Data Specialist

Salary: Depends on Qualifications
Location : Houston, TX
Job Type: Regular Full-time
Job Number: 17091
Department: Public Defender's Office
Opening Date: 08/14/2026
Closing Date: 12/31/2026 11:59 PM Central

Position Description
About the Harris County Public Defender's Office:
The Harris County Public Defender's Office is committed to providing high-quality, client-centered representation to individuals accused of criminal offenses who cannot afford counsel. Our office works collaboratively across legal and support teams to advocate for our clients, protect constitutional rights, and promote fairness within the legal system. We value professionalism, integrity, teamwork, and compassionate public service.

Position Overview:
The Harris County Public Defender's Office seeks a full-time Data Specialist to help build and maintain the office's law enforcement accountability database through Techtivist. This is a data-focused position requiring strong skills in data collection, organization, quality control, and analysis. The Data Specialist will work with complex records and bulk data related to law enforcement accountability. This position is responsible for transforming large, inconsistent, and often fragmented sources of information into accurate, structured, and searchable data. This work is critical to supporting attorneys, investigators, and policy staff in identifying officer credibility issues, patterns of misconduct, impeachment information, and other data that assists in client representation and broader efforts to improve the criminal legal system.
Duties and Responsibilities:

• Maintain and update the office's Techtivist database.
• Collect, clean, structure, and validate data from public records, court records, civil lawsuits, agency rosters, disciplinary records, attorney submissions, case materials, and online sources.
• Work with spreadsheets, databases, PDFs, scanned records, and other structured and unstructured data sources.
• Extract and parse information from documents using OCR, PDF extraction, and other data-processing tools.
• Identify and resolve duplicate records, inconsistent officer names, missing identifiers, conflicting information, and other data-quality issues.
• Link records across datasets, including rosters, lawsuits, complaints, disciplinary records, Brady disclosures, and case-related information.
• Write or run scripts, when appropriate, to clean, transform, match, or import data into usable formats.
• Assist with database structure, data-entry protocols, source tracking, confidentiality designations, and quality-control workflows.
• Prepare, track, and organize public information requests for law enforcement rosters, command structures, policies, misconduct records, and related data.
• Query data and prepare reports, spreadsheets, summaries, visualizations, and other work products for attorneys and staff.
• Protect confidential, privileged, sealed, or otherwise sensitive information.
• Assist with user support, troubleshooting, documentation, and other Techtivist-related tasks.
• Perform other tasks as assigned.

Harris County is an Equal Opportunity Employer
If you need special services or accommodations, please call or email
This position is subject to a criminal history check. Only relevant convictions will be considered and, even when considered, may not automatically disqualify the candidate.

Requirements
Supporting Documents:

• Applicants should submit a resume and cover letter describing their interest in the position.
• Applicants are also encouraged to submit a data project, code sample, dashboard, spreadsheet, research memo, writing sample, or other work product demonstrating relevant skills.

Education and Experience:

• Bachelor's degree from an accredited college or university in data science, computer science, statistics, information science, public policy, sociology, criminology, criminal justice, journalism, public administration, or a related field.
• At least two (2) years of experience working with databases, spreadsheets, public records, research data, or other structured datasets.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

• Interest in using data to support public defense, law enforcement accountability, racial justice, or criminal legal system reform.
• Strong attention to detail and ability to work with large, complex, and inconsistent datasets.
• Ability to conduct factual research using public records, court records, online databases, and internal records.
• Ability to work carefully with confidential and sensitive information.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.

NOTE: Qualifying education, experience, knowledge, and skills must be documented on your job application. You may attach a resume to the application as supporting documentation but ONLY information stated on the application will be used for consideration. "See Resume" will not be accepted for qualifications.
Preferences

Preference may be given to candidates with experience in:

• Python, R, SQL, Stata, Tableau, Power BI, or similar tools.
• Data normalization, records linkage, fuzzy matching, probabilistic matching, or deduplication.
• OCR, PDF extraction, web scraping, text parsing, or document automation.
• Relational databases, data schemas, database imports, or data integrity protocols.
• Creating reports, dashboards, data visualizations, or other tools for non-technical users.
• Public records, criminal defense, civil rights litigation, Brady/Giglio issues, law enforcement data, or court records.
• A public defender office, legal services organization, civil rights organization, policy organization, newsroom, academic research setting, or government accountability project.

