Data Analyst (Entry-Level)

Data Analyst

Location: Remote, New York City, or Oakland, CA

• Travel is encouraged approximately once per year to state partners within the continental USA, and occasionally required. We expect these trips to include visits to prisons and parole offices.

Role Type: Full-time

Compensation: $85,000

Visa sponsorship: Not available

Hires remotely in: United States

Experience: 6+ months of professional work experience, including internships or research

Recidiviz is thrilled to be hiring a Data Analyst to join our team! We're a small, fast-moving group that works with complex criminal justice data from our state partners and develops analyses and tools that target the drivers of incarceration. That's where you come in. We're looking for someone early in their data career who brings attention to detail to our analyses, curiosity to dig into unfamiliar and messy data, clarity in explaining what they find, flexibility to adjust in a rapidly evolving environment, and above all else, a collaborative, kind nature to add to our culture.

About us

Recidiviz is creating safer, healthier communities by improving outcomes for people in the criminal justice system. We build technology to reduce the number of people in prison and to help criminal justice leaders embrace data-driven decision-making.

Using software tools and thoughtful product design, we've been able to safely and permanently reduce incarceration and improve outcomes. We work side-by-side with leaders of the criminal justice system, people in prison and on supervision, and ecosystem partners to build a better path forward. In addition to the revenue we earn from state partners, some of the most respected philanthropists and foundations support our work.

People who succeed at Recidiviz lead with kindness and humility, assume good intent, learn from failure, and fix problems when they see them. They are excited to work arm in arm with government leadership and staff to improve outcomes. They are great listeners. They build deep relationships with and empathy for the people we work with and the people who our mission serves, even when those two groups feel at odds.

About the role

This role works alongside experienced analysts and teammates across several teams on work that targets the drivers of incarceration. Our Data Analysts work with diverse data (criminal justice data both raw and processed from across the country, reports and policy documents from government agencies, and much more) to develop our understanding of the criminal justice system and to motivate change. In this role, you'll carry out well-defined analyses, build clear visualizations with our existing tools, and support product launches by preparing the data each product needs in each state. You'll share your findings with teams across Recidiviz and, alongside teammates, with our state partners.

Core responsibilities

• Exploring our datasets to find patterns and insights about American criminal justice systems
• Carrying out well-scoped analyses with guidance from senior analysts and our State Engagement team
• Supporting product launches in the states where we work by following established launch processes, preparing the analytical data each launch needs, and flagging data discrepancies as they come up
• Building clear, well-documented visualizations and dashboards using our existing tools
• Communicating findings to internal teams, and presenting to state partners alongside teammates
• Analyzing trends in areas related to our own work to understand how our products function

Wild success

A year from now:

• You've contributed to real impact. Your analyses have supported product launches in the states you work with and have helped measure the impact those tools are having on the justice system.
• You've become a go-to analyst for your states. You know their data, policies, and products well, and you answer new questions with growing independence and the right tool for each job.

Minimum qualifications

• Strong communication and collaboration skills, to help nurture a knowledgeable, data-oriented culture
• Enthusiasm for working with internal and external partners from diverse backgrounds and worldviews, such as government staff, researchers, journalists, technical staff, and practitioners in criminal justice reform
• Care and curiosity in inspecting source data and checking results closely, so the data and analyses you prepare can be trusted and reused
• 6 or more months of practical experience exploring, analyzing, and cleaning real-world datasets. Internships and research count, and part-time roles count when their hours add up to roughly 6 months of full-time work.
• Working proficiency in SQL, including joins, aggregations, and window functions
• Familiarity with Python, specifically the Pandas package, for data analysis and visualization

Preferred qualifications

• Interest in criminal justice or public policy, or experience working with public-sector data
• Experience with a BI or dashboarding tool such as Looker or Tableau
• Familiarity with any part of our data stack, which includes Google Cloud Platform, BigQuery, Looker, Jupyter notebooks, and Python/Pandas

Compensation

Compensation is standardized based on roles and responsibilities. This ensures equitable compensation and responsible stewardship of our resources. As such, we do not negotiate compensation offers.

The annual compensation for this role is: $85,000.

What we offer

• Effective, extremely thoughtful colleagues, working together on a mission that matters
• 90% medical, dental, and vision insurance coverage for you and your dependents
• Flexible time off, including 20 days of PTO, 3 days of paid volunteering time, and 13 paid holidays
• 12 weeks of paid parental leave
• 401(k) retirement plan with 5% company match and no vesting period
• Complimentary One Medical membership (depending on location)
• Partnership with Carrot to provide employees with inclusive fertility and family-forming benefits, as well as a small but growing number of hormonal health and gender-affirming care benefits
• Monthly ClassPass credit for personal wellness
• Free mental health support via Talkspace
• Well-located offices in Oakland and Manhattan, with the flexibility to work remotely or go into either office as you choose
• An annual company offsite each spring and other ad-hoc gatherings
• All the exhilarating challenges and stretch opportunities of a tech startup, combined with the mission-driven heart of a nonprofit

More about Recidiviz

Recidiviz was an all-volunteer effort until early 2019, when Clementine, Andrew, and Joshua founded the organization. Since then, we've built an A-team of software engineers, designers, product managers and domain experts, from companies like Google, Apple, Dropbox, Opower, and Sidewalk Labs. Recidiviz was part of Y-Combinator's 2019 class and has received support from some of the most respected philanthropists and foundations, including Ford Foundation, Mackenzie Scott, Schmidt Futures, Arnold Ventures, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and the Mozilla Foundation.

Today, Recidiviz works with (and earns revenue from) over 19 state partners – big and small, red and blue – and covers more than 45% of the US incarcerated population. We have helped to get tens of thousands of people out of the criminal justice system, safely and equitably, and saved states nearly $1 billion. In the next five years, Recidiviz plans to partner with 40 states and help 250,000 people who are stuck in the system to get out and stay out. In addition to partnering with state Departments of Corrections, Recidiviz collaborates with and learns from partners – from organizations like the Correctional Leaders Association (CLA) to community based organizations and justice-impacted individuals, whose perspectives guide our work.

To learn more about how we do what we do, check out our 2024 Year in Review, read some press coverage, or watch our TED Talk. And if you're really keen to see our work, you can dive into our Github :).

An important note

Lasting change is always built on diversity. Recidiviz recruits, employs, trains, compensates and promotes regardless of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, disability, age, veteran status, ancestry, citizenship, marital status, gender identity and all protected status as required by applicable law. We consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you have a special need that requires accommodation, please let us know in your application. Even if you don't think you meet all the criteria above, drop your resume, and we'll take a look – you might be great for another role or another time!