Data Engineer - Remote Eligible

Data Engineer Opportunity at Vizzuality

We're looking for a Data Engineer with experience in Python and geospatial data processing to join our team at Vizzuality.

Depending on your experience, we can offer a salary range of €24,000 - €30,000. We are also open to exploring full-time and part-time contract options (with a minimum of 80% time dedication).

Our vibrant team is spread across Spain, Portugal, and the UK. Currently, people work remotely or in our office in Madrid. You are welcome to join us if you are eligible to work in any of these three countries.

Are you motivated by the desire to impact the planet positively? Are you looking to put your skills to work on something truly meaningful?

At Vizzuality, we aim to reach a fair and sustainable planet by creating tools that empower people to make positive changes. We are a world-leading technology, design, and science agency. We design and develop data-driven tools and applications for international organizations focusing on Climate Change, Biodiversity, and Inequality.

Solving such large and complex problems will bring you into contact with new technology and some of the world's most interesting organizations and academics in machine learning, remote sensing, and planetary data. You'll be working on projects like these:

Global Forest Watch

LandGriffon

Marxan Planning

Global Mangrove Watch

30x30 SkyTruth

Our Culture

Our aim is to help the world become a better place. Therefore, we need to make sure we care about our people and give them the power to build great things. These are some of the principles that define our culture:

We Trust: Our team structure relies on self-organization. We want to work with colleagues who don't have to look 'up' for approval, nor look 'down' and give instructions. As soon as you step inside, we will equip you with all the tools to enable your success, and then we will trust you to do great things.

We Delight: We use our deep understanding of people's needs to spark delight. Our choices are based on science, research, and design principles.

We Care: For ourselves, our colleagues, and the organization. We know what we do is important, and we have a strong sense of responsibility for the work we do.

We Grow: As we are always embarking on new projects and challenges, a continuous learning mindset and a 'Can Do' attitude is a must. We are conscientious, and we focus on learning and achieving our goals. We give power to people so they can make decisions and plot their paths with help from all around them.

We have fun: We also know that you need to balance seriousness with fun. If you can make people smile, you will be off to a great start!

A Day in the Life of a Data Engineer at Vizzuality

We're looking for someone to work alongside a world-class and talented team of engineers, designers, researchers, scientists, and project managers. Someone passionate about using their knowledge, creativity, and specialized skills to make products that encourage positive social change.

You will use your background knowledge, programming, and analytical skills to solve problems across numerous projects involving issues of forestry, climate, biodiversity, and development. You will work to engineer efficient, performant, and robust data processing pipelines and build tools based on GIS data and scientific methodologies.

Your work will be fundamental to the success of our projects and platforms that influence and enable policy making, land-use planning, and corporate and community action to address the climate crisis, biodiversity loss, and other critical global issues.

More specifically, these are some of the things you will achieve in your first year at Vizzuality:

During the initial months, you will be onboarding to the team and the company. You will:

Shadow members of our science and data engineering team to learn how we build tools to drive impact and get familiarized with how we do things at Vizzuality.

Get used to the lifecycle of our projects, as well as the tools we use for data engineering, software development, coordination, and project management.

You'll get to know people from other functional teams: research, design, front-end, back-end, and business development, and understand how our role interfaces with theirs.

You will participate in data engineering tasks, including research and discovery, data preparation, analysis, and visualization, and data pipeline engineering.

You will write code for processing, analyzing, and visualizing data.

By the end of the first year you will be making a real impact. You will:

Work as a scientist/data engineer on high-profile projects.

Work closely with Engineers, Designers, User Researchers, Project Managers, and external partners or clients from the start of the project lifecycle until the end.

Communicate with users, colleagues, leading scientists, and decision-makers to collect requirements, describe features and technical designs, and define product strategy.

Be responsible for the implementation of data processing, analysis, and visualization pipelines with the support of a senior team member.

Prototype, collaborate on, build, and launch solutions to solve interesting problems and build tools for decision-making.

Take on the responsibility for the quality, accuracy, and meaningfulness of the data presented in your projects.

Begin to build your niche on the team, whether that role is in solving deeper engineering challenges, data visualization, research, or consulting.

Depending on your interests, you may start communicating your work to external audiences through various formats, including blogs, conference presentations, and more.

Skills and Experiences We Are Looking For in a Candidate

(*) Even if you think you don't tick all the boxes below, we'd still love to hear from you. Nobody checks every box, and we are looking for someone excited to join the team and aligned with our purpose!

Must Have:

Python programming: Basic fluency with Python and geospatial and scientific python tools and libraries.

GIS: Experience with GIS and geospatial data processing.

Communication: Ability to communicate clearly and efficiently in English (verbal and written).

Growth mindset: A drive for continued learning and improvement in all aspects of your work, from the efficiency and optimization of your code to the ways in which we work together as a team.

Teamwork: A collaborative, team-oriented nature, and a desire to see those around you succeed.

Nice to have:

Got something else that makes you stand out from the crowd? Over time, we envision this role growing in scope, and we'd like the person in this role to take on more responsibilities. If you have experience across some/all of the following areas (or would like to learn more about any of them), we would love to hear more about it:

Experience building automated tools to process data (ETL), cloud-native geospatial, or web mapping tools and libraries.

Knowledge of fundamentals of computing (e.g. memory, algorithms) and the web (e.g. API requests, etc.)

Experience or interest with any of the range of tools and systems related to web applications and web mapping including data visualization, frontend or backend development, cloud computing platforms, parallel computing architectures, SQL and databases.

A focus on how others see, interpret, and interact with our end products; experience in data visualization, design, product, and/or UX.

Quantitative analytical skills, a scientific, or engineering background. Especially in areas relevant to our work such as climate modeling, ecological modeling, remote sensing, machine learning etc.

Compensation, Benefits & Growth

Our compensation and benefits are part of a great career opportunity with the potential for you to grow and work in an organization with a massive transformational purpose. So, if you care about the real-world impact of your work and are inspired by our mission to transform the world, here's what we have to offer!

Compensation:

Annual salary between €24,000 - €30,000 (your final salary will be based on your experience and profile).

Annual profit-sharing bonus plan (team bonus up to 10% of salary based on company performance).

€1,000 Referral Bonus after six months of hiring (for every successful referral).

Growth:

€1,500 annual training allowance for courses, conferences, volunteering