Principal Data Scientist
Overview Client is seeking a Principal Data Scientist to help healthcare and life sciences organizations design, validate, and operationalize AI solutions that improve decision support, streamline workflows, and unlock value from structured and unstructured clinical data.
In this client-facing consulting role, you will partner with clinical stakeholders, engineering teams, and executive leadership to deliver responsible, explainable, secure, and production-ready AI solutions. The position focuses on healthcare AI, generative AI, agentic systems, machine learning, and Google Cloud technologies.
Core Responsibilities Lead the design of AI and machine learning solutions for healthcare and life sciences use cases, including clinical decision support, workflow automation, operational intelligence, patient-facing insights, and knowledge retrieval. Design and guide implementation of generative AI solutions using Google Cloud technologies, including Vertex AI, Gemini, model evaluation workflows, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and enterprise deployment approaches. Architect and prototype agentic AI solutions that support clinical, operational, and knowledge-based workflows with governance, traceability, and human-in-the-loop oversight. Develop and guide machine learning approaches for classification, prediction, summarization, entity extraction, document intelligence, and other healthcare-focused use cases. Partner with stakeholders to evaluate data quality, lineage, terminology, interoperability, and clinical workflow alignment before advancing AI initiatives into production. Define evaluation strategies for accuracy, relevance, bias, safety, drift, explainability, and clinical appropriateness of AI solutions. Serve as a senior technical advisor, translating complex AI, machine learning, and healthcare concepts into practical roadmaps, implementation plans, and business value discussions. Mentor data scientists, engineers, and consultants while contributing reusable AI patterns, accelerators, evaluation frameworks, and delivery playbooks.
Essential Qualifications, Skills, and Technologies 10 years of experience in data science, machine learning, healthcare analytics, clinical AI, or applied AI solution delivery. Strong understanding of clinical workflows, healthcare operations, clinical documentation, patient data, provider environments, payer/provider dynamics, or life sciences data use cases. Hands-on experience with Google Cloud AI and data services, including Vertex AI, Gemini, BigQuery, Document AI, model deployment, and enterprise machine learning workflows. Practical experience designing generative AI and agentic AI solutions, including prompt engineering, tool use, orchestration patterns, RAG architectures, guardrails, and human review workflows. Strong foundation in supervised and unsupervised learning, natural language processing, model evaluation, feature engineering, experimentation, and production machine learning lifecycle practices. Understanding of healthcare data sensitivity, PHI protection, explainability, model risk, clinical validation, and AI governance expectations. Exceptional communication skills with the ability to translate clinical and technical complexity into business-aligned recommendations for executives, clinical leaders, and technology teams. Experience working within consulting or enterprise client environments.
Preferred Skills or Experience Google Cloud Professional Machine Learning Engineer certification. Google Cloud Professional Data Engineer certification. Other relevant Google Cloud AI certifications. Databricks Machine Learning, TensorFlow, or similar machine learning and analytics certifications. Certifications or training related to healthcare data, HIPAA, clinical analytics, Responsible AI, or AI governance.
Work Details Contract-to-hire opportunity. Initial contract duration of 3 months (520 hours). Eligible for direct hire with Client after successful completion of the contract period. Nashville, TN highly preferred. May be required to attend onsite meetings with Client as needed. Interview process includes an initial interview with Client followed by a possible additional client interview.
Nesco Resource offers a comprehensive benefits package for our associates, which includes a MEC (Minimum Essential Coverage) plan that encompasses Medical, Vision, Dental, 401K, and EAP (Employee Assistance Program) services.Nesco Resource provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws.
