Senior Data Scientist
Peraton · Fort Meade, MD
$146,000–$234,000from the description
Jul 9, 2026
Fort Meade, MD
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A senior-level data science role embedded within a cyber defense mission, focused on building and validating predictive and prescriptive machine learning models to support threat characterization and operational decision-making. Day-to-day work spans statistical analysis, anomaly detection, event correlation, and translating mission partner requirements into analytic solutions. The role also carries a mentorship responsibility for junior data scientists and requires an active Top Secret clearance.
Senior level · 12+ years · Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV · Top Secret clearance · Full-time
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
Posted 2 times — it's one opening, so apply once.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $135,107 (middle half $108,024–$176,763). This posting is about at that midpoint.
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Jul 28, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (9)
The clearance requirement is stated as 'TS with ability to obtain/maintain SCI' — the candidate must hold an active Top Secret clearance and be able to obtain SCI access; this is treated as a Top Secret gate (not yet full TS/SCI).
Experience requirement is tiered by degree: 12 years with BS/BA, 10 with MS/MA, 7 with Ph.D., 14 with Associates, 16 with HS diploma. The 12-year BS/BA figure is used as the overall years minimum per convention, but the effective bar is lower for advanced-degree holders.
No formal degree is hard-required — the posting explicitly accepts a high school diploma with sufficient experience, so the degree requirement is set to None.
'ML model development and deployment' and 'statistical analysis and hypothesis testing' are listed under Required Qualifications and treated as hard gates, though they name capabilities rather than specific named tools; they are included because the JD explicitly calls them out as required skills.
'Knowledge of cyber defense operations' is listed under Required Qualifications but qualified with 'preferred', making it an unusual in-section preferred item — treated as preferred accordingly.
AWS/Azure certifications and a Master's degree appear under Preferred Qualifications. AWS and Azure are surfaced as preferred skills; the certification aspect is noted separately as a preferred credential.
The alt SOC 15-1212 (Information Security Analysts) is flagged because the role is embedded in a Defensive Cyber Operations mission context, though the primary day-to-day work is clearly data science and ML modeling.
Ignored 2 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): ML model development, cyber defense operations.
Requires a Top Secret clearance — the cleared population is a small fraction of this occupation, so the real candidate pool is materially smaller than the estimate below, which does not model clearance.
Read the full posting
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