Data Scientist

About NovaSource

NovaSource Power Services is the service partner for renewables asset owners ready to fuel smart growth. As an O&M-focused company with 20 years of operating experience, NovaSource has the global reach and strategic capabilities to achieve our clients’ renewables goals around the world.

To serve our clients, we invest in our people. On hire, we assess each employee’s experience and expertise, then mentor them to grow engaging and satisfying careers.

Our turn-key services optimize each step of our clients’ project lifecycles — from commissioning to decommissioning and everything in between. Our approach delivers creates success for our clients, stability for our teams, and enables us to build a world-class culture of excellence. And that’s how we empower a renewable world.

Basic Job Functions:

In cooperation with the IT department, delivers the analytical tools and platforms to enable the Fleet Performance team to carry out their mission. Maintains a deep understanding of the performance engineering business process, translates business needs into technical requirements, and collaborates with IT resources to insure successful implementation of technical solutions. Applies advanced knowledge of statistics and data analysis techniques (e.g., predictive modelling, simulation, machine learning) to evaluate and improve performance of PV power plants and plant components. Designs, develops, and evaluates statistical and predictive models that lead to business solutions. Serves as lead statistician for the unit. Communicates findings and recommendations to management and other business associates across different departments. Oversees implementation efforts.

Experience:

• 2+ years with Performance Analysis of PV power plants.
• 5+ years of combined experience with experimental design, statistical analysis, data modeling, optimization, and extracting value from large data sets.
• 3+ years with statistical and modeling software tools such as Python, SAS, SPSS or R.
• 2+ years developing software or interfacing with software developers to create applications.

Education:

Preferred candidates will have a Masters level degree in Statistics, Mathematics, Physics, Computer Sciences, Actuarial Science, or Engineering, or related field or equivalent designation.

Required Skills/Competencies:

• Strong communication skills (technical and non-technical audiences)
• Ability to lead a technical team.
• Be Accountable for results.
• Experimental design.
• Leads development of standard analytical approaches and methodologies for the department. Provides knowledge transfer and training on new modeling and statistical analysis tools and methodologies to less experienced staff.
• Demonstrated experience building predictive models utilizing advanced statistical analysis, including generalized linear models, decision trees, logistic and multivariate regression.
• Demonstrated experience communicating business implications of complex data relationships and results of statistical models to multiple business partners.
• Demonstrated experience utilizing advanced descriptive statistics and analysis techniques (such as forecasting, analysis of variance, t-tests, categorical data analysis, nonparametric data analysis, cluster analysis, factor analysis and multivariate statistical analysis) design business experiments and measure the impact of business actions.
• Demonstrated experience with statistical and modeling software tools, such as Python, SAS, SPSS or R.
• Demonstrated experience working with various business partners to scope and design the framework for business processes.

Essential Responsibilities:

• Identify, adapt, and invent analytical and reporting tools/methods to enable the performance engineering team to maintain a world class level of service efficiently and cost effectively.
• Leads analytics projects or components related to large, complex business initiatives.
• Craft software requirements documents to fully communicate needed functionality to a software development team to insure successful software implementation.
• Work with software team during development to test functionality and adapt requirements iteratively.
• Manage projects with multi-disciplinary teams taking oversight responsibility for budget, schedule, and requirements.
• Seek feedback and input from team members on new tools and processes.
• Understand key parameters for plant optimization, deploy industry standards, and develop new methods of optimization.
• Develop and maintain Fleet performance packaged analysis code to streamline analysis,
• Investigate results of analysis code, to improve efficiency and effectiveness of analysis results.
• Identify sources of data quality issues, and mitigate their effect on summary data and analysis,
• Develop algorithms to identify common causes of plant underperformance (DC offline, inverter de-rates, weather telemetry malfunction
• Research and, where appropriate, adopt industry best practices and business strategies.
• Research and leverage new statistical techniques and technologies to apply in their statistical research work.
• Explores data using a variety of mathematical (e.g., data mining, regression, cluster analysis, neural networks, baysian analysis, etc.) techniques to answer business questions or guide future model development.
• Builds programs for running statistical tests on data and for understanding correlation of various attributes.
• Applies advanced statistical techniques, including analysis of variance, t-tests, factor analysis, regression and multivariate analyses or simulation, to analyze the effects of business initiatives.
• Builds predictive models (e.g., logistic regression, generalized linear models) as appropriate to support business partner objectives and business needs.
• Serves as statistical expert within the unit as well as in consultation to various areas of the business, to support design and analysis of business experiments.
• Effectively communicates with technical and non-technical associates, supporting socialization and adoption of analysis results into business activities and decisions.
• Works closely with business stakeholders to identify and answer critical questions.

Office Physical Requirements:

All positions in our office require interaction with people and technology while either standing or sitting. In order to best service our customers, internal and external, all associates must be able to communicate face-to-face and on the phone with or without reasonable accommodation. NovaSource is committed to compliance with its obligations under all applicable state and federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination. In keeping with this commitment, it attempts to reasonably accommodate applicants and employees in accordance with the requirements of the disability discrimination laws. It also invites individuals with disabilities to participate in a good faith, interactive process to identify reasonable accommodations that can be made without imposing an undue hardship.

Potential candidates will meet the education and experience requirements provided on the above job description and excel in completing the listed responsibilities for this role.

US: Diversity Statement – Equal Employment Opportunity

It is NovaSource’s policy to provide equal employment opportunities to all applicants and employees. NovaSource disapproves of, and will not tolerate, unlawful discrimination against any applicant or employee because of race, color, national origin or ancestry, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), gender identity, age, religion, disability, family care status, veteran status, marital status, sexual orientation, or any other basis protected by local, state or federal laws.