Job description
If you’re passionate about building a better future for individuals, communities, and our country—and you’re committed to working hard to play your part in building that future—consider WGU as the next step in your career.
Driven by a mission to expand access to higher education through online, competency-based degree programs, WGU is also committed to being a great place to work for a diverse workforce of student-focused professionals. The university has pioneered a new way to learn in the 21st century, one that has received praise from academic, industry, government, and media leaders. Whatever your role, working for WGU gives you a part to play in helping students graduate, creating a better tomorrow for themselves and their families.
Primary Responsibilities
Designs and implements machine learning models that enable recursive learning and support key decision points across the student lifecycle.
Deeply understands requirements, decision points, behavioral or process goals, and success criteria to translate them into model specifications.
Ensures data inputs and outputs for decision models are structured, connected, and monitored appropriately.
Partners with Data Engineering to develop data pipelines and operational workflows required to support decision models in production environments.
Applies best practices in MLOps to monitor, retrain, and update models for sustained relevance and performance.
Develops dashboards, visualizations, and communication tools that present model insights to non-technical audiences.
Documents decision models, assumptions, data dependencies, and feedback loops to ensure transparency and reuse.
Ensures models are interpretable and auditable to align with institutional goals of fairness and accountability.
Identifies opportunities to apply advanced analytics, causal inference, and experimentation to improve student experiences.
Performs other job-related duties as assigned.
This job description includes a general representation of job requirements rather than a comprehensive inventory of all required responsibilities or work activities. The contents of this document or related job requirements may change at any time with or without notice.
Qualifications
Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities
Strong background with demonstrated results in data science, including supervised and unsupervised learning, model selection, and evaluation.
Working knowledge of MLOps tools and practices (e.g., CI/CD for ML, model monitoring, model drift detection).
Moderate experience in data engineering practices, especially around data ingestion, transformation, and orchestration pipelines.
Ability to map and model decision points with inputs, alternatives, outcomes, and feedback mechanisms.
Experience incorporating behavioral signals and goals into decision frameworks.
Proficiency in Python or R and experience with ML frameworks such as scikit-learn, TensorFlow, or PyTorch.
Experience working with cloud platforms and deploying models in production (e.g., AWS, Azure, GCP).
Familiarity with version control systems and collaborative development (e.g., Git, GitHub).
Excellent communication and collaboration skills to bridge technical and non-technical audiences.
Experience in higher education or a mission-driven environment is a plus.
Education
Bachelor’s degree in a quantitative field such as Computer Science, Data Science, Statistics, Engineering, Behavioral Sciences, or related discipline.
Experience
5+ years of experience in data science, decision intelligence, or analytics, with at least 2 years of experience in applied machine learning and data pipeline development.
Experience in designing data-driven decision frameworks and deploying ML models in production environments.
Experience designing or working with decision models or frameworks that influence targeted human behaviors.
Experience in lieu of education
Equivalent relevant experience performing the essential functions of this job may substitute for education degree requirements. Generally, equivalent relevant experience is defined as 1 year of experience for 1 year of education and is the discretion of the hiring manager.
Preferred Qualifications
Master’s degree preferred.
Additional Qualifications
This position is based in the Raleigh office.
Additional travel will be required for College Meetings to support networking toward innovation and thought leadership.
This position requires occasional travel of up to 20%, including required attendance at designated company summits (typically one to two per year). Additional travel may include conferences, visits to company locations, and other business-related events as needed. Additional travel may be assigned as needed to support business requirements.
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Additional Information
- Disclaimer: The job posting highlights the most critical responsibilities and requirements of the job. It’s not all-inclusive.
- Accommodations: Applicants with disabilities who require assistance or accommodation during the application or interview process should contact our Talent Acquisition team at recruiting@wgu.edu.
- Equal Employment Opportunity: All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to any protected characteristic as required by law.