Senior Data Scientist, MNO Data
GiveDirectly · Data · Senior · 16d ago
Open to candidates living in Cameroon, Canada, Colombia, DR Congo, Germany, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Netherlands, Nigeria, Poland, Portugal, Rwanda, South Africa, Spain, Türkiye, Uganda, United Kingdom, United States.
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Who can apply
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Open to candidates living in Cameroon, Canada, Colombia, DR Congo, Germany, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Netherlands, Nigeria, Poland, Portugal, Rwanda, South Africa, Spain, Türkiye, Uganda, United Kingdom, United States.
“At this stage of GiveDirectly’s growth and scale, we’re prioritizing hiring in the countries below, where we can employ you through a GD entity or an established employer of record: Cameroon, Canada, Colombia, DRC, Germany, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Netherlands, Nigeria, Poland, Portugal, Rwanda, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, Uganda, United Kingdom, and United States.”
GiveDirectly's team spans more than 20 countries and 69 languages.
- Async-first
- The listing doesn't promise async-first working.
- Contractor / B2B
- Employs team members via local GiveDirectly entities or established Employer of Record (EOR) setups across 20+ countries.
- Global stipend
- No home office or equipment budget mentioned.
- Annual retreat
- No company-paid get-togethers mentioned.
Read from the listing automatically. Always confirm the details with the company before you accept an offer.
About the role
As a Senior Data Scientist for MNO Data, you will develop, expand, and maintain GiveDirectly's analytical method templates for inferring subscriber residence location, displacement, and poverty levels from mobile network data. You will work closely with mobile network operators across low- and middle-income countries, writing technical specifications, guiding operator engineering teams through remote or in-person implementation, and ensuring high standards of data privacy. This role requires substantial international travel (25–50%) for workshops and emergency program deployments.
What you'll do
- Improve and extend the library of analytical method templates for establishing residence, detecting displacement, or estimating poverty from MNO data.
- Support technical discussions with mobile network operators, defining required data structures and workable analytical designs.
- Assess operator data sparsity and types to determine feasible inferences across targeted geographic areas.
- Write comprehensive method specifications and tests (pseudocode, parameters, validation criteria) for operator data engineers.
- Lead in-country workshops and travel internationally (25–50% of the time) to assist operators with implementation and parameter tuning.
What you bring
- Significant data science experience working with geospatial, location, mobility, or large-scale telecommunications data.
- Demonstrated ability to write clear analytical specifications and pseudocode for external engineering teams to implement.
- Strong technical communication skills to navigate conversations with both technical engineers and non-technical stakeholders.
- Willingness and ability to undertake substantial international travel (25–50%), occasionally on short notice for crisis response.
About GiveDirectly
GiveDirectly is an international non-profit that delivers unconditional cash transfers directly to people living in poverty and crisis situations, reshaping modern foreign aid through rigorous data and evidence.
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