Akvo is looking for a dynamic and visionary Chief Technical Officer (CTO) to drive our technical solutions and platform development. This is a unique opportunity to take our technical solutions to the next level so that Akvo can better support partner organisations in achieving sustainable and inclusive impact. 

You will be responsible for all aspects of our technical solutions, including technical consultancy and product development. As our CTO, you will be a member of Akvo’s management team (MT) and inform the MT members on all strategic matters relating to technical solutions. You will frequently align with our hub managers and project managers. 

This position is based in Amsterdam, and you will be reporting to the CEO.

About you

In this role, you will lead and supervise Akvo’s Technical Solutions team of +/- 15 people, and make sure they are able to develop and operate our standard products and custom technical solutions. You are a visionary leader that drives Akvo’s strategy regarding technical data solutions for our partners. You also play a key role in developing, implementing and executing Akvo’s global strategy. The team members of the Tech Solutions team are located all over the world, therefore your remote leadership skills are crucial.

Key responsibilities

Strategy and advice

• Develop and implement our technical solution strategy in alignment with Akvo’s strategy on Data for Development  and sector collaboration
• Play an active role in the management team 
• Support business development
• Identify new technological opportunities and create plans to implement them for Akvo and its partner organisations
• Balance work and resources between platform & product development and tech consultancy projects 

Operations

• Oversee all system design and changes in system architecture
• Lead efforts to keep Akvo’s technical infrastructure reliable, scalable, sustainable and secure
• Oversee the work with internal IT systems and ensure that Akvo’s IT operations adhere to local laws

Team management

• Manage Akvo’s Tech Solutions team and oversee the execution of their goals and objectives
• Create a productive, sustainable and positive work environment
• Motivate, coach and supervise team members (mostly remote)

Key competencies and skills

• At least 10 years years of working experience in software projects, including custom technical solutions as well as product management /software engineering
• Experience in driving a vision and strategy for technical data driven solutions
• Preferably experience or a good understanding of data solutions for international development
• Strategic mindset and strong track record in senior management
• Transformative leadership skills  
• Experience with tailored solutions as well as product and platform development and management
• Proven track record in guiding highly collaborative, participatory, distributed teams with a strong sense of ownership of their tasks
• Experience in balancing in-house development versus outsourcing of components
• An MSc and BSc in software engineering or equivalent
• A strong set of intercultural communication skills
• Experience with and interest in agile and lean startup approaches
• Experience with overseeing internal IT systems for highly distributed teams
• Interest in the international development sector
• Excellent command of English in both writing and speaking
  

 
What we offer

• Full time (40 hours/week) employment contract for one year to begin with, with the intention of building a long-lasting working relationship
• Gross salary range between €5500,- to €6700,- per month 
• A unique chance to be part of our international Akvo community, with motivated and talented people whose diverse backgrounds converge to accomplish ambitious objectives
• Contribute to our mission: unlocking the power of data to boost sustainable development

How to apply

Akvo works with a diverse and international team, and we are committed to promoting diversity and inclusion across our organisation. If you think you are the right person for this position, we highly encourage everyone to apply.

Think you’ve got what it takes? Click the link below to send your motivation letter and resume in PDF to Jeroen van der Sommen. The closing date for this application is 15 August 2021.  

Akvo is looking for the “road captain” of the Tech Solutions team. You provide technical direction, assess trade-offs (build vs buy) on FOSS components, and mentor team members on good engineering practices. As an architect, you have hands-on experience in designing, building and maintaining distributed systems (e.g modular systems, offline data collection, data synchronisation, event systems).

Key responsibilities

• Lead and coordinate technical decisions on projects and products
• Evaluate technical design for custom solutions; act as sounding board and counterpoint
• Lead, develop, maintain, scale and evolve all the common/shared services
• Together with the team leads, coordinate architecture concerns between projects and products
• Identify cross cutting concerns that can be moved into the Akvo data platform
• Provide technical direction to the rest of our teams
• Research existing FOSS components and assess the trade-offs (build vs buy)
• Collaborate with QA and Ops teams to make better projects and products, more reliable and maintainable
  

