Data Science Lead (9976) - ITT Division SFO (PEX)

Company Description

Specific information regarding this recruitment and position are listed below:

• Application Opened: Thursday, September 4, 2025.
• Application Deadline: Thursday, September 18, 2025, at 5:00 PM. PDT
• Compensation: $165,334 to $207,974 Annually
• Work Schedule: Full-time, 40 hours per week.
• Work Location: San Francisco International Airport – ITT Division
• Recruitment ID: RTF0157425 - 159180

APPOINTMENT TYPE: Permanent Exempt. This position is excluded by the Charter from the competitive civil service examination process and shall serve at the discretion of the Appointing Officer.

San Francisco International Airport (SFO), an enterprise department of the City and County of San Francisco, has a workforce of approximately 1,900 City employees and is committed to being a diverse, equitable, and inclusive employer.

SFO is more than an airport—we are a dynamic organization where employees collaborate with a wide range of stakeholders to support global travel, economic development, and public service. We are recognized as a leader in environmental sustainability, equity, and forward-thinking infrastructure, and continue to be at the forefront of transforming the travel experience.

Our mission is to deliver an airport experience where people and our planet come first.

Our Vision, Mission, and Core Values shape our culture and operations as we continue to build a supportive, purpose-driven workplace where all employees can thrive.

Learn more about careers at SFO at flysfo.com, and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Bluesky and Threads.

Job Description

​​Working under general administrative of the Information Technology and Telecommunications (ITT) Innovation and Solutions team reporting to Data Engineering/Data Science Manager. The Data Science Lead is responsible for big data analytics from a data science and data engineering perspective providing expertise in data manipulation, visualization, building and optimizing classifiers using machine learning and deep learning-based techniques.  The goal is to optimize the guest experience at SFO to reduce costs for the airport to run its operations and increase revenue.​ 

You are excited about this opportunity because you will:

• Define the roadmap for integrating video analytics, structured and unstructured data, and Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML) capabilities into business strategies. 

• Identify opportunities to leverage video data for insights, automation, and innovation. 

• Align data science initiatives with organizational goals, ensuring measurable business impact. 

• Lead the development of solutions for extracting insights from video, structured and unstructured data. 

• Research, prototype, and deploy advanced AI/ML models for structured (3rd Party applications, APIs, streaming data) and unstructured data(video/audio/other). Oversee model lifecycle management, from design to deployment and monitoring; ensure scalability, performance, and accuracy of AI/ML solutions 

• Work closely with Data Engineers, Architects and CI/CD Engineers to design data pipelines that handle structured and/or unstructured data efficiently. Implement real-time and batch processing capabilities for data streams. Proficiency in DataOps or MLOps methodologies and processes for integration and automation in cloud environments.  

• Lead a team of data scientists, machine learning engineers, to provide mentorship and foster innovation. Collaborate with stakeholders across departments to understand requirements and translate them into technical solutions. Promote knowledge sharing and best practices within the team and across the organization. 

• Stay current on emerging trends and technologies in video analytics, computer vision, and AI/ML. Experiment with state-of-the-art algorithms in machine vision, advanced Generative AI models, and time-series analysis models. Foster partnerships with academic institutions, research labs, or technology vendors to stay at the forefront of innovation. 

• Develop metrics and KPIs to evaluate the performa