Data Engineer & DevOps Volunteer at MapAction

Job Title: Data Engineer & DevOps Volunteer

Job Purpose: Support the Data Science Lab

Location: Remote

Salary: Volunteer position

The Opportunity

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

Volunteers have been the heart of the MapAction for over 20 years but the range of skills needed continually evolves. Now we are looking for enthusiastic Data Engineer & DevOps professionals who have a desire to commit to a great team and to help MapAction make a difference that has a lasting effect on vulnerable communities. 

MapAction works with a range of humanitarian partners, from local organisations who are closest to the ground to a range of global UN partners who come in when crises are very big.

We are looking for volunteers 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.

By championing DevOps and its combination of cultural philosophies, practices, and tools you will increase the organisation's ability to deliver applications and services at high velocity. 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we are evolving and improving our products at a faster pace than teams or organisations using unguided, sub-optimal or outdated engineering and infrastructure management processes.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.

This is a remote support role, and doesn’t currently include field volunteering but as our strategy and your experience will inevitably evolve, it would be useful to understand if you would ever be keen to deploy.

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.

What does it mean to be part of the MapAction team?

Being part of MapAction means entering a close-knit community of highly skilled and committed professionals in different industries, with years of experience both in academia or the private sector and in the humanitarian world. It means using your unique skills to help prepare for, anticipate, or respond to humanitarian emergencies, enabling our partners to provide life-saving support.

At MapAction, training and team building are at the heart of our organisational culture. We have frequent meet-ups online and in person where paid staff and volunteers get together for training opportunities and skill-sharing, to strengthen our service offer.

As a volunteer, you can participate in all levels and areas of the organisation, working alongside our colleagues at various UN agencies and/or other humanitarian partners. Volunteers also steer the organisation's strategic direction and are involved with designing and implementing our operational capacity.

As a member of the team, you will be expected to participate in at least 6 internal weekend training events. This must include our annual simulation exercise, which all volunteers are required to attend. Other weekend training events include 6 annual training weekends where we get together in person at various locations around the UK, and 4 online development days. Volunteers should live either within the UK or within reasonably easy and affordable reach of the UK in order to be able to attend face to face training events.

Exceptionally, we can accommodate different engagement styles and requirements, depending on the specific situation.

From the MapAction team you can expect:

• A chance to put your skills to use in the context of a humanitarian crisis
• Access to our unique network, and the opportunity to exchange with a unique and diverse set of professional geospatial and data peers
• Opportunities to learn and develop new skills
• Opportunities to travel: conferences, training events, project work, missions
• A never-ending supply of snacks during training events (we take our snacking seriously)
• All MapAction-related expenses covered: travel and mission-related costs, including insurance

Responsibilities

• Create and maintain optimal, performant data pipeline architectures utilising the best platforms available
• Construct data sets of varying degrees of size, complexity and type for specific domains (humanitarian aid, GIS, data-science and machine/deep learning) in order to meet evolving functional and non-functional requirements
• Be able to work from own initiative on identification, design and implementation of ongoing improvements and internal monitoring in order to optimise data provision, to automate processes which are sub-optimal or requiring manual intervention, to continually re-think and redesign infrastructure, schemas, platforms, tool-chains and configurations
• Ensure find-ability. availability, scalability, reproducibility, accessibility, interoperability and re-usability 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:

• Master’s degree or equivalent 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)
• 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
• Databases (NoSQL, SQL, Graph Dbs, Principles of RDBs)
• Data pipeline design skills (ETL, ELT)
• Knowledge of cloud platforms like GCP, AWS or Azure
• Knowledgeable on Windows, Mac and Linux systems
  • System administration of Linux & Windows preferable
• Thorough grounding in containerisation e.g. Docker, Kubernetes
• Complete understanding of CI/CD pipelines
  • Understands continuous Integration e.g. Jenkins, GitOps or similar
• Great with source control
  • Proficient with source code management tools such as Git, Bitbucket etc.
  • Understanding of the Software Development Life cycle (preferably Agile)
  • 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
• Experience in understanding partner needs and requirements, in particular working with non-technical clients

Desirable:

• An interest in software-engineering or data-science e.g. ML / DL / AI / Statistics
• Project management experience
• Humanitarian knowledge/experience
• Adventure or professional travel experience
• Relevant international work experience
• Knowledge of languages (particularly French and Spanish)

How do I apply?

Your application should include: a) a covering letter and b) an attached SINGLE file containing:

• Your CV. It should include: Current work, skills and experience, Other relevant IT/technical skills and experience, Educational details, Where you live, Languages spoken (we are currently seeking French, Spanish and Arabic speakers), Contact details, References
• An example that demonstrates your skills for the profile, for example:
  • A product you have made that demonstrates your technical skills for the profile.
     

The example can be uploaded together with the CV if in PDF format, otherwise please share a link to a public website / repository, or to a file-sharing site.

For your application to be considered it must include the covering letter, CV and example work.

Selection Process

The selection process consists of:

1. Application deadline 15th January 2023
2. Shortlisted candidates informed by 27th January
3. Round 1: Online interviews between 1-8th February. 
4. Notification of progression to round 2 by 11th February
5. Round 2: Recruitment open day, in person in Milton Keynes on 21st or 22nd February. The Interview & Open Day includes:
   1. A practical skills test for your volunteer role.
   2. A group exercise
   3. An introduction to the organisation, and a chance to meet the Office Team
   4. A Q&A with current volunteers
6. Notification of outcome from round 2 by 2nd March
7. Subject to references successful candidates will be invited to join MapAction shortly afterwards
8. Induction and the first training weekend to attend will take place from 24-26th March in Oxfordshire. 

Beyond volunteering

In addition to our volunteer team we have a smaller team of more experienced professionals who also undertake additional work on a consultancy basis.  There are opportunities both for stand by cover for emergencies and also for more substantial pieces of project work. Please indicate in your application if you would like to know more about this opportunity. 

Diversity & Inclusion

As an organisation, we recognise the value that diversity brings to our entire operation, deployments and culture. Diversity brings different experiences and perspectives to bear in all aspects of our decision-making. It also enables us to respond most appropriately and effectively to the challenges which our teams face, where they are required to operate in diverse and challenging circumstances.

MapAction is an Equal Opportunities employer. All employees and volunteers have a personal responsibility to promote and support measures designed to create a working environment that is free from harassment or discrimination on the grounds of gender, marital status, family status, age, race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, membership of the Traveller community or HIV& AIDS status.

MapAction Diversity & Equality monitoring questionnaire

Any questions then please contact info@mapaction.org.