Data Engineering Head

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS

WFP celebrates and embraces diversity. It is committed to the principle of equal employment opportunity for all its employees and encourages qualified candidates to apply irrespective of race colour national origin ethnic or social background genetic information gender gender identity and/or expression sexual orientation religion or belief HIV status or disability.

ABOUT WFP

The World Food Programme is the worlds largest humanitarian organization saving lives in emergencies and using food assistance to build a pathway to peace stability and prosperity for people recovering from conflict disasters and the impact of climate change.

At WFP people are at the heart of everything we do and the vision of the future WFP workforce is one of diverse committed skilled and high performing teams selected on merit operating in a healthy and inclusive work environment living WFPs values (Integrity Collaboration Commitment Humanity and Inclusion) and working with partners to save and change the lives of those WFP serves.

To learn more about WFP visit our website: follow us on social media to keep up with our latest news: YouTube LinkedIn Instagram Facebook Twitter TikTok.

WHY JOIN WFP

• WFP is a 2020 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.

• WFP offers a highly inclusive diverse and multicultural working environment.

• WFP invests in the personal & professional development of its employees through a range of training accreditation coaching mentorship and other programs as well as through internal mobility opportunities.

• A career path in WFP provides an exciting opportunity to work across the various country regional and global offices around the world and with passionate colleagues who work tirelessly to ensure that effective humanitarian assistance reaches millions of people across the globe.

• We offer an attractive compensation package (please refer to the Terms and Conditions section of this vacancy announcement).

JOB TITLE: Data Engineering Head
TYPE OF CONTRACT: CST Level 2
UNIT/DIVISION: TECX
DUTY STATION (City Country): WFP HQ Rome Italy
DURATION: 3 months

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE OF THE ASSIGNMENT:
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is the worlds largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide. WFP Technology Division (TEC) is the digital business engine of the World Food Programme providing the business with multi-pronged and resilient technical capabilities able to respond with the agility required in humanitarian operations be they manmade or in a natural disaster setting. TEC Division continues to increase its activities to meet the constantly growing demand from the organization and implement the initiatives related to digital transformation.
Under the WFP Global Data Strategy a key pillar for implementation is effective data management. WFP is seeking a senior Data Engineer to lead the building management and optimization of data architectures and services to support the production of analytics use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) tools and algorithms in compliance with data governance protection privacy and security requirements. The Data Engineering Lead will actively work with data analysts data scientists and architects (enterprise data integration and application architects) to ensure the platforms and tools are fit for purpose.
Under the supervision of the Chief Data Officer the Data Engineering Lead will be a key team member in leading the design implementation operation and optimization of data engineering services to support initiatives.
ACCOUNTABILITIES/RESPONSIBILITIES:
Identify critical data extraction transformation and loading requirements for enterprise and local solutions.
Validate technical designs and provide technical recommendations on the options available.
Implement and maintain complex data engineering solutions to acquire and prepare data. Create and maintain data pipelines to connect data within and between data stores applications and organizations.
Collaborate with stakeholders including Business Analytics and Design teams to develop implementation roadmaps to address data-related technical problems and meet their data infrastructure needs.
Develop roadmaps for the development and implementation of data engineering tools to assist analytics and data scientist team members in building and optimizing products.
Utilize next generation AI tools to support data infrastructure as code with the aim to reduce vendor costs.
Support data scientists and data analysts in understanding data features and testing use-cases of data features in analytical environments

Collaborate with key organization stakeholders to ensure compliance with data governance protection privacy and security requirements across systems and architectures.
Support projects validating the design artefacts applying data engineering best practices and standards efforts and budget for engineering resources. Provide oversight and quality control on project deliverables from data engineers.
Develop and implement onboarding program for new data engineers joining WFP.
Develop and monitor performance metrics for projects and the engineering team.

