Chief Data Scientist - TS/SCI Clearance

Harnham

Full Timeexecutive

Washington, District of Columbia, USPosted February 27, 2026

Job Description

Washington, DC - 4 days/week onsite

$325,000 - $375,000 + Bonus + Benefits

Harnham is partnered with a cutting-edge government contractor in the DC area. They are looking for an AI leader with a strong background in building production-grade LLM / natural language platforms in federal spaces. This person will lead a growing part of the AI research team and partner with government agencies on projects across defense, cybersecurity, robotics and human language technology.

THE ROLE

As the Chief Data Scientist, you will be required to:

Show technical leadership of machine learning and NLP models for production
Work closely across different ML and engineering teams on both model development and production
Own new projects supporting various business functions and product development
Partner directly with the C-suite on data science direction
Expand upon existing AI platforms
Provide deep knowledge and leadership in data science

YOUR SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE

The successful Chief Data Scientist will likely have the following skills and experience:

Top Secret Clearance required (TS/SCI Poly preferred)
PhD in Computer Science or similar STEM field required
History of owning development of scalable ML models in federal spaces
Team management experience required
Strong Python coding - ability to step in to support the team as needed
High level of comfort partnering with executive teams; history of pitching new concepts / getting buy-in
Experience with NLP preferred
Defense or cybersecurity experience preferred
Comfortable with LLMs, Generative AI and AI Agents
Proven communicator with technical team, clients and senior stakeholders

THE BENEFITS

A competitive base salary of $325,000 - $375,000 + bonus + benefits