Program Officer, Digital Holistic Student Support Data R&D

The Foundation

We are the largest nonprofitfighting poverty, disease, and inequity around the world. Founded on a simple premise: people everywhere, regardless of identity or circumstances, should have the chance to live healthy, productive lives. We believe our employees should reflect the rich diversity of the global populations we aim to serve.We provide an exceptional benefits package to employees and their families which include comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage with no premiums, generous paid time off, paid family leave, foundation-paid retirement contribution, regional holidays, and opportunities to engage in several employee communities.As a workplace, were committed to creating an environment for you to thrive both personally and professionally.

The Team

The vision of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundations U.S. Program (USP) works to ensure all students in the US have access to educational opportunities, from Pre-K to postsecondary, that enable them to develop the knowledge, skills, and agency needed thrive as adults and contribute to their communities. Our goal is to make sure more students are on track to obtain a postsecondary credential with labor market value such that race/ethnicity and income are no longer predictors of student success.

Within USP, the Postsecondary Success (PS) strategy seeks to support transformation in colleges and universities to ensure that many more Black, Indigenous, and Latino students and students from low-income backgrounds obtain quality, affordable credentials that offer value and lead to economic mobility. The PS Transformation Public Goods, Solutions & Innovative Models (TPGSIM) Team invests in public goods for implementing institutional transformation and for shifting the focus of the postsecondary reform agenda toward equitable value. We also invest in shaping the growth of National Scale Enterprises and incubating innovative models of institutional transformation.

Our culture shapes our choices about what we do and how we do it. We believe that energized people, working well together, fueled by great leadership in an inclusive environment can do extraordinary things. We expect foundation employees to intentionally embody our core values: optimism, collaboration, rigor, innovation, and inclusion.

Your Role

The Program Officer for Digital Holistic Student Support Data R&D, a member of the team lead by the Deputy Director of Digital Holistic Student Support (DHSS), will work with internal and external partners to support the adoption and scaling of unified data and technology systems (UDTS) at focus institutions in order to enable the delivery of high-quality digital holistic student supports so that students have a more seamless experience, practitioners shift from reactive to proactive guidance, and administrators can access insights to empower effective resource provision. This includes the development and execution of the data strategy for DHSS; co-development of a measurement framework with the Measurement, Learning, and Evaluation (MLE) Officer to assess progress towards the strategy goals; and development and implementation of analytics tools within UDTS. This role requires a strong emphasis on Research & Development (R&D) to drive innovation and efficacy through structured approaches. Your role will include identifying data needs at focus institutions; supporting data collection and analysis; designing interactive tools for data access; providing guidance on measurement practices; collaborating with the US Programs Data Team around issues of interoperability with other educational data systems; and promoting adoption of rigorous and ethical approaches to data collection, data analysis, and AI implementation.

What You’ll Do

Data Strategy & Implementation

• Work with internal and external partners to support the development of an overall DHSS data strategy with strong data privacy considerations and an emphasis on enabling AI innovation
• Identify data needs and opportunities to strengthen the value of DHSS for focus institutions
• Support data collection, analysis, synthesis, and application to refine UDTS data architecture and implementation strategies

Setting the Research Agenda

• Work with internal and external partners to facilitate data infrastructure R&D cycles to enhance DHSS efficacy and scalability
• Establish a formative research agenda, setting clear learning expectations and instrumentation in collaboration with the MLE Officer
• Collaborate on R&D strategy with cross-functional teams to ensure a cohesive research agenda

Enabling Access & Use

• Collaborate with internal and external partners on the design of interactive dashboards, visualizations, and tools
• Build capacity for teams to appropriately use data
• Consult on data application and interpretation

Driving Adoption

• Promote equitable, rigorous, and useful measurement practices and work with internal and external teams to produce implementation frameworks and playbooks
• Advise teams on optimizing data collection and learning
• Foster a culture of continuous improvement with data

Your Experience

Data Skills

• Expertise in designing data strategies and architectures, especially for AI use cases
• Proficiency with data analysis, synthesis, and visualization for student success
• Commitment to data ethics, privacy and security, utility, and rigor
• Experience using Python, R, Tableau, SQL and other data analysis tools to produce reports, visualizations and dashboards.
• Has experimented with using AI tools to clean, parse and analyze data

Communication & Influence

• Ability to explain data insights to non-technical audiences
• Ability to design effective data visualizations for a non-technical audience
• Skilled at advising and consulting teams on data use
• Promotes adoption through compelling narrative and effective network building

Collaborative Leadership

• Experience aligning disparate teams, both internal and external, to data strategy
• Inclusive, consensus-building leadership style
• Strong partnering and collaborator engagement

The salary range for this role is $151,200 to $226,800 USD. We recognize high-wage market differences where our offices are located, in Seattle, Washington D.C., and Boston (Cambridge). The range for this role in these locations is $164,700 to $247,100 USD. As a mission-driven organization, we strive to balance competitive pay with our mission and new hires are typically brought into the organization at a salary between the range minimum and the salary range midpoint. Actual placement in the range will depend on a candidates job-related skills, experience, and expertise, as evaluated during the interview process.

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Hiring Requirements

As part of our standard hiring process for new employees, employment will be contingent upon successful completion of a background check.

Candidate Accommodations

If you require assistance due to a disability in the application or recruitment process, please submit a request here.

Inclusion Statement

We are dedicated to the belief that all lives have equal value. We strive for a global and cultural workplace that supports ever greater diversity, equity, and inclusion of voices, ideas, and approaches and we support this diversity through all our employment practices.

All applicants and employees who are drawn to serve our mission will enjoy equality of opportunity and fair treatment without regard to race, color, age, religion, pregnancy, sex, sexual orientation, disability, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, and prior protected activity.