Senior Data Engineer

ABOUT VILLAGEREACH

VillageReach transforms health care delivery to reach everyone, so that each person has the health care needed to thrive.  We develop solutions that improve equity and access to primary health care.  This includes making sure products are available when and where they are needed and primary health care services are delivered to the most under-reached.  Radical collaboration with governments, the private sector and other partners strengthen our ability to scale and sustain these solutions. Our work increases access to quality health care for more than 70 million people in Africa. VillageReach in incorporated in Washington State and has offices in Seattle (USA), Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, and Mozambique.

Summary

VillageReach seeks an experienced and highly motivated individual to join the Global Operations and IT team as the Senior Data Engineer. The individual will focus on harnessing data power to drive actionable insights. As a Senior Data Engineer, you’ll be the champion of our Data Modernization initiative, which seeks to ensure that managers and functional leads throughout the organization are able to access and leverage high-quality data to make informed business decisions.

This role will involve driving the rollout of an enterprise warehouse solution, building data engineering systems that support robust and scalable dashboards and reports. The successful candidate in this role will combine deep knowledge of data structures, systems and of business processes to gather requirements, identify unmet data insights needs and design elegant solutions that allow business users to leverage data when making key financial and management decisions.

Description

Essential Duties and Responsibilities include the following. Other duties, responsibilities, and activities may change or be assigned at any time.

Data Modelling and Extract, Transform and Load (ETL):

• Design and implement robust data models to support analytics and reporting requirements.
• Develop and maintain scalable ETL processes from various sources, including multiple ERP systems, into a data warehouse.
• Implement best practices for data transformation and cleansing to ensure data integrity and reliability.

Data Ingestion and Automation data pipelines

• Implement data validation and quality checks to ensure accuracy and completeness.
• Design, build, and maintain automated data pipelines to streamline data processing and transformation.
• Utilize orchestration tools to schedule and monitor pipeline workflows.
• Collaborate with data analysts to understand data requirements and support their analysis needs.
• Optimize data structures and queries to enhance performance and usability for analytical purposes.

Data Warehousing

• Design and optimize data warehousing solutions to support business intelligence and analytics needs.
• Implement data modelling techniques to organize and structure data for optimal querying and analysis.

Optimization and Performance Tuning

• Troubleshooting and fixing issues on existing reports/dashboards while also continuously building improvements.
• Optimize dashboard performance and ensure responsiveness for large datasets and complex queries.
• Identify and address performance bottlenecks through optimization techniques and best practices.

Design, Data Visualization and Dashboards

• Create visually compelling reports and dashboards using industry-standard tools.
• Create and design user centered reports and dashboards with ability to provide the most important insights to different user groups.
• Work closely with stakeholders to understand reporting requirements and deliver actionable insights through visualization.

Competencies:

The following competencies reflect what is expected of all VillageReach employees; including examples of how one might demonstrate each of these competencies in one’s role.

• Personal Motivation and Drive: Is self-directed in one’s approach to work, but asks for help when needed; holds oneself accountable; undertakes self-development activities; seeks to build and master new skills; looks for and takes advantage of opportunities within the organization
• Collaboration & Effective Communication: Establishes and maintains effective relations with coworkers, partners & stakeholders and external parties; works collaboratively with others to accomplish organizational and team goals and objectives; works actively to resolve conflicts; expresses ideas and thoughts effectively; selects and uses appropriate communication methods and maintains meaningful communication with virtual coworkers and other parties to keep them informed
• Commitment to Diversity & Inclusion: Takes personal responsibility for and supports others across the organization in creating and sustaining a diverse work environment where individuals are welcomed, valued, respected and supported; personally committed to attaining cultural competency including self-awareness of one’s own attitudes about culture and cross-cultural interactions; exhibits the willingness and ability to engage openly and respectfully around issues of race, colonialism, identity and culture; upholds equity in access to sharing of information, ideas, and opportunities throughout VillageReach
• Commitment to Excellence: Produces a high output of work, both in terms of quality and quantity; looks for ways to improve and promote quality; monitors work to ensure quality; has a personal commitment to the mission of VillageReach
• Solution Orientation & Innovation: Focuses on results and desired outcomes and how to best achieve them; gets the job done; sees opportunities for creative problem-solving while staying within the parameters of good practice; sees old problems in new ways and has novel approaches to solving those problems; contributes original and/or resourceful ideas to their area of responsibility; is able to consider and articulate risks and consequences of proposed innovations and factor these into decision-making

Requirements

REQUIREMENTS

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Supervisory Responsibilities:

This position does not have direct supervisory responsibilities. However, the position will serve as the primary technical liaison for all enterprise data and analytics, ensuring seamless integration and alignment with organizational goals. The position holder will also Collaborate with business leaders to design and implement innovative data and business intelligence solutions, focusing on automating pipelines, reports, and interactive dashboards for actionable insights.

