Geospatial Data Engineer

This is a hybrid position which requires 8 days/month in the office. You can be based in our office in Washington DC. Existing work authorization is required at the time of application submission as WRI is unable to sponsor any visa work sponsorship for this position. To be eligible for this position in US, you must be a resident of DC, Maryland or Virginia at the start of employment.

About the Program:

The Data Lab is WRI’s core data innovation and delivery unit. We are a team of engineers, product managers, and data scientists with deep experience setting data strategy, doing quantitative research, and building data tools and products. Data of all kinds sits at the heart of how WRI achieves impact in the world, and our world-class research is used by governments, policymakers, NGOs and local communities around the world to improve lives, protect nature, and ensure just transitions.

This is a unique opportunity to support the development of Global Forest Watch Pro (GFW Pro), the leading online management application supporting the reduction of deforestation related to soft commodity supply chains.

Job Highlight:

Reporting to Head of Engineering, you will integrate equity into your work.

You will work with and support the GFW Pro Product Development team and the Data API on which it depends, acting as an individual contributor and liaison between the two teams regarding technical solutions, data architecture, and data pipeline development. Examples of this work include onboarding new datasets to the Data API infrastructure to support global and country-specific analyses for GFW Pro, developing new Geotrellis code to conduct analysis, and leveraging cloud infrastructure to host and execute data pipelines and distributed computing workloads.

You will be supported by the Data Lab Engineering Team and GFW Pro Product Development Team

What will you do:

Data preparation, pipeline development, and development of code for conducting automated analysis (75% time)

• Work with data scientists and researchers to prepare new datasets for ingestion into the GFW Pro system, develop technical requirements, and conduct QC on the final output
• Write Spark and Geotrellis code to create new automated analysis pipelines as needed for new datasets and use cases
  • Work closely with the GFW Pro Product Engineering team to ensure data pipelines and workflows are properly integrated into the user-facing platform and ensure consistency between analysis and visualization of data
  • Build reusable tools and libraries to automate and streamline common data workflows

    Contribute to Core Infrastructure to support GFW Pro (25% time)

    • Collaborate with the Data API Engineering team to troubleshoot issues, develop new features needed by GFW Pro, and contribute to technical discussions and planning
    • With support from the Cloud Administration team, maintain the AWS GFW Pro Account, monitor costs and performance, and conduct research and development of new approaches to using cloud services to support GFW Pro data processing and the platform itself
    • Collaborate with other members of the Data Lab in researching new technologies and solutions, apply them to GFW Pro, and share knowledge back to the WRI data and technology community

      What will you need:

      • Education: You have a completed a bachelor’s degree in a relevant field. Relevant work experience in lieu of degree is accepted
      • Experience: You have a minimum of 7 years of relevant experience in software engineering
      • Experience architecting cloud-based services, storage, compute and data pipelines (AWS preferred)
      • Experience with open-source geospatial processing software, such as PostGIS, GDAL, Rasterio, and Shapely
      • Experience with large-scale, distributed geospatial data processing using Apache Spark, Apache Sedona, and Geotrellis
      • Experience designing and building REST APIs, especially for serving data and analysis functionality
      • Experience with container-based development and deployment using AWS Elastic Container Service, Kubernetes, and/or Docker
      • Experience using infrastructure-as-code (Terraform preferred) and building automated CI/CD pipelines
      • Passion for learning and staying on top of the new technologies, architectures, and best practices
      • Familiarity with GIS concepts like remote sensing, projections, rasters/vectors and spatial analysis
      • Familiarity with numerical processing libraries like numpy, scipy and xarray
      • Experience working with cloud native geospatial data formats (e.g. Cloud-Optimized GeoTIFF, GeoParquet, STAC)
      • Experience working in a hybrid, international organization across multiple time zones.
      • Languages: Proficiency in verbal and written English
      • Requirements: Existing work authorization is required where this position is based. WRI is unable to authorize visa work authorization

        Potential Salary: US salary range is between 116,000 and 139,000 USD. Salary is commensurate with experience and other compensable factors.

        How to Apply: Please submit a resume with a required cover letter by the date of 3 April 2025. We may close for applications sooner if we receive a high volume of qualified applications.

        We are unable to consider your application without a cover letter in addition to your resume.

        You must apply through the WRI Careers portal to be considered.

        What we offer:

        • Access to the WRI global network with the opportunity to exchange with and learn from passionate colleagues working at the cutting edge of their fields across Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America and the US
        • The chance to have an impact and to develop your career within a mission driven