Consultant – Data Engineer – Remote At Mercy Corps

Background:

Mercy Corps is a leading global organization powered by the belief that a better world is possible. In disaster, in hardship, in more than 40 countries around the world, we partner to put bold solutions into action — helping people triumph over adversity and build stronger communities from within.

The Technology for Development (T4D) team is housed within the Program Department’s Technical Support Unit (TSU). It collaborates with Mercy Corps’ global teams and external partners to unlock new possibilities that increase program quality, impact, and innovation, helping improve more lives through the power of technology. Our mission and purpose are to drive sustainable program impact through responsible application of existing and emerging digital technologies.

Purpose / Project Description:

The Data for Impact Data Engineer will be the internal point of contact during a data science infrastructure build: coordinating internal Mercy Corps data flows with an external development firm (Development Seed).. The Consultant will work between the Data for Impact team, the Monitoring-Evaluation-Learning (MEL) team, and the IT team to coordinate architectural choices, translate policies (data protection, data quality, etc) into pipeline structures, and advise Mercy Corps on building a DevOps process for data science. The Consultant will train internal parties on DevOps methodologies with weekly sessions.

On completion of the build, the consultant will work to extend the initial build and document policies (Sept 2022 to January 2023), and will advise Mercy Corps around the use of data, data management, security, and sustainability of cloud architecture.

Consultant Objectives:

They will build technical architecture supporting AWS data projects for both the Crisis Analytics and Food Security & Resilience workstreams, as well as document and train the use of these services to Mercy Corps teams.

Consultant Activities:

Data Engineering & AWS Development

• Design, implement, and support analytical infrastructure on AWS in support of the primary analytical work streams for data science, supporting work on the Yemen Economic Tracking Initiative (YETI), an adaptation of the YETI infrastructure for Lebanon, and the development of data pipelines for other country-team and TSU projects as assigned.
• Interface with Data For Impact Advisors to extract, transform, and load data from a wide variety of data sources using SQL, Python, and AWS technologies; Support efforts to surface data to external tools, including PowerBI, Tableau, and QGIS.
• Develop procedures for the administration of a multi-tenancy AWS infrastructure, including management of IAMs permissions and AWS users; Okta SSO integration; and billing tracking for charge backs to grants.
• Collaborate with Data For Impact and Mercy Corps teams to implement algorithms for statistical analysis, prediction, and machine learning.
• Support web development projects with AWS access and back-end requirements as needed.
• Coordinate with the Mercy Corps IT team as needed, especially to integrate AWS solutions with Mercy Corps SSO technology.

Data Strategy and Best Practices

• Collaborate with the Data for Impact team to recognize and help adopt best practices in reporting, analysis, and data science.
• Provide advice around developing strategy recommendations for data use and management, data science, and geospatial data management, implementing prototypes in an infrastructure-as-code environment.

Security

• Implement and maintain robust security protocols for sensitive and confidential data on AWS or any other relevant platform
• Ensure compliance with security procedures and policies as determined by country leadership wherever implementations are conducted

Consultant Deliverables:

1. Data pipelines and associated AWS analytics infrastructure for country team projects, including Lebanon, DRC, and Yemen.
2. Support implementation of data pipelines and AWS infrastructure for the Rapid Institutional Crisis Response (RICR) and Livestock modeling platform as needed.
3. Design and implement data collection, ETL, and predictive analytics projects on AWS in support of scoped projects.
4. Support web development and UI/UX design and implementation as requested
5. Provide documentation for all implemented solutions & maintain git repositories for all assigned projects
6. Support other AWS development, data engineering, and data science projects as requested

Timeframe / Schedule:

• This consultancy will last from May 2022 – January 2023

The Consultant will report to:

Data Scientist, Data for Impact

The Consultant will work closely with:

IT, T4D, TSU teams

Required Experience & Skills:

• 5-10 years of experience in relevant technical field
• Bachelor’s degree in a quantitative field such as Mathematics, Statistics, Engineering, Computer Science, and related fields or equivalent professional experience
• 2+ years of relevant experience working in an Analytics environment
• Demonstrated experience using the AWS technology stack is required; specific experience with S3, Lambdas, Athena, RDS, Step Functions, ECS, and Fargate is an asset
• Demonstrated experience with DevOps and CI/CD is a strong advantage
• Strong programming skills in Python is required; knowledge of other programming languages including Node.js, JavaScript, or R is an advantage
• Experience with database, data lake, and data warehouse concepts and SQL; practical experience in implementing data management systems is an strong advantage
• Experience with front-end web development and/or building and deploying web applications is preferred
• Experience working with geospatial data is preferred
• Ability to apply analytical, computer, statistical and quantitative problem solving skills
• Working hours are flexible but preference will be given to candidates able to work on a daily schedule aligned with GMT and nearby timezones

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Achieving our mission begins with how we build our team and work together. Through our commitment to enriching our organization with people of different origins, beliefs, backgrounds, and ways of thinking, we are better able to leverage the collective power of our teams and solve the world’s most complex challenges. We strive for a culture of trust and respect, where everyone contributes their perspectives and authentic selves, reaches their potential as individuals and teams, and collaborates to do the best work of their lives.

We recognize that diversity and inclusion is a journey, and we are committed to learning, listening and evolving to become more diverse, equitable and inclusive than we are today.

Equal Employment Opportunity We are committed to providing an environment of respect and psychological safety where equal employment opportunities are available to all. We do not engage in or tolerate discrimination on the basis of race, color, gender identity, gender expression, religion, age, sexual orientation, national or ethnic origin, disability (including HIV/AIDS status), marital status, military veteran status or any other protected group in the locations where we work.

Safeguarding & Ethics Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward accountability, specifically to our stakeholders and to international standards guiding international relief and development work, while actively engaging communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of our field projects. Team members are expected to conduct themselves in a professional manner and respect local laws, customs and MC’s policies, procedures, and values at all times and in all in-country venues.