Background

Instructions to Applicants: Click on the "Apply now" button. Input your information in the appropriate Sections: personal information, language proficiency, education, resume and motivation. Upon completion of the first page, please hit "submit application" tab at the end of the page. Please ensure that CV or P11 and the Cover letter are combined in one file.

The following documents shall be required from the applicants:

Personal CV or P11, indicating all past positions held and their main underlying functions, their durations (month/year), the qualifications, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the Candidate, and at least three (3) the most recent professional references of previous supervisors. References may also include peers.

A cover letter (maximum length: 1 page) indicating why the candidate considers him-/herself to be suitable for the position.

Managers may ask (ad hoc) for any other materials relevant to pre-assessing the relevance of their experience, such as reports, presentations, publications, campaigns or other materials.

 

Office/Unit/Project Description

The UN Reform Resolution tasks UNDP to provide countries with an “integrator function” to accelerate progress towards the SDGs by tackling multiple interlinked and interdependent development challenges. The UNDP Global Policy Network (GPN) draws on expertise globally to provide more effective responses to the complex development challenges countries face in achieving the SDGs and responding to crisis in an integrated and coherent manner. Anchored in the Crisis Bureau (CB) and the Bureau for Policy and Programme Support (BPPS), the GPN has the responsibility for developing all relevant policy and guidance to support the results of UNDP’s Strategic Plan, which is aligned with the 2030 Agenda Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).

An SDG Integration Team located with UNDP’s Global Policy Network (GPN) offers a menu of services emphasizing direct short- to medium-term engagements to respond rapidly to requests from country offices for support on national implementation and monitoring of integrated policy solutions, qualitative and evidence-driven analysis for accelerated progress, and knowledge sharing and upscaling of innovative approaches to sustainable development. The team’s work emphasizes the application of evidence-driven data and analytics for SDG implementation and reporting.

In this regard, advances in digital technology are creating data at unprecedented levels of detail and speed, turning the stories of people’s lives into numbers every minute of every day, across the globe. An important focus of the integration work is to complement traditional data (e.g., national statistics, NHDR like analysis) with new and alternative sources including digital ‘breadcrumbs,’ satellite data, social media to identify emerging trends and gain new perspectives on issues in development.

Under the guidance of the Global Policy Advisor of the SDG Integration Bureau for Policy and Programme Support/Global Policy Network, the Geospatial Engineer will support the Integration Team’s work by developing and implementing policies and pipelines for geospatial data management, structuring and organizing spatial data. The Data Engineer will contribute to the development of scalable geospatial data pipelines and have sound knowledge and understanding of GIS tools. This work will be pivotal in providing more complete and rigorous information when developing novel solutions or validating decisions.

 

Institutional Arrangement

The GIS Engineer will work under the guidance and direct supervision of Global Policy Advisor of the SDG Integration Bureau for Policy and Programme Support/Global Policy Network and will be responsible for the fulfilment of the scope of work mentioned above. The Data Analyst will be given access to relevant information necessary for the execution of the tasks under this assignment. The Data Analyst will be responsible for providing her/his own laptop. Given the global consultations to be undertaken during this assignment, the Data Analyst is expected to be reasonably flexible with his/her availability for such consultations taking into consideration different time zones

Duties and Responsibilities

Scope of Work

The GIS Engineer will contribute to the following tasks:

  • Prototype, design, build, and test production geospatial data pipelines, tools and associated software systems.
  • Design and the implementation of a data management architecture to optimize storage and web rendering/publishing of vector and raster data in a spatial database.
  • Support strategic thinking and processes related to infrastructure, geospatial data pipelines, software development and deployment

Competencies

Core

Achieve Results:

LEVEL 3: Set and align challenging, achievable objectives for multiple projects, have lasting impact

Think Innovatively:

LEVEL 3: Proactively mitigate potential risks, develop new ideas to solve complex problems

Learn Continuously:

LEVEL 3: Create and act on opportunities to expand horizons, diversify experiences

Adapt with Agility:

LEVEL 3: Proactively initiate and champion change, manage multiple competing demands

Act with Determination:

LEVEL 3: Think beyond immediate task/barriers and take action to achieve greater results

Engage and Partner:

LEVEL 3: Political savvy, navigate complex landscape, champion inter-agency collaboration

Enable Diversity and Inclusion:

LEVEL 3: Appreciate benefits of diverse workforce and champion inclusivity

 

Cross-Functional & Technical competencies

Thematic Area

Name

Definition

Digital & Innovation

Data literacy

Understand the potential as well as the limitations of using data driven innovation.

Digital & Innovation

Data privacy and digital ethics

Knowledge of ethical usage of digital technology (e.g. AI, robotics, automation) and data. Ability to assess ethical implications when using, combining or sharing data, when building or implementing AI systems, and when advising on robotisation and automation etc. Ability to design privacy protocols to ensure data is protected and used for legitimate purposes without unnecessary privacy risks.

Digital & Innovation

Tech literacy

Ability to apply new digital tools or adapting their original use to create new insights, fresh perspectives or develop solutions.

Digital & Innovation

Protoyping

Ability to make ideas tangible, at low costs early in the innovation process, to test and improve them through iteration.

Digital & Innovation

Collective intelligence design

Being able to integrate different types of data (real-time, ‘ground- truth’ and novel data) to unlock fresh insights. Understand guidelines and principles around data privacy, ethics and protection.

Digital & Innovation

Geospatial analysis

Skilled in techniques which study entities using their topological, geometric, or geographic properties.

Required Skills and Experience

Min. Academic Education

  • Master’s degree or equivalent in GIS, Computer Science, Engineering or Scientific Discipline;
  • Bachelor’s degree or equivalent with an additional two years of experience may be taken into consideration in lieu of Master’s

Min. years of relevant Work experience

  • Masters degree with 5 years’ relevant experience in geospatial data engineering, or,
  • Bachelors degree with 7 years relevant experience

Required  skills and competencies

  • Experience in design, building and testing geospatial data solutions that are complex or large-scale working as a GIS Developer/Data Engineer or in a related technical role
  • Advanced knowledge of data formats used in web mapping applications (MVT, COG)
  • Experience working in a Cloud environment, ideally Azure
  • Experience with geospatial data curation for web mapping projects
  • Advanced knowledge and experience with developing data pipeline architectures using PostGIS (plpgsql/plpython),   GDAL, python, numpy, rasterio, pandas, proj4
  • Proficiency in data modelling and relational databases
  • Experience with geospatial analytics in Jupyter environment (leafmap, ipyleaflet, ipywidgets)
  • Proven experience (GitHub repo or real-life examples) in working with geospatial data integration and theoretical knowledge of the geospatial problem domain.

Desired additional skills and competencies

  • Experience with web development (React, Vue, Svelte) and web mapping libraries (Maplibre/Leaflet)
  • Ability to present outputs using contemporary methods and communicate effectively with a range of audiences to transfer the knowledge gained.

Required Language(s) (at working level)

  • Fluency in written and spoken English

Professional Certificates

  • n/a