Data Engineer - Information Technology

Location Portland, Or or US Remote
Position Status: Regular, Full-time, Exempt
Starting Salary Range: $98,000 - $119,667 commensurate with experience

About Mercy Corps

Mercy Corps is powered by the belief that a better world is possible. To do this, we know our teams do their best work when they are diverse and every team member feels that they belong. We welcome diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and skills so that we can be stronger and have long term impact.

Data Services & Enterprise Architecture Summary

The Data Services team is a new department in IT tasked with providing standardized data sharing services, well documented system and business process architecture, and custom software solutions to allow reliable and consistent information delivery in the form of data, reports, and visualizations to Mercy Corps team members in order to glean business insight from the data that is created everyday. These responsibilities cut across departments, countries, and regions to define and streamline end-to-end business processes and data flows.

General Position Summary

The Data Engineer will be responsible for designing and building our data pipeline architecture including data lakes and warehouses, in collaboration with BI Developers and Data Scientists. The person in this position will support our software developers, database architects, data analysts and data scientists on data initiatives and will ensure optimal data delivery architecture is consistent throughout ongoing projects. They must be self-directed and comfortable supporting the data needs of multiple teams, systems and products.

Essential Responsibilities

DATA SERVICES & ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE OPERATIONS

• Develop and administer data lakes and data warehouses
• Build the infrastructure required for optimal extraction, transformation, and loading of data from a wide variety of data sources
• Create and maintain optimal data pipeline architecture,
• Collaborate with BI developers and data scientists to make data sets available
• Identify, design, and implement internal process improvements: automating manual processes, optimizing data delivery, re-designing infrastructure for greater scalability, etc.
• Explore ways to enhance data quality and reliability
• Develop analytical tools and programs
• Evaluate new data ops tools and processes

LEGACY  RESPONSIBILITIES

• Maintain and administer on premise SQL Server including backup and recovery, performance tuning, patching and upgrades
• Maintain and administer on premise data warehouses, including expansion and additional development
• Maintain and develop existing data integrations, such as DataBasics, Adaptive, andProSource
• Administer SQL Server based enterprise applications, such as Navigator and Raiser’s Edge
• Create and maintain documentation in SharePoint around current and new process / system implementations

Supervisory Responsibility

Potential for future supervisor role mentoring Junior Data Engineer

Reports Directly To: Senior Director, Global Infrastructure and Support

W****orks Directly With: IT, Finance & Compliance, Resource Development and other HQ teams and departments, as necessary.

Accountability to Participants and Stakeholders

Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward accountability, specifically to our program participants, community partners, other stakeholders, and to international standards guiding international relief and development work. We are committed to actively engaging communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of our field projects.

Minimum Qualifications & Transferable Skills

• Bachelor’s degree in a technical field or substantial demonstrated equivalent experience
• Experience supporting and working with cross-functional teams in a dynamic environment.
• Advanced SQL knowledge and experience working with relational databases, query authoring (SQL) as well as working familiarity with a variety of databases.
• Experience building and optimizing data pipelines, architectures and data sets.
• Experience performing root cause analysis on internal and external data and processes to answer specific business questions and identify opportunities for improvement.
• Strong analytic skills related to working with unstructured datasets.
• Build processes supporting data transformation, data structures, metadata, dependency and workload management.
• A successful history of manipulating, processing and extracting value from large disconnected datasets.
• Working knowledge of message queuing, stream processing, and highly scalable data stores.
• Strong project management and organizational skills.

Preferred

• Experience with Azure cloud services
• Experience with stream-processing systems: Storm, Spark-Streaming, etc.
• Experience with object-oriented/object function scripting languages: Python, Java, C++, Scala
• Experience with big data tools: Hadoop, Spark, Kafka, etc.

Success Factors

The successful candidate is a problem solver, who is adept in successfully dealing with issues of complexity. They are a skilled communicator, able to develop and utilize strong relationships with team members.

Living Conditions / Environmental Conditions

The position is based in Portland, Oregon and may travel up to 10% of the time to areas with limited access to medical facilities and amenities.  Mercy Corps team members represent the agency both during and outside work hours including when deployed in a field posting or on a visit to a field posting. Team members are expected to conduct themselves in a professional manner and respect local laws, customs and Mercy Corps' policies, procedures, and values at all times and in all in-country venues.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Mercy Corps is an equal opportunity employer that does not tolerate discrimination on any basis. We actively seek out diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and skills so that we can be collectively stronger and have sustained global impact.

We are committed to providing an environment of respect and psychological safety where equal employment opportunities are available to all. We do not engage in or tolerate discrimination on the basis of race, color, gender identity, gender expression, religion, age, sexual orientation, national or ethnic origin, disability (including HIV/AIDS status), marital status, military veteran status or any other protected group in the locations where we work.

Safeguarding & Ethics

Mercy Corps is committed to ensuring that all individuals we come into contact with through our work, whether team members, community members, program participants or others, are treated with respect and dignity. We are committed to the core principles regarding prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse laid out by the UN Secretary General and IASC and have signed on to the Interagency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme**.** We will not tolerate child abuse, sexual exploitation, abuse, or harassment by or of our team members. As part of our commitment to a safe and inclusive work environment, team members are expected to conduct themselves in a professional manner, respect local laws and customs, and to adhere to Mercy Corps Code of Conduct Policies and values at all times.

As a safeguarding measure, Mercy Corps screens all potential US-Based employees. Any offers of employment or continued employment are dependent on the successful completion of the screens which include, but are not limited to our Background Check and Interagency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme processes,

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Achieving our mission begins with how we build our team and work together. Through our commitment to enriching our organization with people of different origins, beliefs, backgrounds, and ways of thinking, we are better able to leverage the collective power of our teams and solve the world’s most complex challenges. We strive for a culture of trust and respect, where everyone contributes their perspectives and authentic selves, reaches their potential as individuals and teams, and collaborates to do the best work of their lives.

Ongoing Learning

In support of our belief that learning organizations are more effective, efficient and relevant to the communities we serve, we empower all team members to dedicate 5% of their time to learning activities that further their personal and/or professional growth and development

Covid-19 Vaccine Policy for US-Based Employees

Mercy Corps has determined that, in an effort to protect the health, safety, and well-being of all Mercy Corps employees working in the United States, all U.S.-based employees must be fully vaccinated for COVID-19, regardless of prior COVID-19 infection status.

This policy will be revised as needed to comply with federal, state, and local requirements, and to respond to changing guidance from public health authorities.

For new employees this requirement goes into effect within 10 business days of employment.  Team members that travel are expected to comply with host-country requirements, including vaccinations.  Failure to comply may impact your employment.  Proof of vaccination or exemption must be provided.