Job Opportunity // Senior Data Analyst with Code for Africa

Job Opportunity // Senior Data Analyst with Code for Africa

Code for Africa (CfA) has an immediate vacancy for a full-time role for a senior data analyst in Kenya or Nigeria or South Africa or Tanzania or Uganda to join our Data Academy team.

Candidates must have demonstrable experience in data science, including analysis, data mining, coding and data visualisation. This should include robust knowledge in statistics and languages such as R, Python and/or Javascript and D3JS for data visualisation.  The ideal candidate will speak English fluently. Proficiency in additional international languages, such as French or Arabic, will be a plus.

About Code for Africa

Code for Africa (CfA) is the continent’s largest network of indigenous African civic technology and investigative data journalism laboratories, with over 70 staff in 19 countries, who build digital democracy solutions that are intended to give citizens unfettered access to actionable information that empowers them to make informed decisions and that strengthen civic engagement for improved public governance and accountability.

This includes building infrastructure such as the continent’s largest open data portal, open.AFRICA, and largest open source civic software portal, commons.AFRICA, as well as the largest repository of investigative document-based evidence, source.AFRICA, as well as incubating initiatives as diverse as the africanDRONE network that gives citizens their own ‘eyes in the sky’, the PesaCheck fact-checking initiative in 12 African countries, and the sensors.AFRICA remote-sensing citizen science initiative to combat air/water pollution.

CfA also incubates the African Network of Centres for Investigative Reporting (ANCIR), as an association of the continent’s best investigative newsrooms, ranging from large traditional mainstream media to smaller specialist units. ANCIR member newsrooms investigate crooked politicians, organised crime and big business.

The iLAB is ANCIR’s in-house digital forensic unit, with teams in east, south and west Africa. ANCIR uses its resources to strengthen newsrooms’ own internal capacity, by providing access to the world’s best whistleblower encryption and investigative semantic analysis technologies, as well as skills development, and seed grants for cross-border collaboration.

The successful candidate will join CfA’s transnational Data Academy team, which manages a wide portfolio of internal data-driven projects in 20+ countries, while also supporting a network of external partners in the media and watchdog civil society (CSO) sectors.

The data workflow spans from research to mining, cleaning, visualisation and storytelling. The program also includes a deep knowledge sharing component, including training activities with CfA’s partners in newsrooms, universities, CSOs and selected government agencies.

The successful candidate will work as part of a multinational and multilingual team that uses digital collaboration tools to create content for a global audience and international media partners.

Required: minimum requirements include:

• Proficiency in statistical analysis and research methods
• Demostrable coding skills (such as R, Python, Javascript/D3JS)
• Data visualisation skills with tools such as R, Tableau, Flourish, Datawrapper, Mapbox
• Experience in working with remote, distributed teams with agile methodologies

Preferred: candidates who are able to demonstrate the following will have an advantage:

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Multiple languages, such as French, Arabic or other languages spoken in Africa
• Robust data visualisation skills (including creation of charts, graphs and maps)
• Knowledge of network analysis and graph theory will be a plus

Language and Location Requirements:

• Location: Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria, Uganda or Tanzania
• Languages: English
• Preferred but not required languages: French or Arabic

About the Role:

The successful candidate will join CfA’s Data Academy team, which produces data-driven tools and storytelling for the organisation’s internal projects, as well as supports data desks at a network of external partners across the continent.

Projects range from award-winning multimedia journalism such as the Sucked Dry investigation into land grabs in 11 Nile Basin countries, to data-driven tools such as the GenderGap calculator that gives insight into salary disparities across Africa and building/maintaining major infrastructure such as the continent’s largest open data portal, at open.AFRICA. The Data Academy also runs the continent’s largest online training portal for digital/data journalists, at the StoryLab Academy, and is custodian of the WanaData women data science/storytelling community and wider 35,000+ member Hacks/Hackers Africa network.

As a senior data analyst you will be working with a team of data wranglers/analysts across the continent, with support from data designers and a full software engineering team, to help design and implement the data strategies for sourcing, scraping, cleaning, analysing and visualising/interpreting data for a range of projects on topics that include gender justice, anti-corruption and public accountability, land rights and climate resilience, public health, human trafficking, and water/food security. You will be using your statistical skills to vet the quality of data, analyse processes and help interpret the data to produce new insights. You will be working with a distributed team throughout Africa and Europe.

You will also serve as an occasional trainer, sharing your skills or insights with collaborating data teams, partner newsrooms and universities, as well as at community events hosted by WanaData or Hacks/Hackers.

Responsibilities: Your daily responsibilities will include:

• Leverage your data science skills to help design data visualisations, infographics, and other visual devices for CfA’s storytelling and communication.
• Support the CfA’s data research, wrangling and visualisation processes and tasks to improve CfA’s products, content and brands with other wranglers and designers.
• Work with journalists and developers from across the continent to design and build engaging static and interactive visualisations and tools.
• Research and mine datasets to create impactful analyses and visualisations on CfA’s key topics.
• Produce maps, satellite images, charts, infographics, data visualisations and other dataviz components for stories, microsites and publications.
• Work proactively and think critically to improve data and design components of tools and stories created by the team.
• Train and advise CfA’s key stakeholders and partners on the use of data and tech to amplify their impact.
• Help develop and review courseware as it relates to data journalism when requested by CfA’s Data Academy.

Think you have what it takes? Here are more details about the job! All the best