Remote opportunity at
GiveDirectlySenior Data Scientist, MNO Data
GiveDirectly is seeking a Senior Data Scientist to advance and scale its use of Mobile Network Operator data for residence location inference, poverty estimation, and displacement…
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About This Role
GiveDirectly is seeking a Senior Data Scientist to advance and scale its use of Mobile Network Operator data for residence location inference, poverty estimation, and displacement detection. In this full-time role, the professional will refine method templates, design novel analytical approaches, and collaborate with telecom operators globally. The work is crucial for determining whether individuals lived in specific areas during targeted distributions or emergency responses. The position requires substantial international…
Job Description
GiveDirectly is seeking a Senior Data Scientist to advance and scale its use of Mobile Network Operator data for residence location inference, poverty estimation, and displacement detection. In this full-time role, the professional will refine method templates, design novel analytical approaches, and collaborate with telecom operators globally. The work is crucial for determining whether individuals lived in specific areas during targeted distributions or emergency responses.
The position requires substantial international travel, spanning 25 to 50 percent of the time, often on short notice for in-country workshops and disaster contexts. Candidates must align with the organization values and demonstrate core competencies in problem-solving, project management, and emotional intelligence. Preferred locations for employment include Cameroon, Canada, Colombia, DRC, Germany, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Netherlands, Nigeria, Poland, Portugal, Rwanda, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, Uganda, United Kingdom, and United States.
The employer utilizes an accredited third party to calculate competitive pay based on location and cost of living, operating under a strict no-negotiation policy to maintain equity. The role reports to the Senior Product Manager for MNO data and sits within a globally distributed team spanning over 20 countries.
Responsibilities
- Improve and extend analytical method templates for establishing residence, detecting displacement, or estimating poverty from MNO data
- Design novel methods when specific program interventions require them
- Collaborate with colleagues during technical conversations with operators to clarify data requirements and shape analysis
- Evaluate information that can be inferred from an operator dataset based on sparsity and data types
- Write technical specifications, parameters, steps, pseudocode, and validation criteria for operator data engineers
- Guide operator engineering teams through the implementation process in writing and in person
- Adapt methods for large data volumes and computational constraints while balancing operational needs
- Facilitate in-country workshops with operators to establish new analyses and tune parameters
- Incorporate new analytical elements back into standard templates for future interventions
- Design analyses for privacy from the start through minimization, aggregation, and privacy-enhancing technologies
- Protect partner confidentiality and contribute to internal data security processes
- Develop internal training materials to help technical and non-technical teams understand data limitations
Requirements
- Strong mathematical modeling, machine learning, and statistics expertise with a focus on explainable results
- Deep comfort with spatio-temporal data including GIS, temporal filtering, probability distributions, and sparse observations
- Ability to reason without ground truth and defend parameter choices by reading data shapes
- Pragmatism regarding trade-offs between accuracy and implementability
- Excellent communication and relationship-building skills across technical and non-technical audiences
- Experience writing clear technical specifications that external teams can implement
- Ability to read and review SQL and Python written by others and identify logical errors
- Understanding of large data volumes and databases to determine when analytical simplification is necessary
- Commitment to privacy by design and data confidentiality
- Proficiency in English
- Comfort with travel to fragile and post-disaster contexts
Qualifications
- Direct experience with Call Detail Records or latching data
- Comparable experience with mobility, transport, sensor, or remote-sensing data
- Familiarity with privacy-enhancing technologies like private set intersection, secure multi-party computation, or homomorphic encryption
- Experience designing training materials that changed how non-specialist colleagues used data sources
- Poverty modeling experience
- Familiarity with survey data and survey instruments
- Experience inside a mobile network operator or working closely with one
- Open-source contributions in the mobility estimation space
- Fluency in French, Portuguese, Swahili, or Spanish
Core Skills
Benefits
- Target performance bonus of 10 percent
- Annual benefits stipend that may cover benefits or be taken as additional taxable income
Frequently Asked Questions
Answers are based only on the employer’s listing; where it doesn’t say, neither do we.
What is the employment type for this role?
This is a full-time position.
Where can the employee be located?
GiveDirectly prioritizes hiring in Cameroon, Canada, Colombia, DRC, Germany, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Netherlands, Nigeria, Poland, Portugal, Rwanda, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, Uganda, United Kingdom, and United States.
Does the position require travel?
Yes, substantial international travel of approximately 25 to 50 percent of the time is required, sometimes at short notice for workshops and emergency responses.
What languages are preferred for the candidate?
English is required, while French, Portuguese, Swahili, or Spanish are listed as language preferences.
Sample Interview Questions
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