Project Officer (Data Platform Owner)

Project Officer (Data Platform Owner), P-2, Temporary Position, 5 months, Supply Division, Copenhagen, Denmark, #00138951

Apply now Job no: 596609

Contract type: Temporary Appointment

Duty Station: Copenhagen

Level: P-2

Location: Denmark

Categories: Supply Management

UNICEF works in over 190 countries and territories to save children’s lives, defend their rights, and help them fulfill their potential, from early childhood through adolescence.

At UNICEF, we are committed, passionate, and proud of what we do for as long as we are needed. Promoting the rights of every child is not just a job – it is a calling.

UNICEF is a place where careers are built: we offer our staff diverse opportunities for professional and personal development that will help them reinforce a sense of purpose while serving children and communities across the world. We welcome everyone who wants to belong and grow in a diverse and passionate culture, coupled with an attractive compensation and benefits package.

Visit our website to learn more about what we do at UNICEF.

For every child, the right to Deliver

How can you make a difference

During the five-month parental leave period, ensure uninterrupted ownership, operational stability, and continued development of the Supply Division Data Platform and its data pipelines. The temporary post holder will own and drive the end-to-end Data Platform (Azure Databricks) as a product, ensuring it delivers scalable, secure, and high-quality data services aligned with Supply Division strategy; take full ownership of data pipelines (ETL/ELT), data integration, and data lifecycle management across the organization; and translate business needs into robust, production-grade data products and pipelines, ensuring reliability, performance, and maintainability.

1. Data Platform Ownership

• Act as Product Owner of Azure Databricks platform, including: Workspace architecture, cluster strategy, cost optimization; Data lake / lakehouse design (bronze/silver/gold layers).
• Define and enforce platform standards, best practices, and reusable patterns.
• Own platform roadmap: stability, scalability, security, and performance improvements.
• Ensure platform operational health, including: Platform-level monitoring (clusters, jobs, storage, performance); Capacity planning and performance tuning; Governance of incident management processes across the platform.

2. ETL / ELT & Data Pipeline Ownership

• Own end-to-end lifecycle of all data pipelines (batch & streaming).
• Define and enforce: ETL/ELT standards (naming, layering, orchestration, error handling); Data transformation logic ownership and versioning.
• Ensure pipelines are: Reliable (SLA-driven with defined uptime and latency targets); Observable (monitoring, alerting, logging, lineage tracking); Resilient (fault-tolerant with retry, fallback, and recovery mechanisms); Efficient (cost & performance optimized).
• Establish and own: Centralized monitoring framework (pipeline health dashboards, alerts); Automated alerting and escalation mechanisms; Standardized error handling patterns (retry logic, dead-letter queues, failure isolation).
• Take accountability for: Incident management for data pipelines (L2/L3 ownership); Root cause analysis (RCA) and permanent fixes; Reduction of recurring failures and technical debt.
• Drive migration from: Legacy scripts / fragmented pipelines → robust, monitored Databricks-native pipelines.

3. Data Architecture & Integration

• Define and maintain enterprise data architecture for Supply Division.
• Establish: Data integration patterns (APIs, event-based, batch ingestion); Interoperability standards across systems (SAP, external partners, internal apps).
• Ensure single source of truth principles via governed data models.
• Ensure all integrations are: Traceable (lineage); Monitored end-to-end; Recoverable in case of failures.

4. Data Governance, Catalog & Purview Ownership

• Own implementation and evolution of: Microsoft Purview for data catalog, lineage, and governance.
• Define and enforce: Data ownership & stewardship model; Data classification, access control, and compliance standards.
• Ensure: End-to-end data lineage visibility; Integration of monitoring with governance (data quality + pipeline health); Auditability of data flows and transformations.

5. Data Quality & Reliability Engineering (Strengthened)

• Define and implement data quality controls embedded in pipelines.
• Establish: Automated validation rules (schema, completeness, consistency); Data SLAs and quality KPIs.
• Ensure: Continuous monitoring of data quality metrics; Automated detection of anomalies and failures; Proactive incident detection and alerting.
• Own: Root cause analysis and resolution of data quality issues; Feedback loops into pipeline improvements; Prevention of downstream impact (fail-fast or controlled degradation).

6. Product & Project Management

• Own and project manage data platform backlog (Azure DevOps): Priorities features, operational stability, technical debt, and platform improvements.
• Manage delivery across onshore/offshore data engineering teams.
• Ensure adoption of: Agile Project Management / DevOps / DataOps practices; CI/CD for data pipelines and infrastructure.
• Embed: Operational excellence into delivery (monitoring, logging, alerting as mandatory deliverables).
• Balance: Short-term delivery vs long-term platform reliability and maintainability.

7. Stakeholder Engagement & Translation Layer

• Act as bridge between business and engineering.
• Translate business needs into: Data models; Pipeline requirements; Data products.
• Communicate: Data availability, incidents, and risks transparently to stakeholders; Impact of pipeline failures on business processes.

8. Documentation & Standards

• Ensure all platform components are well-documented and reusable.
• Maintain: Architecture diagrams; Data flow documentation; Pipeline specifications; Runbooks for monitoring, incident handling, and recovery.
• Drive: Standardization of operational procedures across all data initiatives.

If you would like to know more about this position, please review the complete Job Description here: Project Officer

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have… Minimum requirements:

• Education: Bachelor or equivalent (First Level University Degree) in software engineering, computer science, business administration or other related social science field is required. Candidates with a Master’s degree in the above field are preferred.
• Work

Experience

• Minimum 2 years of relevant professional experience in project management in the context of Data engineering are required. Candidates with 5 years and above of relevant experience in project management in the context of Data engineering are preferred
• Skills: Proven skills and experience in being an owner or architect of a Data Platform based on Databricks is required. Experience in working on all levels with Azure DataBricks – from hands-on creating notebooks to defining the platform strategy and managing other Data Engineers.
• Language

Requirements

• Fluency in English is required.

Desirables:

• Minimum 2 years of experience writing code in Python for data transformation and data ingestion is considered an asset.

• Experience is modern Azure DevOps and Azure cloud deployment practices are considered an asset.

• Proven experience in managing IT offshore teams, data teams, and experience in IT vendor management is considered an asset.

• Experience working in a multi-cultural geographically distributed team is considered an asset.

• Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset.

• Relevant experience at country level, particularly in development, fragile settings and humanitarian contexts.

• For every Child, you demonstrate...

• UNICEF's Core Values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust and Accountability and Sustainability (CRITAS) underpin everything we do and how we do it. Get acquainted with Our Values Charter: UNICEF Values

• UNICEF competencies required for this post are…

• (1) Builds and maintains partnerships

• (2) Demonstrates self-awareness and ethical awareness

• (3) Drive to achieve results for impact

• (4) Innovates and embraces change

• (5) Manages ambiguity and complexity

• (6) Thinks and acts strategically

• (7) Works collaboratively with others

• Familiarize yourself with our competency framework and its different levels.

• UNICEF promotes and