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Posted June 14, 2021

Principal Engineer/Software Architect (Remote Possible)

Washington, D.C., USA Remote Full Time
Compensation: $125,000 to $180,000 Annually

To apply: Go to www.kimetrica.com/careers/ and complete an application. Candidates who do not apply through Kimetrica's career portal will not be...

To apply: Go to www.kimetrica.com/careers/ and complete an application.

Candidates who do not apply through Kimetrica's career portal will not be considered.

The Principal Engineer/Software Architect ("PE") will primarily act as Deputy Data Manager under the FEWS NET Learning and Data Hub, providing technical assistance, recommendations, proofs of concept, and individual technical contributions to the Hub and other Kimetrica projects. Key deliverables include prioritization of work within projects and across technical domains, assessments of potential technologies, drafting of reports and architectures in support of Kimetrica’s projects and priorities, and other duties requiring expert technical contributions as identified.

The FEWS NET Deputy Data Manager will identify and recommend improvements to the FEWS Data Warehouse (FDW) and other associated FEWS NET data management systems that may be created, predominantly using open source tools from the Python data science and Django web development ecosystems. S/he will manage linkage and access to external datasets. S/he will use data design methodologies and tools and database management software to create systems that meet user requirements among the internal FEWS NET team and external users, and will identify methods of database and data warehouse programming to perform queries and visualizations that enable efficient, responsive data exploration and analysis. S/he will also write specifications for system enhancements and supervise and review contributions from other software developers to ensure that they meet requirements and align with long term strategic directives.

Objective
The PE will provide expert guidance and recommendations to assist the Hub and Kimetrica in ensuring that the client’s suites of data systems and software combine to meet the needs of internal and external data users.

Responsibilities
The PE will develop methods of database content management, including updates, gap-filling, the addition of new data sets, and quality control, including methods of database management that handle data collections, possessing a mix of open access and restricted data sets. S/he will be responsible for developing tools to link datasets residing at disparate organizations and locations to facilitate seamless joint use in interactive sessions of data exploration and analysis. The PE will also serve as the point of contact to receive data, requirements, technical feasibility questions, and others from FEWS NET partners to be used in the project’s various data analysis and visualization processes. In support of the Data Manager role, the PE will provide recommendations to the FEWS NET Hub Director and Kimetrica’s CTO in support of FDW development, incoming and outgoing data, and improving efficiencies and resolving gaps or errors in data.

The exact composition of the FEWS NEWS data systems will be determined by USAID in discussion with the Data Manager and the Hub Director, but is likely to include:

  • FEWS NET Data Warehouse (FDW): stores highly structured data with standardized metadata for key food security data domains
  • Superset (or another similar visualization platform): for ad hoc analysis and visualizations and published dashboards
  • Luigi: for advanced analytics including data quality assurance, price projections and other derived data, web scraping, etc.
  • KoboToolbox: primary data collection
  • Mayan (incorporated within FDW): stores semi-structured or unstructured data such as PDFs of original source data or contextual reports
  • CKAN: stores structured data that has non-standardized metadata or is for a non-core data domain. Also stores curated extracts of key FDW data sets for publication.

The Learning and Data Hub will provide other (non-data) software platforms to support the overall FEWS NET activities, including knowledge management and sharing, communication, collaboration and project management tools.

Requirements
Required

  • 8 years of experience in software development
  • Knowledge of Python, Django, and Pandas

Preferred

  • Knowledge of Luigi, Wagtail, React, Superset, KoboToolbox, DevOps, AWS

Supervision and Reporting
Reporting. The Deputy Data Manager will report to the FEWS NET Data Manager and Hub Director. As PE, the candidate also reports to Kimetrica’s CTO.

Reports. The PE provides management and oversight of all data processes on the FEWS NET Project; this includes the following project staff: FDW Lead Developer, Infrastructure Manager and Software Developers.

This listing expired on Jul 29. Applications are no longer accepted.