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Data Engineer (Contractor)

London, England, United Kingdom

About GiveDirectly

GiveDirectly (GD) provides cash grants directly to people living in extreme poverty. Since launching in 2011, GD has raised over $1B, delivered cash to more than 1.5 million recipients, launched operations in 15 countries, and continues to expand its reach across the Global South. GD has also grown the research base supporting unconditional cash with 20 randomized control trials from its programs, generating rigorous evidence across countries and contexts. As a result, GD has been celebrated as one of the most innovative non-profit companies by Fast Company, while the growing cash transfer movement (and GD’s leading role within it) has been featured in the New York Times Magazine, This American Life, Foreign Affairs, and The Economist.

Across our global offices, our culture is candid, analytical, non-hierarchical, and agile. We work alongside 750+ individuals who come from 21 different countries and speak 69 different languages. Team members at GiveDirectly attest that diversity, equity, and inclusion are not just buzzwords, but a fundamental part of our culture and values. We actively seek to recruit individuals from the communities we serve, and use DEI as a lens in our hiring practices, programs, and initiatives. Our goal is to maintain a workplace where everyone can bring their authentic selves to work, and feel valued and respected for who they are. We strive to be inclusive of all cultures and experiences while upholding our values globally. In the spirit of our "Know Yourself and Grow" value, we recognize there is always room to improve our team's working experience. But day to day, we aim to "Create Positive Energy" - we take care of one another, have fun, aim to maximize flexibility and accessibility in roles, and pursue professional development opportunities to stay challenged & engaged in our work. 

We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other status protected by law.

Location: This role is fully remote but must overlap with an East Africa timezone by at least 4 hours. We are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of employment Visas in the U.S. or U.K. at this time.

About this role

The mission of the Central Data team is to empower GiveDirectly with a rigorous, data-driven culture to maximize our efficiency, effectiveness, and scale of delivering dollars to recipients. Building datasets that help us fully understand our donors, improve fundraising interventions, and ultimately raise more money is key to this mission. However, we currently lack many necessary datasets because we do not have pipelines to extract data from key fundraising platforms or combine data across platforms. 

We have been awarded a $100,000 grant to fund a contractor role that will work full-time (40 hours / week) within Central Data for around one year to address these needs. You will work closely with the Senior Data Architect who oversees our infrastructure (AWS, Databricks, Tableau) and data pipeline development; the Fundraising Data Manager who will turn these datasets into dashboards and insights; and fundraising stakeholders who will use these insights to raise more money for recipients. 

Reports to: Graham Tyler (Director of Data)

Level: Manager

Travel Requirement: There are no travel requirements for this role.

 

What you’ll do:

Success in this role is determined by meeting these key objectives: 

  • [20%] Ingest all relevant data sources into our data lakehouse (AWS, Databricks). 
    • We have existing pipelines, metrics, and dashboards leveraging data from our donor CRM and email provider. You will build new pipelines and jobs to ingest data from our website analytics platform and donor ticketing system.
  • [40%] Build unified datasets to fully understand donors and fundraising interventions. 
    • Once all data sources are in Databricks, you will work with stakeholders to define metrics, facts, and dimensions necessary for new dashboards, analysis, ML models, and experimentation that will drive fundraising strategy. Then you will build pipelines to clean, transform, and combine data from all platforms into these actionable datasets.  
  • [30%] Reduce data quality incidents with automated data quality tests and monitoring. 
    • Implement data quality tests and alerting for key donation, donor, and donor engagement variables.
    • Monitor job and pipeline performance. 
    • Proactively identify and implement improvements to our existing pipelines. 
  • [10%] Make it easy to maintain your pipelines and tools. 
    • Create comprehensive, easy to understand documentation to ensure effective knowledge transfer of your work. 
    • Build within our existing configurable pipeline framework and identify ways to improve this process. 
    • Leave our systems and processes better than you found them.

 

What you’ll bring:

  • Exceptional alignment with GiveDirectly Values and active demonstration of our core competencies: emotional intelligence, problem solving, project management, follow-through, and fostering inclusivity. We welcome and strongly encourage applications from candidates who have personal or professional experience in the low-income and/or historically marginalized communities that we serve.
  • Language Requirement: English
  • Language Preferences: No additional language preferences
  • Critical thinking and analytical approach necessary to develop technical solutions that scale and are resilient to changes over time
  • Entrepreneurial mindset and stakeholder management skills required to identify, design, and execute technical solutions that solve important, ambiguous organizational problems
  • Python, SQL, and spark expertise, along with core competencies required to ship high quality data pipelines and data tools fast
  • Extensive experience with Databricks preferred; experience with Tableau is a plus
  • Intellectual humility, curiosity, and a commitment to being part of an exceptional team

 

Compensation

At GiveDirectly, we strive to pay our employees generously and equitably. We use an accredited third party salary aggregator to ensure that staff’s total compensation package (base compensation + bonus)  falls within the 75th percentile of similar roles, at similar organizations. We also have a no negotiation policy to ensure we are paying staff equitably across roles. 

  • This role will be compensated at a rate equivalent to $130,000 per year base salary in the United States.
  • This role will be compensated at a rate equivalent to $74,000 per year base salary in Kenya.

This role is fully remote, so if you are not based in the US or Kenya, we will share an estimated pay rate for the country you are based in during the hiring process. P.S. We have been awarded a $100,000 grant to fund this role, which will be paid at a rate equivalent to your location until the entire grant has been used. So, regardless of location, this role will earn a total of $100,000 over the course of your time working with us. The duration of the role will depend on your location and associated pay rate. 

 

Why work at GiveDirectly?

At GiveDirectly, we work to ensure that you have everything you need to excel in your role and on your team, including:

  • A positive and supportive team
  • A demonstrated commitment to helping all staff develop and grow
  • Flexible work location

Read more about our ongoing diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts here and about our decision to move our central support teams to remote first here.

GiveDirectly is an Equal Opportunity Employer that values the strength diversity brings to the workplace. All qualified applicants are considered for employment without regard to the person’s race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.

US applicants only:  We invite you to "Know Your Rights" as an applicant.

 

About the hiring process

Format: The hiring process follows the same general outline for all open roles:

First interview (30 mins)
 Take home skills assignment (~2 hours)
 Second interview (1 hour)*
 Third interview (1 hour)*
 Final interview (1 hour)
 Reference checks (30 mins each)

*For some roles, second & third interviews are combined into a panel interview. If there are adjustments or variations on this process, those changes will be communicated during the first interview.

Venue: We conduct interviews over Google Meet with camera on (unless communicated otherwise).

Accessibility: Closed captioning is available during all Google Meet interviews, and interviewers will also post interview questions in the chat box throughout the call. If you need assistance accessing either of these features, please let your interviewer know at the start of your interview! 

We’re committed to running an inclusive and accessible application process for all of our open roles. If there are questions or concerns you have about the accessibility of our hiring process, we warmly invite you to reach out to careers@givedirectly.org. Please include the word "Accessibility" in the email title.

**GD is committed to observing all local, national and international laws that protect children, vulnerable adults, and basic human rights of all. GD is committed to a policy of “zero tolerance for sexual exploitation, abuse, and harassment (SEAH)” and expects anyone who works for GD to uphold the protection and safeguarding of our recipients as a priority.**

 

Want to put your best foot forward on your GiveDirectly application? Take a look at our Candidate Application Prep Guide!

 

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