Key competencies and skills

• You have designed and/or developed complex systems in combination with organisational constraints
• You like mentoring junior and mid-level engineers and you’re a strong proponent of good software development practices
• You have amazing debugging / troubleshooting capabilities
• You know how to deliver a working product and meet a deadline
• You know more than just programming knowledge and enjoy sharing that (e.g. business domain, agile teams/organisations, project management, budgeting)
• You have Python and JVM experience (diagnose/debug performance and memory problems)
• You have GNU/Linux experience (diagnose/debug performance problems) and you have been exposed to Docker and orchestration tools (Kubernetes)
• You have experience from fast-growing organisations and/or the lean startup methodology

Our tech stach

• Programming languages: Clojure, Java, Python, JavaScript (Node.js)
• Databases: PostgreSQL / PostGIS, MySQL, Google App Engine Datastore
• CI/CD: Docker/Kubernetes/GKE, SemaphoreCI
• Misc: Bash, Nginx, OpenResty
  

What we offer

• Work with free and open source software data platform
• Team and organisation committed to learning, knowledge sharing, personal growth and working at a sustainable pace
• Help build and maintain services used in 60+ countries, making the development aid more transparent and helping to the governance of countries
• A competitive salary in line with the market
  

How to apply

Akvo works with a diverse and international team, and we are committed to promoting diversity and inclusion across our organisation. If you think you are the right person for this position, we highly encourage everyone to apply.

Think you’ve got what it takes? Click the link below to send your motivation letter and resume in PDF to Iván Perdomo. The closing date for this application is 1 August 2021.  

Akvo is looking for a senior developer who takes the lead in our day-to-day technical operations of the Tech Consultancy team. You enjoy providing technical direction, assessing trade-offs (build vs buy) on FOSS components, and mentoring team members on good engineering practices. You oversee the technical consultancy projects and understand perfectly what needs to be delivered, by whom and when. Besides that, you enjoy developing solutions for our products, based on your senior experience.

Profile

As a senior developer, you bring hands-on experience in designing, building and maintaining distributed systems (e.g modular systems, offline data collection, data synchronisation, event systems). As a senior developer, you’ll also work with the global team to interact with partners, gather requirements, and deliver projects within time and budget while aligning the team priorities. You will be supported by the lead architect of the organisation.

Key responsibilities and tasks

• Lead and coordinate technical decisions on projects 
• Act as sounding board and evaluate technical design for custom solutions
• Lead, develop, maintain, scale and evolve partner project implementations
• Communicate  with partners , gather requirements and timelines
• Provide technical direction to the rest of teams
• Research existing FOSS components and assess the trade-offs (build vs buy)
• Collaborate with QA and Ops teams to make more reliable and maintainable projects and products

Key competencies and skills

• You have about 10+ years of experience in software development
• You have designed and/or developed complex systems in combination with organisational constraints
• You like mentoring junior and mid level engineers and you’re a strong proponent of good software development practices
• You have experience in software consulting and handling clients pull and push 
• You have amazing debugging / troubleshooting capabilities
• You know how to deliver a working product and meet a deadline
• You know more than just programming knowledge and enjoy sharing that (e.g. business domain, agile teams/organizations, project management, budgeting)
• You have advances Python and/ or PHP experience  along with JavaScript(Node.js) (diagnose/debug performance and memory problems)
• Exposure  to Docker and orchestration tools (Kubernetes) 
• You have experience from fast growing organisations and/or Lean startup methodology

Our tech stach

• Programming languages: PHP, Python, JavaScript (Node.js)
• Databases: PostgreSQL / PostGIS, MySQL, Google App Engine Datastore
• CI/CD: Docker/Kubernetes/GKE, SemaphoreCI
• Misc: Bash, Nginx, OpenResty

What we offer

• Work with free and open source software data platform
• A team and organisation committed to learning, knowledge sharing, personal growth and working at a sustainable pace
• The opportunity to help build and maintain services used in 60+ countries, making the development aid more transparent and effective
• A competitive salary in line with the market

How to apply

Akvo works with a diverse and international team, and we are committed to promoting diversity and inclusion across our organisation. If you think you are the right person for this position, we highly encourage everyone to apply.

Think you’ve got what it takes? Click the link below to send your motivation letter and resume in PDF to Joy Ghosh. The closing date for this application is 1 August 2021.  

Akvo is looking for a senior developer with strong knowledge and experience in backend development to contribute to the architecture and feature building of Akvo RSR. You are eager to learn and occasionally go outside of your main area of expertise. We strive to have autonomous, self-reliant developer teams in Akvo, so be prepared to pair-program with teammates, do code review, deploy code to production, discuss systems architecture, and chip in whenever the team needs more hands on deck.

