JOB DETAILS:

Required: minimum requirements include:
1. BSc/BEng Electrical Engineers, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Mechatronics Engineering or equivalent practical experience.
2. Demonstrated experience in electronics packaging mechanical design.
3. Demonstrated experience in electronic Design For Manufacturing (DFM) best practices.
4. Demonstrated experience in IoT, Low Power Electronic Design.
5. Experience reading and interpreting data sheets and electrical schematics.
6. Excellent command of electrical engineering fundamentals.
7. Demonstrated experience in revision control using Git and Git workflows.
8. Demonstrated experience in the Espressif MCU ecosystem and ARM-based microcontrollers.
9. Board documentation and liaison with the firmware development team
10. Experience in design of reusable libraries and SDKs is a plus.
11. Self starter with the ability to work effectively in teams across internal and external organisations and virtual teams.
12. Ability to design, prototype, validate, test and assemble printed circuit boards (PCBs) using electronic ECAD tools, preferably Autodesk Eagle and Fusion360.
13. Experience working on PCB post-manufacturing processes including circuit board reflow and soldering, and final testing.

Language and Location Requirements:
Location: CfA’s main sensors.AFRICA lab is located in Nairobi (Kenya), but CfA also has additional labs in Abuja (Nigeria), Cape Town or Johannesburg (South Africa), Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), and Lagos (Nigeria). The role can be performed remotely, and CfA will therefore consider exceptional applicants from across Africa.
Primary language: English
Preferred but not required: French, Amharic or Arabic

About the Role:
The successful candidate will join CfA’s sensors.AFRICA team as a Hardware Engineer to help shape its hardware choices and to lead development of new digital services.
The team currently consists of a senior strategist and mid-level hardware/software engineers who have successfully steered sensors.AFRICA through a series of proof-of-concept pilot projects deploying CfA’s own prototype low-cost sensors, as well as working with partners such as the Kenyan National Bureau for Statistics (KNBS) and the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) to experiment with new ways to use air sensors to create actionable insights/data.

The success of these early projects has prompted CfA to expand the team, ahead of planned rollout of wider citizen-driven sensor networks in key African countries, as well as new research partnerships that will explore who to use low-cost sensors to give communities early warning for cholera outbreaks and other public health emergencies.
The expanded sensors.AFRICA team will be part of a multinational and multilingual team across the continent, and will be comfortable using digital collaboration tools to create open source software/hardware products for a global audience and international partners.
Applicants should possess knowledge of engineering principles and practices, and the fabrication processes (such as 3D printing) to turn designs into devices. Applicants should also be comfortable computing complex engineering calculations, quickly and accurately, while also performing detailed analysis of designs, specifications, and plans, and establishing and maintaining effective working relationships with collaborating partners both within CfA and outside of the organisation.

Responsibilities: Your daily responsibilities will include:
1. Work collaboratively with CfAs team of engineers and data scientists in designing, constructing, installing, and operating ambient air quality and meteorological monitoring projects at partner locations throughout Africa
2. Writing, testing, and maintaining firmware in Arduino, C, and C++ languages and designing printed circuit boards using electronic CAD tools (Eagle) to come up with the Printed Circuit board layout, component placement and electrical connections
3. Working with fabrication partners to rapidly prototype PCBs and assembling the designed printed circuit boards as well as other components e.g housing to produce a finished product
4. Support office air, water, sound and other environmental measurements functions including monitoring field operations, validating data, and reporting.
5. Improve and optimise the ongoing performance, scalability, and reliability of our hardware systems (and documentation) given the growing size of our sensor networks.
6. Ensure consistent and proactive calibration and maintenance for all deployed monitoring equipment, including innovative ways to support volunteer (non-technical) custodians of the equipment at schools, environmental organisations, etc
7. Developing documentation and operation manuals for all products you will work on
8. Training partners and other stakeholders on how to operate our line of sensor kits
9. Deploying, maintaining, and tracking sensor kits in the field
10. Data quality assurance for sensor kits that are deployed
11. Participate in stakeholder consultations or internal strategic discussions, to help non-technical partners understand what is possible and now best to use the technologies to achieve actionable insights.

