Data Engineer (Spain, Portugal or UK)

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.

1. Would you like to be part of Vizzuality's story?

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:

https://www.globalforestwatch.org

https://www.landgriffon.com

https://marxanplanning.org

https://www.globalmangrovewatch.org

https://30x30.skytruth.org

Want to know more about our culture? Check our Playbook https://playbook.vizzuality.com/

1. 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 familiarised 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.

1. 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:

• 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, innovation projects, or meetups of your choice, including travel and lodging.
• Peer Mentoring. Support in developing your self-awareness through self-reflection and peer support for you to design a career path that will suit your interests and growth needs.
• Free English & Spanish Lessons.
• Support for personal projects and initiatives, such as giving talks, contributing to open source projects, and giving and receiving internal training.
• '4 Weeks Growth Sabbatical' when you reach 10 years at Vizz.

Wellbeing & Paid Time Off.

• 26 days of vacation (plus local bank holidays).
• Additional birthday holiday. :)
• Up to 2 extra vacation days when you make sustainable travel choices.
• Up to 3 extra vacation days after 5 years at Vizzuality, which will be added to your holiday allowance forever.

Care:

• Mental health support via Spill, our third-party provider, to connect you with qualified counselors and curated resources.
• Live in Spain? You'll have the option to enroll in our company-subsidized health and dental insurance plan.

Flexibility & Remote Work

• Remote work if you are based in Spain, Portugal, or the UK.
• Flexible schedules.
• We will provide you with everything you need to do great work (i.e., laptop, tools, and work-from-home equipment).
• 1 or 2 annual company-paid gatherings.

Fluent English is important to us, so if it’s not your first language, please demonstrate your abilities in your CV and Cover Letter. We will not consider applications that are not sent in English.