Job Description

Job Purpose: To enhance MapAction\'s data processing capabilities

Location: Hybrid with monthly travel to Chinnor, Oxfordshire and international travel

Salary: \xc2\xa334,048 per annum

Contract: Full time, substantive position for 18 months. Start ASAP.

Reports to: Data Scientist

The Opportunity

Are you a Data Engineer wanting to use your skills to help people in humanitarian crises? MapAction can enable you to do just that.

We are looking for a Data Engineer to join MapAction\'s Data Science Lab, a space where a team of dedicated data scientists collaborates to carry on projects related to data analytics and data science. Your responsibilities may include expanding and optimising our data pipeline architecture and systems. This will involve optimisation of data engineering tool-chains and data flow across functional teams. Data engineers will work in partnership with the software development, data science, GIS and wider MapAction teams on key data-related initiatives.

Your contributions will help to ensure we are evolving and improving our products at a faster pace than teams or organisations using unguided, sub-optimal or outdated engineering and infrastructure management processes. This additional speed will enable the organisation to better serve the international community and remain competitive in a rapidly evolving technological landscape.

Reporting to the Data Scientist, the successful candidate will provide data processing and automation through the execution of projects within MapAction\'s Data Science Lab. Come and be part of something that is exciting and impactful!

Why MapAction?

MapAction is a leading humanitarian mapping charity delivering information services and products to enhance decision making in disasters and conflicts. In collaboration with our partners, this mapped information helps responders understand vulnerabilities and target their response effectively, contributing to saving lives and minimising suffering. We work through a team of skilled volunteer professionals and a small paid staff team.

We have built a strong reputation in the humanitarian sector and are a technical partner of the United Nations, Non-Government Organisations and Civil Society Organisations, the Red Cross, Red Crescent Movement, regional entities and national authorities.

The humanitarian sector is evolving, and technical expertise such as GIS, mapping, information management, data processing and visualisation are becoming increasingly utilised for improving decision making in complex humanitarian response. MapAction and our partners are uniquely positioned to provide technical expertise in support of this.

We have an exciting and ambitious new strategy which will see us help reduce vulnerability in emergencies for those at greatest risk through supporting local technical and emergency leadership and promoting the exchange of well analysed data. A particular area of focus will be on the use of Anticipatory Action prior to an emergency.

What will you do?

You will be expected to automate data processing (extraction, transformation, loading) from various online sources. Requirements will be defined in collaboration with MapAction staff, volunteers or partners. Maintenance and enhancement of an existing data pipeline will form a significant part of the work.

Main Responsibilities

• Create and maintain optimal, performant data pipeline architectures
• Construct data sets of varying degrees of size, complexity and type for specific domains (humanitarian aid, GIS, data-science and machine/deep learning)
• Propose improvements to infrastructure, schemas, platforms, tool-chains and configurations
• Ensure find-ability. availability, scalability, reproducibility, accessibility, interoperability and reusability of all data-products
• Assist in the automation, provision and management of development environments, source-code, build-tools, pipelines and deployments
• Capability to preserve continuous integration
• Ensure excellent availability of all products and services
• Advocate containerisation
• Ensure the automation of testing
• Provide optimal developer, tester and user experience

What are we looking for?

If you feel you are a good match but do not feel like you meet all the requirements, we are still happy to receive your application!

The core skills we look for in all of our team members are the following:

• A desire to use their skills, experience and dedication in the cause of humanitarian ends
• Good team player with leadership and/or project management experience or ambition wherever possible
• Exceptional communication skills, to explain your work to people who don\'t understand the mechanics behind data analysis, and experience in understanding partner needs and requirements, in particular working with non-technical clients
• Adaptable, resilient and solution-oriented
• Self-motivated and organised
• Time to commit to MapAction, for more details on the time commitment, please refer to the "What does it mean to be part of the MapAction team?"
• Strong project management skills

Essential:

• Degree or equivalent experience in the field of Data Science, Computer Science, Software Development, Information Technology or a related field
• At least one year of professional experience working in the area of data engineering is required
• Programming ability in interpreted and compiled languages (Python, Java, C)
• Databases (NoSQL, SQL, Graph Dbs, Principles of RDBs)
• Data pipeline design skills (ETL, ELT)
• Knowledge of cloud platforms like GCP, AWS or Azure
• Complete understanding of CI/CD pipelines
• Understands continuous Integration e.g. Jenkins, GitOps or similar
• Collaborative code management using Git & GitHub
• Ability to demonstrate grasp of "Infrastructure as Code" concepts using tools such as Puppet, Ansible, Chef or Terraform
• Ability to work in a secure environment and diligence to adhere to security principles

Desirable:

• Understanding of the Software Development Life cycle (preferably Agile)
• Thorough grounding in containerisation e.g. Docker, Kubernetes
• Shell scripting
• Experience with Jupyter Notebooks
• Experience with BI
• Knowledge and experience with utilities such as Hadoop, Spark, Hive, Storm
• Understanding of how to set-up and use Apache Airflow or similar e.g. Luigi, Oozie etc.
• Elastic Search / Stack
• An interest in software-engineering or data-science e.g. ML / DL / AI / Statistics
• Project management experience
• Humanitarian knowledge/experience

Additional Information

• This is a Hybrid position and you will be expected to attend some weekend training events throughout the year (camping at various venues around the UK). Travel expenses are paid and reasonable time off in lieu provided.
• This is a full time position for 18 months with a possible extension to be confirmed end of 2024
• Required to work remotely from the office and to attend team days near the MapAction office in Oxfordshire once a month at own expense.
• 30 days holiday (pro rata) with a workplace pension and also paid training opportunities to help further your career.
• Must have the right to live and work in the UK - MapAction is unable to consider candidates who do not already hold appropriate permissions and can not help facilitate a relocation.
• Part time of 4 days a week will be considered, please state when applying if you would like 4 or 5 days a week.

This is an important role in a small, highly specialised charity and an appreciation of, and affinity with the humanitarian purpose of the charity is essential, as well as a willingness to take up additional tasks outside of the normal role when needed.

Equal opportunities policy
MapAction is an Equal Opportunities employer. All employees have a personal responsibility to promote and support measures designed to create a working environment which is free from harassment or discrimination on the grounds of gender, marital status, age, race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, membership of the Traveller community of HIV & AIDS status. MapAction also positively encourages women and those from the BAME community to apply.

How to apply:

Please provide a CV and cover letter that sets out how you meet the required competencies for the role, this is a mandatory requirement for this position. All applications should be made via our website and GoHire. Deadline for applications is 6th September 2023 however we are running a rolling recruitment and will interview any suitable candidates as soon as they apply.

MapAction