 12 weeks of parental leave.

How to Apply: If interested, an application will need to be submitted online. Internal WGU employees will need to apply through the internal job board in Workday.

Additional Information

Disclaimer: The job posting highlights the most critical responsibilities and requirements of the job. It’s not all-inclusive.

Accommodations: Applicants with disabilities who require assistance or accommodation during the application or interview process should contact our Talent Acquisition team at recruiting@wgu.edu.

Equal Opportunity Employer: We are an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or protected veteran status.