General Information
Position Type and Typical Hours of Work:

• Regular Full-time | The anticipated start date is October 2026 - Subject to final fiscal year funding. A contingent offer may be extended prior to that date
• Monday - Friday | 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Salary:

• Depends on qualifications
• Based on 26 pay periods

Employment may be contingent on passing a drug screen and meeting other standards.

Due to a high volume of applications positions may close prior to the advertised closing date or at the discretion of the Hiring Department.

HARRIS COUNTY EMPLOYEE BENEFITS

Harris County offers a highly competitive benefits program, featuring a comprehensive group health plan and defined benefit retirement plan.
The following benefits are offered only to Harris County employees in regular (full-time) positions:
Health & Wellness Benefits

• Medical Coverage
• Dental Coverage
• Vision Coverage
• Wellness Plan
• Life Insurance
• Long-Term Disability (LTD) Insurance
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
• Healthcare Flexible Spending Account
• Dependent Care Flexible Spending Account

Paid Time Off (PTO)

• Ten (10) days of vacation leave per year (accrual rate increases after 5 years of service)
• Eleven (11) County-observed holidays
• One (1) floating holiday per year
• Paid Parental Leave*
• Sick Leave

Retirement Savings Benefit

• 457 Deferred Compensation Plan

The following benefits are available to Harris County employees in full-time and select part-time positions:

• Professional learning & development opportunities
• Retirement pension (TCDRS defined benefit plan)
• Flexible work schedule*
• METRO RideSponsor Program*

* Participation may vary by County department. The employee benefits plans of Harris County are extended to all eligible participants across various departments with the exception of the Harris County Community Supervision and Corrections Department, for which the cited Health & Wellness Benefits are administered through the State of Texas.
In accordance with the Harris County Personnel Regulations, group health and related benefits are subject to amendment or discontinuance at any time. Harris County Commissioners Court reserves the right to make benefit modifications on the County's behalf as needed.
For plan details, visit the Harris County Benefits & Wellness website:
01

Which of the following best describes your highest level of education completed as it relates to this position?

• High School or GED diploma
• Associates Degree
• Bachelor's Degree
• Master's Degree or higher
• None of the above

02

If you selected a college degree in response to the previous question, which of the following best describes your major?

• Data science
• Computer science
• Statistics
• Information science
• Public policy
• Sociology
• Criminology
• Criminal justice
• Journalism
• Public administration
• Other Related Field
• Unrelated Field
• N/A; No Degree

03

Which of the following best describes your verifiable years of experience working with databases, spreadsheets, public records, research data, or other structured datasets?(To be considered, qualifying experience must be documented in your application's employment history)

• Less than two (2) years
• Two (2) years but less than three (3) years
• Three (3) years but less than four (4) years
• Four (4) years or more
• I do not have this experience.

04

Please indicate your relevant experience by selecting all applicable options from the list below.I have experience in:

• Python, R, SQL, Stata, Tableau, Power BI, or similar tools.
• Data normalization, records linkage, fuzzy matching, probabilistic matching, or deduplication.
• OCR, PDF extraction, web scraping, text parsing, or document automation.
• Relational databases, data schemas, database imports, or data integrity protocols.
• Creating reports, dashboards, data visualizations, or other tools for non-technical users.
• Public records, criminal defense, civil rights litigation, Brady/Giglio issues, law enforcement data, or court records.
• A public defender office, legal services organization, civil rights organization, policy organization, newsroom, academic research setting, or government accountability project
• I do not have this experience.

Required Question