Data Engineer Job Vacancy at UNDP in Uganda

Job Title: DATA ENGINEER
Location :     Kampala, UGANDA

Additional Category    Millennium Development Goals
Type of Contract :    Service Contract
Post Level :    SB-4
Languages Required :
    English 
Starting Date :
(date when the selected candidate is expected to start)    01-Oct-2013
Duration of Initial Contract :    1 Year (full time)

Background

Global Pulse is an innovation initiative in the Executive Office of the United Nations Secretary-General, harnessing today's new world of digital data and real-time analytics to gain a better understanding of changes in human well-being. Global Pulse hopes to contribute a future in which access to better information sooner makes it possible to keep international development on track, protect the world's most vulnerable populations, and strengthen resilience to global shocks.
 Global Pulse is being implemented as a global network of Pulse Labs, bringing together expertise from UN agencies, governments, academia, and the private sector to research, develop, test and share tools and approaches for harnessing real-time data for more effective and efficient policy action.

Global Pulse is establishing a Pulse Lab in Kampala in 2013. Pulse Lab Kampala will function as an open innovation space where policy experts together with UN development practitioners and other partners can experiment with new types of data and emerging technologies and evaluate their potential to enhance both public policy decision-making and community resilience.  Following the development of useful approaches, Pulse Lab Kampala will support institutional adoption of these innovations into policy and practice.
 The Data Engineer will report to the Technical Team Leader. H/she will work to access and derive insights from large data sets to solve problems. He or she must be able to work with a variety of data types, programming languages and platforms, must be comfortable with both hands-on development and research support, and must be adept at both understanding the information content of data and transforming and preparing it for analytical and reporting purposes.


Duties and Responsibilities

    Help define, design and build projects harnessing Big Data to address development and humanitarian challenges;
    Develop and use software tools to extract, process and analyze data sets from a variety of sources;
    Develop algorithms that can scale to very large data sets;
    Develop systems for classifying content;
    Produce interactive data visualizations and user interaction environments;
    Develop working prototypes and applications for the Pulse Library that will be used by UN agencies and partners.

Competencies
Core Competencies:

    Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN's values and ethical standards;
    Advocates and promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of the UN;
    Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
    Treats all people fairly without favoritism;
    Demonstrates and promotes the values of the UN in actions and decisions and acts in accordance with the standard of conduct for international civil servants;
    Shows willingness to work without bias with all persons regardless of gender, nationality, religion or culture;
    Contributes effectively to team-based activities, working collaboratively and sharing information openly; works effectively with colleagues inside the UN as well as its partners and other stakeholders to pursue common goals
    Facilitates and encourages open communication in the team, communicating effectively;
    Remains calm, composed and patient when facing conflict, manages conflict productively, focusing on mutually acceptable solutions;
    Takes initiative and seeks opportunities to initiate action;
    Actively produces and disseminates new knowledge; creates/contributes to mechanisms to collect and share knowledge;
    Actively seeks learning opportunities; demonstrates commitment to ongoing professional development;
    Proposes innovative ideas and new solutions to work.

Functional Competencies:

    Familiarity with statistical programming and discrete mathematics;
    Comfortable working with diverse programming languages, design patterns, frameworks, libraries and platforms;
    Independent and driven, and able to manage and lead without close supervision;
    Flexible, adaptable, and comfortable working in a start-up environment;
    Ability to work directly with internal and external clients to define requirements for analysis and reporting;
    Excellent communication skills;
    Flexible, adaptable, and comfortable working in a start-up environment.

Required Skills and Experience
Education:

    MS in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Mathematics, Statistics, or related field;
    A combination of a first degree and additional two relevant experience may be accepted.

Experience:

    At least 3 years of experience in the following.
    Experience working on machine learning algorithms or other aspects of AI;
    Experience with stream computing and data warehousing;
    Experience with rapid application development (agile, extreme, scrum, lean);
    Experience working with Amazon EC2 or Hadoop or similar;
    Experience working with open source data processing frameworks is a plus.

Language Requirements:

    Fluency in both written and spoken English;
    Knowledge of a language widely spoken in Uganda would be an asset.

UN is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Qualified women are encouraged to apply.

How to Apply:
http://jobs.undp.org/cj_view_job.cfm?cur_job_id=39505

Deadline: 19/08/2013