DELIVERABLES AT THE END OF THE CONTRACT:
and implement an enterprise data engineering framework for WFP which will be used by all WFP data engineers for engineering activities (including performance metrics and DataOps practice).
and implement an annual and 3-year workplan for data engineering services team.
TEC Division processes provide validation and inputs on data engineering artefacts.
and continuous improvement of the Modern Data Platform and data ecosystem.
with business stakeholders and other partners to ensure best practices for data engineering are fostered and followed.
with GDO and other TEC teams to ensure requirements are met and alignment to enterprise data architecture and strategies.
and coach data engineering team. Recruit resources as needed.
the Humbot platform implementation and the use of AI bots.
to team culture of diversity equity inclusion and respect.

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE REQUIRED:
Education:
Advanced university degree (Masters degree or equivalent) in computer science statistics applied mathematics data management information systems information science or a related quantitative field. A first-level university degree in combination with qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.
Experience Knowledge & Skills:
10-12 years of progressively responsible experience in data engineering management integration modeling optimization and other relevant areas.
A minimum of 5 years hands-on project-based experience with one or more higher-level Python or Java based data processing frameworks such as Beam Dataflow Glue Scalding Storm Spark etc.
A minimum of 5 years hands-on project experience in designing data integration and pipeline architectures which must include ingesting data through different methods such as message queues database connections flat files REST or specific APIs is required.
A minimum of 3 years of experience in leading managing and coaching small teams of data engineers deployed on multiple projects.
Strong Python programming abilities and experience working with data containerization orchestration and workflow technologies such Docker as well as Luigi Airflow or similar tools

A minimum of 3 years of hands-on experience with practices and techniques for building data pipelines for large scale generative models including cleaning filtering classifying and labelling.
oIn this context familiarity with concepts of bias and fairness (i.e. how to identify assess and minimize harmful biases discrimination and unfair outcomes in algorithmic systems and data) is particularly desirable.
A minimum of 3 years of hands-on experience automating DataOps tool chains.
Cloud Platform experience: Palantir AWS Azure GCP
Experience with database programming languages (SQL etc.) is required.
Experience working with analytics applications like Microsoft PowerBI Tableau Qlik AWS Quicksight and others for data discovery.
Experience working in cross-functional teams and collaborating with stakeholders in support of analytics initiatives is required.
Highly Desirable: Understand Source to Target mapping (STTM) documents containing data structures business & data transformation logics
Highly Desirable: Understand data structures and data model (dimensional & relational) concepts like Star schema or Fact & Dimension tables to design and develop ETL patterns/mechanisms to ingest analyse validate normalize and cleanse data
Highly desirable: Knowledge or experience of DataVault (DV2)
Languages:
Fluency (level C) in English language. Intermediate knowledge (level B) of a second official UN language: Arabic Chinese French Russian Spanish and/or WFPs working language Portuguese.

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REASONABLE ACCOMMODATION

WFP is committed to supporting individuals with disabilities by providing reasonable accommodations throughout the recruitment process. If you require a reasonable accommodation please contact:

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REMINDERS BEFORE YOU SUBMIT YOUR APPLICATION

• We strongly recommend that your profile is accurate complete and includes your employment records academic qualifications language skills and UN Grade (if applicable).

• Once your profile is completed please apply and submit your application.

• Please make sure you upload your professional CV in the English language

• Kindly note the only documents you will need to submit at this time are your CV and Cover Letter

• Additional documents such as passport recommendation letters academic certificates etc. may potentially be requested at a future time

• Please contact us at in case you face any challenges with submitting your application

• Only shortlisted candidates will be notified

All employment decisions are made on the basis of organizational needs job requirements merit and individual qualifications. WFP is committed to providing an inclusive work environment free of sexual exploitation and abuse all forms of discrimination any kind of harassment sexual harassment and abuse of authority. Therefore all selected candidates will undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

No appointment under any kind of contract will be offered to members of the UN Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ) International Civil Service Commission (ICSC) FAO Finance Committee WFP External Auditor WFP Audit Committee Joint Inspection Unit (JIU) and other similar bodies within the United Nations system with oversight responsibilities over WFP both during their service and within three years of ceasing that service.