The Organization

The Alliance of Bioversity International delivers research-based solutions that harness agricultural biodiversity and sustainably transform food systems to improve people’s lives. Alliance solutions address the global crises of malnutrition, climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental degradation.

The Alliance works with local, national and multinational partners across Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia and Africa, and with the public and private sectors. The Alliance is part of CGIAR, a global research partnership for a food-secure future, dedicated to reducing poverty, enhancing food and nutrition security, and improving natural resources and ecosystem services.

About the position

Based in Nairobi, Kenya at the Africa region headquarters of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, and reporting to a Scientist, the AI Engineer will be responsible for coordinating with the CGIAR Hub for Sustainable Finance (Impact SF), ensuring deliverables are met in a timely manner.

The CGIAR Hub for Sustainable Finance (ImpactSF) was set up in 2022 to mainstream CGIAR wide knowledge and expertise on environmentally friendly interventions to improve climate adaptation and resilience of the agriculture and food system, into sustainable financing and investment processes. This mainstreaming has and will continue to result in generation of vast amounts of data. ImpactSF through insights generated from this data, envisions improving the flow of public and private capital to improve sustainability of agriculture and food systems in the global south. This is timely, as there is simultaneous demand from both financial institutions and investors (both private and public) and regulators to use science-based approaches and related data to, measure, monitor and report impacts of their investments.

Housed within the data science and data management (development and operations team / DevOps) team of ImpactSF, the role of the AI Engineer will be leverage upon various data sources (geospatial data, survey data, text data etc.), to build, test and deploy scalable solutions that will provide the basis for ImpactSF’s data driven service offerings to the financial sector.

·      Optimize functionality and scalability of data science prototypes by iteratively experimenting with different algorithms, train and fine-tune parameters/hyper-parameters while maintaining desired quality measures 

·       Proficiency in AI/machine learning (ML) frameworks and libraries to verify data quality, train, assess and deploy machine learning AI/ML models

·       Perform statistical tests to assess model performance, robustness and reliability (e.g. recall, precision, F1 scores etc.). Experience in training/re-training models when necessary

·       Familiarity with distributed data stores and parallel processing that can handle/augment large scale data processing and analysis

·       Development/use of APIs to connect the outputs of AI/ML models with business intelligence platforms/graphical interfaces

·       Extensive documentation of artificial intelligence/machine learning processes detailing the complete workflow from data gathering to pre-processing to model training and deployment

·       Contribution to and maintenance of data science/data transformation infrastructure (data warehouses/data lakes etc.)

Requirements

• A minimum of a bachelor’s degree (master’s degree will be an advantage) in mathematics, data science, computer science or a related field
• Previous work experience as a statistician/data scientist/computer scientist is preferable
• Proficiency in programming languages in R, Python, Java, Matlab etc.
• Prior experience in handling/managing various data types and formats (remote sensing, surveys, text data etc.)
• Demonstrated experience in the use of statistical approaches (e.g. linear and non-linear regression)
• Demonstrated experience in use of AI/ML based approaches such as reinforcement learning, ensemble techniques, large language models etc.
• Demonstrated experience in AI/ML based frameworks such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, scikit-learn, Keras etc.
• Demonstrated experience in data visualization tools and libraries such as Matplotlib, Seaborn etc.
• Demonstrated experience in leveraging data from on-prem and/or cloud-based data pipelines such as Apache Airflow, AWS Glue etc.
• Well-versed in delivering effective communications and experience in addressing the needs of business teams
  Native English speaker, or fluent with idiomatic command of English, and demonstrably high verbal and written English skills
• Excellent interpersonal skills including the ability to work effectively with other national and cultural backgrounds
• Superior analysis and insight generation capacity
• Excellent eye for detail, critical thinking, high standards of excellence, personal organization, prioritization and time management skills, flexibility, and the ability to deliver on agreed deadlines.
• Ability to work with a considerable amount of autonomy.

Benefits

This position is a nationally recruited position based in Nairobi, Kenya. The initial contract will be for two (2) years subject to a probation period of three (3) months and is renewable depending on performance and availability of resources.

This position is graded at BG07, level, with a basic salary of  KES 227,931 in a scale of BG01 to BG14 (BG14 being the highest level according to the Alliance job classification framework policy). We offer a competitive salary and excellent benefits including but not limited to insurance, retirement plan, staff training and development, paid time off and flexible working arrangements.

The Alliance Bioversity-CIAT is committed to fair, safe, and inclusive workplaces. We believe that diversity powers our innovation, contributes to our excellence, and is critical for our mission. Recruiting and mentoring staff to create an inclusive organization that reflects our global character is a priority. We encourage applicants from all cultures, races, colors, religions, sexes, national or regional origins, ages, disability statuses, sexual orientations, marital status, and gender identities.

Applicants are invited to visit https://alliancebioversityciat.org/careers to get full details of the position and to submit their applications. Applications MUST include reference number REF: 103963 Senior Analyst – AI Engineer as the position applied for. Cover letter and CV should be saved as one document using the candidate’s last name, first name for ease of sorting. The Alliance collects and processes personal data in accordance with applicable data protection laws.

Applications closing date: 18^th September 2024

Please note that email applications will not be considered.

Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.

We invite you to learn more about us at:

http://alliancebioversityciat.org