What We Offer:
1. A competitive salary, subject to experience, with opportunities for performance-based growth, both in terms of career path and public stature.
2. A dynamic workplace, with a transnational team, occasional international travel, and generous vacation benefits.
3. Ongoing opportunities to learn new cutting-edge skills and techniques/technologies to future-proof yourself in a rapidly evolving industry.
4. A chance to shine on a global stage, writing for international audiences and interacting with colleagues around the world.




JOB DETAILS:

Required: minimum requirements include
1. An understanding of media ecosystems and/or digital advocacy and/or digital civic engagement.
2. A minimum of one year’s experience in the field, and/or evidence of a substantive research project using ML/NPL/AI analysis tools.
3. Proficiency in Python or R
4. Proficiency in statistical analysis and market research, along with related qualitative and quantitative research methods.
5. Strong analytical and logical skills, with a demonstrable track record translating data into actionable insights.
6. Excellent communication skills, including the ability to write for publication, present research insights and shape research proposals.
7. Meticulous eye for detail to ensure data integrity and precision.
8. The ability to collaborate with a diverse set of multidisciplinary project stakeholders.
9. Experience in working with remote, distributed teams with agile methodologies.

Preferred: candidates who are able to demonstrate the following will have an advantage
1. Competence in computational linguistics, Natural Language Processing, and specifically the methodologies and tools offered by the MediaCloud.org platform.
2. Competence in other open source intelligence (OSINT) research techniques, including data scraping, data mining and other intelligence gathering techniques.
3. Previous experience of contributing to reports and research publications
4. Multiple languages, such as French, Arabic and other languages spoken in Africa.
5. Knowledge of network analysis.

Language and Location Requirements:
1. Location: Anywhere in Africa
2. Languages: English, French, Arabic
3. Preferred but not required additional languages: French or Arabic

About the Role:
You will help design and conduct digital research and analysis into Africa’s watchdog media and digital democracy initiatives across the continent.
As a Research Analyst on CfA’s CivicSignal team, you will work with a transnational team of other specialist researchers and data analysts to generate actionable insights into the media ecosystem, and how other civic watchdogs function in Africa. This will include data-driven research into digital democracy initiatives, civic engagement mechanisms and the regulatory frameworks that shape ecosystems or that influence events such as elections and public policymaking. You will also help map the changemakers or pioneers who steer decision-making, and the ownership/composition and funding models for key roleplayers.
Your research will leverage CivicSignal’s own natural language processing and classification tools, such as MediaCloud, along with additional databases built by using survey and polling methodologies. Your team will regularly deploy machine learning and other artificial intelligence techniques, including sentiment analysis, n-gram analysis, cluster analysis, and social listening to produce actionable intelligence tools and briefing documents. This will include creating lexicons of country- and language-specific terms and phrases, to trigger early warnings about inflammatory or otherwise dangerous content.

Responsibilities: Your daily responsibilities will include
1. Designing and implementing pioneering digital research projects for both internal teams and external partners in academia, development agencies and policy think-tanks.
2. Managing CfA’s computational linguistics toolkit, built on MediaCloud software, to apply machine learning and other NPL processes to analyse the content produced by media and other civic watchdogs for everything from political partisanship and gender bias, to toxic speech and influence operations.
3. Digitising and integrating external qualitative research from strategic partners into CfA’s core collections, to enable contextual fresh insights.
4. Co-drafting analytical data-driven reports and research papers designed to help shape public discourse within our ecosystems, or to help guide intervention/development strategies at donor/support agencies.

What We Offer:
1. A competitive salary, subject to experience, with opportunities for performance-based growth, both in terms of career path and public stature.
2. A dynamic workplace, with a transnational team, occasional international travel, and generous vacation benefits.
3. Ongoing opportunities to learn new cutting-edge skills and techniques/technologies to future-proof yourself in a rapidly evolving industry.
4. A chance to shine on a global stage, writing for international audiences and interacting with colleagues around the world.