Senior Research Associate

The Poverty Research Unit (PRU) of the Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity publishes the NYCgov poverty measure for New York City that is a nationally recognized metric for evaluating and targeting policies intended to reduce poverty. The NYCgov poverty measure has become an important tool for evaluating policies, assessing the progress the city has made over time in reducing poverty, and designing new policies to reduce current levels of economic deprivation. NYC Opportunity also releases an annual brief on the economic condition of immigrants in New York City, connecting economic outcomes to legal status.

We are seeking a qualified candidate to fill a permanent, full-time Senior Research Associate position.


  Responsibilities

Reporting to the Deputy Director, Poverty Research Unit (PRU), the Senior Research Associate will work on both data management and data analysis tasks. Data management includes streamlining the production of poverty metrics with version control, managing query efficiency, and adjusting data structures and toolsets as needed to meet evolving requirements. Data analysis will be related to poverty metrics, anti-poverty policies, and equity issues.

The position includes primary responsibility for maintaining and advancing NYC Opportunity’s poverty metrics and assisting in production of the NYCgov poverty measure. The position requires collaboration within the team and with cross-functional teams to extract insights from various data sources, build and maintain data pipelines, and develop impactful visualizations.

The Senior Research Associate's responsibilities will include:

  • Data Architecture Leadership:
    • Structuring and cleaning data for Poverty Research Unit.
    • Coordinate and manage data across income-components and version control of poverty metrics.
    • Streamlining production of poverty research data to ensure fast access to metrics.
    • Documenting research databases including description of content, context, and changes; enhancing ability to promote discovery through use of data.
    • Reviewing annual releases of American Community Survey for data changes, implementing compatibility with existing data and code, advising on potential impact in production of poverty metrics.
  • Data Analysis and Visualization:
    • Contributing to annual production of the NYCgov poverty measure.
    • Responding to rapid data requests.
    • Supporting modeling of policy alternatives and their comparative outcomes (antipoverty impacts and distributional consequences).
    • Identifying key stories (e.g., disparities in economic well-being across population cohorts) to drive engagement and decision-making across city agencies.
  • Hands-on leadership in applied statistics:
    • Actively participating in technical projects and providing guidance to other team members including semi-parametric modeling, missing data imputation, principal components analysis techniques.
  • Data Insights and strategies:
    • Formulate hypotheses and economic measures to drive insights and value creation.
    • Collaborate with the product team to create user-friendly applications to help the city agencies use our data products.
  • Data pipeline management and collaboration:
    • Build and maintain various indicator data pipelines with city agencies and external partners, ensuring efficient data flow and integrity.
    • Own the development and maintenance of data pipelines including new data on economic security and risks.
  • Efficiency Optimization:
    • Guide data architecture towards modern and efficient approaches.
    • Manage query efficiency and adjust data structures and toolsets as needed to meet evolving requirements.

  Skills We're Seeking

We understand that candidates may not have all of the skills we are seeking below. We encourage those interested to apply even if they do not meet all of them. We are looking for talented individuals to join our team.

You have proven experience in architecting and managing data systems is also preferred.

You have proficiency in at least one of the following languages is required: R, Stata or Python.

You have hands-on experience with AWS services.

You have familiarity with anti-poverty policies and benefit programs at the federal, state or local level such as SNAP, the Earned Income Tax Credit or housing assistance programs.

You have experience in policy, government, or non-profit, in particular with low-income and vulnerable youth, families and immigrant populations is a plus.

You have familiarity with administrative data or large datasets such as the American Community Survey, Current Population Survey or the NYC Housing and Vacancy Survey.

  Education and Experience

Must have a completed master’s degree from an accredited college in economics, public policy, data science, statistics or other relevant field and a Minimum two or three years of responsible fulltime research experience in the appropriate field of specialization or;

You have one year of full-time experience in a responsible supervisory, administrative or relevant research capacity with relevant Doctorate.

You have substantial progress towards a doctorate or extensive experience in advanced data analytics is strongly preferred.

  Benefits and Compensation

The City of New York Office of the Mayor’s compensation package includes a market competitive salary, equity for all full-time roles and exceptional benefits.

Our cash compensation range for this role is $92,301 to $106,146. Final offers may vary from the amount listed based on candidate experience and expertise, and other factors.

  How to Apply

The application window for the Sr. Research Associate position with the Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity is now open.

Please fill out the application form. The form will prompt you to upload a resume and coverletter. Applicants will be asked to provide a writing sample and a code sample related to a relevant research project.

Due to the volume of applications received we may not be able to respond to every application.