Policy Data Analyst

Location: Remote, New York City, or Oakland

• Travel of approximately one week per quarter may be required. 

Role Type: Full-time

Compensation:  $97,000

Visa sponsorship: Not available

Hires remotely in: United States

Experience: 2+ years

Recidiviz is thrilled to be hiring a Policy 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 who has creativity and inquisitiveness to identify and solve open-ended problems, clarity to think through complex and variable data, flexibility to adjust in a rapidly evolving environment, and above all else, a collaborative, kind nature to add to our culture.

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. 

Recidiviz’s policy team supports state DOC leaders that want to rewrite old policies or implement new ones, rooted in evidence and analytics, to improve outcomes, increase public safety and community health, and drive meaningful changes. We tailor data analysis, built on detailed DOC data, to answer questions like: What combination of criteria best select for probation clients who are safe to discharge? What static factors influence parole decisions today and how would that change if new, dynamic factors were added? How many people would X, Y, or Z adjustment to a policy affect and what can we say about the affected group? By translating concepts into concrete modeling, we help drive smarter and more ambitious change.

This role collaborates across several teams to guide work that targets the drivers of incarceration. Our Policy 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 the policy analyses that deepen our understanding of the criminal justice system and motivate policy change. Our Policy Data Analysts translate policy concepts into quantitative metrics, perform analyses, and play a key role in contextualizing and presenting their analyses to stakeholders, both internal and external. 

Travel of approximately one week per quarter may be required. 

• →Leveraging criminal justice datasets to generate context-responsive insights that expand  momentum for policy reform
• →Adapting analytical methods to evidence detailed policy concepts and quantify policy-design tradeoffs
• →Contextualizing and communicating key findings to internal and external stakeholders
• →Collaborating with our Data Science and Implementation Engineering teams to design and execute on targeted roadmaps that drive impact in the states where we work
• →Collaborating with our Product Management and State Engagement teams to bring analyses and data modeling into administrative and legislative policy processes

A year from now:

• You’ve driven impact. Your work has informed several policy reforms across the country and has helped quantify the impact those reforms are having on the outcomes of the justice system.
• You’ve leveled up our analytical team. Your contributions to our analytics and processes, as well as your support for your teammates, has helped set our team up to achieve more impact sooner.

• 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, legislators, political consultants, researchers, journalists, technical staff, and practitioners in criminal justice reform
• Sufficient math or statistical background to reason about analysis design, examine results closely, and prepare data and analyses that are usable for various applications
• 2 or more years of practical experience exploring, analyzing, and processing complex datasets
• Professional work experience using SQL to work with large datasets, including high proficiency writing efficient queries for more complex data extraction and transformation tasks
• High familiarity with Python, specifically Pandas package, for tasks such as statistical analysis and data visualization

• Ability to discern when and how analysis is actionable for stakeholders; ability to “wear your public servant hat” while conducting analysis
• Experience adapting quantitative methods that introduce intuitively meaningful metrics in ambiguous, unconstrained contexts
• Experience balancing depth and speed when navigating short timelines and shifting priorities
• Experience working with large datasets from the public sector, especially related to criminal justice
• Familiarity with our data stack, which includes Google Cloud Platform, BigQuery, Looker, Jupyter notebooks, and Python/Pandas

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 18 state partners – big and small, red and blue – and covers more than 40% 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 :).

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!