Geospatial Developer
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, color, national origin, ethnic or social background, genetic information, gender, gender identity and/or expression, sexual orientation, religion or belief, HIV status, physical or mental disability.
Job Title: Geospatial Developer
Type of Contract: CST Level 2
Division: APP / FSNA / GIS & Remote Sensing
Duty Station (City, Country): Remote work
Duration: 11 months
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE OF THE ASSIGNMENT:
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is the leading humanitarian organization saving lives and changing lives, delivering food assistance in emergencies and working with communities to improve nutrition and build resilience. The GIS & Remote Sensing Unit within the Analysis, Planning and Performance (APP) division is responsible for enhancing WFP's geospatial evidence base in support of emergency preparedness and response.
The Geospatial developer will support this effort by developing procedures to automatically gather, process and map such information, especially in maintaining and improving WFP’s Advanced Disaster Analysis and Mapping (ADAM). He/She will contribute to the maintenance and improvement of the existing cloud-based infrastructure and will develop new automatic procedures of geospatial data harvesting and mapping. He/she will directly report to the GIS Development and Innovation Lead.
ACCOUNTABILITIES / RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Maintain, develop and improve the Advanced Disaster Analysis and Mapping (ADAM), WFP’s corporate system to prepare, alert and respond to sudden onset disasters such as earthquakes, tropical storms and floods, to name a few.
- Optimize and improve ADAM’s current data pipelines, impact analysis and system components such as but not limited to API, automated spatial analysis, monitoring dashboard, systems integration with other internal WFP systems, web-interface and user management to better consume and serve operational data.
- Review, redesign and adapt ADAM system infrastructure and components to comply with technical, security and design internal requirements.
- Review, redesign and test ADAM integration components for internal geospatial systems consumption
- Support interoperability of geospatial data system infrastructure with other WFP/external systems
- Provide technical support to other WFP initiatives to utilize ADAM’s capabilities and services for anticipatory action activities and other related operational requirements
- Maintain detailed and full documentation of ADAM system
- Perform other duties as required.
DELIVERABLES AT THE END OF THE CONTRACT:
- ADAM is fully configurable and customized for WFP’s internal requirements
- ADAM has enough geospatial capabilities for providing cross-platform integration through the API
ADAM is operationally stable and well documented
ADAM services and products and consumed by internal WFP systems and services as well as external user access capable
QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE REQUIRED
Education:
Master's degree in computer science, Information Technology, Geomatics, or equivalent work experience is required.
Experience:
Minimum of 5 years of increasingly relevant professional experience; OR without a master degree: 6 years of proven working experience in developing GIS applications and systems for large organizations
Knowledge and Skills:
- Advance proficiency in Python programming language is required
- Demonstrated capability in developing, testing, and integrating production level applications and services
- Exposure or relative experience in GIS and remote sensing (Earth observation)
- Knowledge of GIS software (ESRI and/or open-source equivalent)
- Familiarity with Open Geospatial Data, services and products
- Experienced in ORM in RDBMS and working experience in geospatial data model preferred
- Understanding and appreciation for Clean Code, Test Driven Design (TDD), Design Principles and other best practices. Proficient understanding and experience with code versioning tools.
- Experience working on containerized environment is required
- Experience working with AWS/cloud is required, MS Azure DevOps and Google Earth Engine is a must
- Agile and able to work independently and within a team;
- Courtesy, tact and ability to work with people of different national and cultural backgrounds;
- Ability to communicate clearly and concisely both orally and in writing;
- Experience in project management is desirable
Languages:
Working knowledge of English (proficiency/level C) is required.
A second UN language would be an asset (preferably French, Spanish or Arabic)
Terms and Conditions
WFP offers a competitive compensation package which will be determined by the contract type and selected candidate’s qualifications and experience.
Please visit the following websites for detailed information on working with WFP.
http://www.wfp.org Click on: “Our work” and “Countries” to learn more about WFP’s operations.
Deadline for applications: 18 April 2024
Ref.: VA No. 832360
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.