---
title: "Staff Data Scientist"
description: "A senior individual-contributor data scientist who sets analytical direction for a product area and leads the hardest experiments, models and metrics work."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/staff-data-scientist"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Staff Data Scientist

**Category:** Computer and Mathematical · **SOC code:** 15-2051 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 15-2051.00

A senior individual-contributor data scientist who sets analytical direction for a product area and leads the hardest experiments, models and metrics work.

Also advertised as: Principal Data Scientist; Lead Data Scientist; Senior Staff Data Scientist; Staff Product Data Scientist.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $120,230 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $57.80/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $67,240 to $199,130, with the middle half between $85,660 and $158,880
- **Total US employment:** 262,440
- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's
- **Preparation required:** Medium preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +34.6% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 24,800 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 4/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 262,440 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $67,240 |
| 25th | $85,660 |
| 50th (median) | $120,230 |
| 75th | $158,880 |
| 90th | $199,130 |
| Mean (average) | $126,800 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| WA | $163,350 | $152,645 | 9,600 |
| CA | $141,590 | $127,881 | 39,310 |
| MD | $136,370 | $129,927 | 3,340 |
| NJ | $135,280 | $124,333 | 6,430 |
| MA | $131,750 | $124,578 | 9,420 |
| NY | $130,460 | $120,885 | 23,970 |
| MN | $128,800 | $130,601 | 4,020 |
| VT | $127,070 | $129,719 | 200 |
| DC | $126,490 | $115,094 | 2,680 |
| VA | $126,430 | $125,049 | 8,920 |
| CT | $126,340 | $121,938 | 1,760 |
| OR | $125,990 | $121,893 | 2,140 |
| TX | $122,090 | $125,792 | 25,860 |
| NC | $119,090 | $126,254 | 11,430 |
| CO | $117,400 | $113,923 | 6,280 |

35 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 50 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/staff-data-scientist/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/staff-data-scientist.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 275,600 in the 2025–2035 base year to 371,000 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 95,400 jobs, or +34.6%. Much faster than average: 34.6% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 24,800 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's degree (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Medium preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** None.

## What the work involves

- Define success metrics for a large product area
- Design and review experiments and their analysis plans
- Apply causal inference methods when randomized tests are not possible
- Build forecasting and decision models used by leadership
- Present findings and recommendations to executives
- Set methodology standards and review other data scientists' work
- Mentor senior data scientists and analysts

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Mathematics — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Programming — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Mathematics — importance 4.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Computers and Electronics — importance 4.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Engineering and Technology — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 2.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Communications and Media — importance 2.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Deductive Reasoning — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Inductive Reasoning — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Information Ordering — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematical Reasoning — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Expression — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Investigative (I), Conventional (C).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| I — Investigative | 6.98 |
| C — Conventional | 5.69 |
| E — Enterprising | 2.93 |
| A — Artistic | 2.61 |
| R — Realistic | 2.17 |
| S — Social | 1.66 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| INTJ | 82.9 |
| ISTJ | 75.1 |
| ISTP | 65.8 |
| INTP | 64.3 |
| ENTJ | 62.8 |

Best-fitting types: INTJ. The bank also flags this occupation as introvert-friendly, meaning O\*NET work-context ratings put it low on public contact and performing for the public.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Data Scientist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/data-scientist) — median $120,230
- [Statistician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/statistician) — median $105,650
- [Statistical Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/statistical-assistant) — median $50,330
- [Financial Quantitative Analyst](https://nuecareer.com/careers/financial-quantitative-analyst) — median $81,100
- [Operations Research Analyst](https://nuecareer.com/careers/operations-research-analyst) — median $88,940
- [Bioinformatics Scientist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/bioinformatics-scientist) — median $98,920
- [Bioinformatics Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/bioinformatics-technician) — median $81,490
- [Mathematician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/mathematician) — median $126,710
- [Computer and Information Research Scientist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/computer-and-information-research-scientist) — median $140,300
- [Biostatistician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/biostatistician) — median $105,650

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2025–2035. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/staff-data-scientist