Data Scientist — South Dakota Public Health Data Initiative

About Graphable

At Graphable, we hire really great people who are driven to pursue excellence and wired to delight customers. Our team welcomes newcomers, values diverse backgrounds and perspectives, respects each other, and has fun while building our fast-growing company together. If this sounds like the place for you, check out our openings below and apply today!

What is it like to work at Graphable?

We are relentlessly pursuing the goal of creating vibrant, healthy and rewarding culture here at Graphable, all in the context of a 100% remote work environment. Because we don’t have the chance to interact around a traditional office, we work hard to create opportunities to grow our relationships and cohesiveness as a team through various means, including regular virtual “pubs” where we all get together at the end of a workday and shoot the breeze over a beer or your beverage of choice, as well as other forums such as our annual in-person team get-togethers.

To guide the unusually fast growth of our company, we are all committed to our well-documented and regularly shared purpose statement which is:

Delight our clients through unusual excellence.

Job summary

Location: Remote — South Dakota-based or SD-familiar candidates strongly preferred
Employment Type: Full-time, Contract (W-2 or 1099)
Experience Level: Mid-level (3–5 years)
Engagement: Supports a proposed South Dakota Department of Health data initiative (Rural Health Data Atlas)

Graphable is building a bench of top-tier data science talent to support a landmark public health data initiative for the State of South Dakota. As part of a competitive proposal to the South Dakota Department of Health’s Rural Health Data Atlas program, we’re identifying a Data Scientist to help transform how rural communities across South Dakota access and use health data. This is a long-term, full-time engagement supporting a new state-owned platform that will bring maps, dashboards, and point-and-click analytics to health agencies, Tribal Nations, rural clinics, and researchers statewide.

Fully remote, full-time role (~40 hours/week); availability during Central Time business hours preferred.
Occasional travel to Pierre, SD (roughly twice a year) for in-person planning sessions — travel expenses reimbursed at state per diem rates.
Engagement structure is flexible — W-2 employee or 1099/contract — consistent with Graphable’s federated talent model.
This is a U.S.-based role; it cannot be performed offshore.
Selected candidates must be able to pass a fingerprint-based background check, required for access to protected health data.

Responsibilities

Support the ingestion, curation, and integration of health datasets from South Dakota state agencies, federal sources, and local/county partners into the new statewide data platform.
Build and maintain metadata, data dictionaries, and variable/change documentation for platform datasets and public health indicators.
Apply data governance standards to health indicators, including rate stabilization and small-cell suppression rules that protect individual privacy.
Apply data privacy and de-identification methods, including statistical disclosure limitation, to sensitive health data.
Help identify solutions for secure, well-governed data access, and support data quality review and decision-making processes.
Build reports and dashboards in Power BI, ESRI, and Tableau, and support state staff in manipulating and using platform data.
Serve as a point of contact for internal Department of Health staff and external stakeholders — hospitals, community coalitions, Tribal Nations, rural health clinics, and academic/research partners.

Experience and Skills Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Data Science, Mathematics, Computer Science, or a related field.
Working knowledge of statistical methods, data modeling, and analysis tools such as SAS or R.
Hands-on experience with Power BI, ESRI, Tableau, or similar data visualization tools.
Proficiency with SQL, Python, or other scripting languages.
Strong Microsoft Office skills.
At least 2 years of experience in a public health setting (state/local health departments, Tribal health programs, federally qualified health centers, public health labs, community health organizations, or academic/research institutions doing population-level health work).

Nice to Have

South Dakota residency, or deep familiarity with the state — its counties, communities, and rural health landscape.
3–5 years of overall data science / analytics experience.
Experience with Azure data services (Cosmos DB, Databricks, Synapse, Data Factory).
Prior experience working with health or human-services agencies, or Tribal Nations.

Graphable Core Values

Excellent - Set a higher standard and continuously refine.
Focused - Ensure everything we do contributes to company goals.
Quietly Confident - Demonstrate confidence. Be right, be quiet about it, march on.
Always Learning - Seek and thrive on feedback. Failure is an opportunity. Deepen current expertise. Gain new expertise.
Team Focused - Be considerate, ethical, hard-working, value diverse perspectives. Care personally. Challenge directly.®

Benefits

Benefits subject to change, but include:

Remote work
100% covered health, vision, dental benefits
Unlimited, flexible PTO
9 paid company days off
401k plan

How to apply

Interested candidates should apply directly to this posting with a current resume. We are building our South Dakota talent bench now, ahead of contract award — candidates based in South Dakota, or with strong ties to the state, are especially encouraged to apply. Even if this particular engagement doesn’t move forward, we’ll keep your information on file for future South Dakota and remote work opportunities.