Senior Strategy Analyst

Senior Strategy Analyst

CPAL · Dallas, TX · Full-time

About CPAL

CPAL, the Child Poverty Action Lab, is a Dallas-based nonprofit research and development lab that uses data to rethink public systems, in service of cutting childhood poverty in Dallas by 50 percent within a generation. The organization works across five focus areas: Benefits Delivery, Maternal Health, Housing, Criminal Justice, and Public Safety.

About the Role

This role sits on CPAL's Strategic Analytics team, reporting to the Head of Strategic Analytics, on a small, senior team of analytical generalists working across housing, economic mobility, maternal health, education, and public safety. This is not a data-engineering or pipeline-building role: the person in this seat is who a program lead calls when they need to know what the data actually says, by end of day.

What You'll Do

• Take an ambiguous ask and turn it into an answerable question by finding the decision behind the request.
• Interrogate unreviewed datasets before building on them, since most of the real risk in this job lives in data nobody has checked yet.
• Go beyond the literal ask, flagging what the requester needs to know and what the data can't support.
• Turn analysis into a short, decision-ready brief a program lead can use in front of a reporter, funder, or city partner.
• Use AI across research, coding, and QA while owning the final judgment, framing, and synthesis yourself.
• Document assumptions and sources so the next related question is cheaper to answer.

What We're Looking For

• 3-5 years of applied analytical work, typically at a strategy, boutique data-science, or analytical consulting firm, or an equivalent unusual-early-responsibility trajectory (high-growth startup, agency, or civic org).
• A track record of answering questions, not just producing outputs, work that reads like "determined whether X predicted Y."
• Professional fluency in Python and working SQL; able to read and adapt existing R.
• A habit of communicating to a named non-technical audience, a program lead, a school administrator, a county department, not just other analysts.
• Daily working fluency with AI-assisted analytical tools, backed by concrete examples of overriding or correcting AI output.
• Not a fit for candidates whose experience centers on data pipelines, ETL/ELT, or BI dashboards without a track record of using that infrastructure to answer a specific analytical question.
• Strong plus: geospatial analysis and data visualization experience; a named method tied to an actual finding.

Compensation and Benefits

Competitive salary, dependent on experience. Health, dental, and vision insurance, a retirement savings plan with employer match, generous paid time off and holidays, and professional development and learning support. CPAL is open to sponsoring candidates for this role. This role is based in Dallas, TX; Dallas is preferred with flexibility for the right candidate, and remote-first candidates are considered, with occasional on-site time in Dallas.

How to Apply

To apply for this role, you must create an account on provn.co and submit all required application artifacts. Resume only applications may be considered, but candidates who complete a full application are reviewed with priority.

How hiring works here

Referrals are king for getting an interview. But what if you don't have a referral? Applying with Provn is designed to help you get more interviews. Instead of sending a cold resume into an ATS and waiting, you will complete a challenge built by CPAL and submit a short video walking through your approach. No time limit. No timers. No restrictions on AI usage. Show how you build with AI.

Why that works in your favor:

• You show how you actually build and ship with coding agents, instead of hoping a resume communicates your skill clearly.
• Your judgment with AI becomes visible, which no "proficient with AI coding agents" resume bullet can prove.
• One challenge puts you in front of the Strategic Analytics team, scored on the work. Priority without a referral!

The hiring manager reviews every completed submission, and strongest candidates go straight to an interview round. No referral needed. Performance over pedigree. Proof over polish.

For this role, the challenge is a significant part of your candidacy. If you have been looking for a foot in the door, a chance to show what you can do, if you have ever felt like all you needed was ten minutes with the hiring manager to prove yourself, this is that opportunity.

Applications close September 14, 2026.