Requirements

• 3-5 years of experience in backend development
• Strong Python/Django skills
• Strong debugging/troubleshooting skills
• DevOps and Kubernetes skills
• Self motivated and good at taking ownership of tasks
• Experience and are prepared to work remotely
• Enjoy mentoring junior-mid level developers
• JavaScript and React experience is a bonus

What we offer

• A chance to work with tools that contribute to achieving higher efficiency and better results for the development aid sector.
• Competence development consisting of bi-weekly learning sessions, conference allowance, developer book club, pair programming and daily knowledge sharing.
• An opportunity to work with interesting technologies and challenges in a
  creative and entrepreneurial environment together with highly motivated
  colleagues.
• Working full time on open source development. All Akvo’s products are open source and we are also strong proponents of open data.
• You will be a part of our international Akvo community, with colleagues all over the world.
• A competitive salary in line with the market.

This is a full-time position. Your actual location is less important than the fact that you are fully equipped to work remotely, however our team works in the CET timezone, so a location within this timezone, +/- max. 2 hours is preferred.

How to apply

Akvo works with a diverse and international team, and we are committed to promoting diversity and inclusion across our organisation. If you think you are the right person for this position, we highly encourage everyone to apply.

Think you’ve got what it takes? Click the link below to send your motivation letter and resume in PDF to Iván Perdomo. The closing date for this application is 1 August 2021.  

Akvo is looking for a UX/UI/Data visualisation developer to take on a key role in ensuring our open source data platform has the best user-driven design. As part of our team, you will mainly contribute to our data collection, visualisation and analysis technical solutions. You will be part of the development team with most team members distributed geographically across Europe, South Asia and Southeast Asia. Working closely with the design team, you will report to the team lead.

Key responsibilities

• Combine the proven skills of an experienced UX/UI designer with a love of data to develop top-notch sustainable  technology solutions
• Liaise frequently with our technical solutions team and our partners
• Design user-facing features and work together with team to ensure the technical feasibility of UI/UX
• Play a central role in pushing the design of the Akvo open source data platform, including mentoring junior frontend developers 
• Work closely with our product managers and lead designer to grow concepts through design exploration, ideation and user validation
• Analyse tasks, model information, navigation and task flows using UX best practices for web and mobile.

Requirements and competencies

Together with our diverse team, you are driven to create quality technical solutions that enhance Akvo’s impact. You are able to figure things out yourself but know when to involve the rest of the team. You always keep pushing to understand why certain things are the way they are or what the root cause of a problem is while being willing to learn and help us stay at the forefront of current technologies. You do not shy away from complexity and unknowns, you take initiative, and you understand how to split things up in clever ways, so we ship step-by-step and learn from it quickly. 

• Able to understand and translate business requirements into high-quality UX design solutions through wireframes, visual and graphic designs, flow diagrams, storyboards, site maps, and prototypes
• Comfortable with a lean approach to UX
• Able to clearly present and argue your approach to stakeholders
• Able to conduct interview sessions
• Exceptional attention to detail, strong design thinking skills and a drive for improving user experience
• Experience with JavaScript, React, D3, SASS/CSS
• Familiar with tools of the trade like Figma or Adobe XD
• Familiar with data storytelling and data visualisation
• Understanding of typography and colour theory
• Overall knowledge of the latest web and mobile UI patterns
• Ability to convert a user and solutions requirements into design with a functional semantic markup
• Able to work independently with a willingness to work and contribute to a remote team

What we offer

• This assignment is a commitment of 40 hours/week for a period of 1 year with the intention of being extended
• Opportunity to contribute to the design of a growing open source platform and work with interesting technologies in a creative and entrepreneurial environment together with highly motivated colleagues;
• A unique chance to work with tools that contribute to achieving higher efficiency and better results for the development aid sector;
• You will be part of our international Akvo community, with colleagues all over the world;
• Remuneration in line with the market

For this position, we are open for applicants located in most locations, with a preference for those located in the East Africa region. Preferably you’ll be based within a maximum of 2 hours difference of Central European Time zone (CET).
How to apply

Akvo works with a diverse and international team, and we are committed to promoting diversity and inclusion across our organisation. If you think you are the right person for this position, we highly encourage everyone to apply.

Think you’ve got what it takes? Click the link below to send your portfolio, motivation letter, and resume in PDF to Karen Blanken. The closing date for this application is 1 August 2021.