Education & Experience:

• Preferably a Master’s and a minimum of Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Information systems, Engineering, or a related field.
• 7+ years of experience in data engineering, with a focus on data ingestion, pipeline automation, ETL development, and data warehousing.
• Should demonstrate significant PowerBI development experience, with the ability to build and maintain multi-dimensional data models, troubleshoot errors, run DAX queries, set up new data pipelines, and design and deploy new reports.
• Proficiency in programming languages such as Python, Java or Scala.
• Working knowledge of databases, data systems, and analytics solutions, including proficiency in SQL, Python and MS Synapse for reporting and dashboard building.
• Experience with big data technologies with implementation experience on Azure Data solution and tools & Azure Synapse solutions.
• Strong SQL skills and familiarity with relational and NoSQL databases.
• Experience working with non-technical stakeholders to drive adoption and use of data.
• Experience ingesting data from ERP systems and familiarity with non-profit organizational processes is highly desired.
• Excellent project management skills, with experience developing project plans, gathering user requirements with non-technical business partners, and adhering to project timelines.
• Project management certification is an asset

Other Qualifications:

• Comply with VillageReach’s COVID-19 vaccination policy which requires full vaccination for in-person work or travel.
• Established cultural competency in partnering with racial, cultural and linguistically diverse groups.
• Demonstrated understanding of challenges with working in rural, underserved and low-income context; experience living in and/or working in a low-income country a plus.
• Proficient in Microsoft Office Suite (Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, Excel) and comfortable in a fast-paced technical environment.
• Fluency in oral and written English is required, and proficiency in French or Portuguese would be advantageous.

Environment and Physical Demands:

VillageReach has no private offices, employees work in a shared, open environment with task and conference rooms accessible to employees for privacy and meetings. The noise level in the work environment is usually quiet. Due to the time zone differences between our USA office and our Country Offices and location of other global staff, we have established core collaboration hours between 6am Pacific Time and 18:00 South Africa Time (GMT+1) Monday through Thursday. All staff, regardless of location are expected to be available between these hours. During Daylight Savings Time, this allows for 12 hours per week (3 hours/day) of collaboration time and during Standard Time, 8 hours (2 hours/day). We do not hold cross-office meetings on Friday.

Applicants must be comfortable working in a hybrid working set up and using remote communication channels (MS Teams, Zoom, WhatsApp) to perform their duties.]

COMMITMENT TO DIVERSITY & INCLUSION:

VillageReach is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer committed to workforce diversity. We believe that diverse, equitably weighted perspectives foster an organizational capacity to create novel solutions that improve health in the most under-reached and hard-to-reach areas. To align our values, innovations and impact, VillageReach is committed to recruiting and retaining a diverse global workforce.

APPLICATION INFORMATION:

This is an immediate hire and therefore resumes will be reviewed on a rolling basis until the position is filled. To apply, please submit your resume and a cover letter to our online portal: http://www.villagereach.org/join-us/.  

In your cover letter, please address; (1) Why you are interested in this position, and (2) What is one reason you think you’d be a good fit for this position?

Hiring Process:

The hiring process will include the following steps:

1. Review submitted applications
2. Conduct 20-30 minute screening interviews for shortlisted candidates
3. Conduct skills and value-based interviews for 3-5 candidates.
4. Request that top candidates submit a practical assessment (designed to take no more than two hours to complete). Sometimes the assignment will occur before the interview.
5. Conduct final interview if necessary
6. Request references 
7. Make offer 
8. Conduct background check

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted, but candidates who proceed to step 2 will be notified if they are not chosen for step 3.

Safeguarding:

VillageReach is committed to promoting the welfare of children, young people, adults, and beneficiaries with whom it engages. We expect everyone working with us to share this commitment through our code of conduct.All offers of employment will be subject to satisfactory references and appropriate screening checks, which may include criminal records. VillageReach participates in the Misconduct Disclosure Scheme and, in line with this Scheme, we will request information from job applicants’ previous employers about any findings of sexual exploitation, sexual abuse, and/or sexual harassment during employment, or incidents under investigation when the applicant left employment. By applying, the job applicant confirms his/her understanding of these recruitment procedures.

Benefits

Compensation & Benefits:

VillageReach has an established compensation structure that is based on the relevant market and internally transparent. We hire people into the established range based on one’s experience and education and considering internal equity. We do not inquire about salary history. Please refer to our compensation overview on our website for more information and for more information on employee benefits.