The International Water Management Institute (IWMI), a CGIAR Research Center, is on the lookout for a dynamic professional to join our headquarters in Colombo, Sri Lanka as the Senior Geospatial Data Engineer

This is an internationally recruited position; therefore, individuals with relevant abilities from diverse locations around the world are encouraged to apply. The successful candidate is expected to be based in Sri Lanka; however, remote working may be considered under exceptional circumstances.

The incumbent will lead and manage IWMI’s geospatial data across a range of projects within the Water Data Science Program and other IWMI research areas, including climate change, the water-food-energy nexus, gender, and finance. The Senior Geospatial Data Engineer will provide digital data services to ensure the timely delivery of project objectives and outputs, as well as the ongoing maintenance of the organization’s digital data. This is a key role in IWMI’s digital transformation as it seeks to improve its overall performance in data collection, storage, retrieval, and interoperability within IWMI and across its stakeholders.

DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Operate as the central data engineer to ensure that all of IWMI’s digital data is collected, stored, and retrieved in the best possible way to enhance research and delivery.
• Lead IWMI’s spatial data management, cloud engineering, data quality, and governance to coordinate data management and drive efficiencies.
• Lead Water Data Portal unification, ensuring interoperability across in-situ, hydrological, satellite, and socio-economic datasets to improve efficiencies and reduce costs.
• Ensure data quality through validation, cleaning, and metadata standards (FAIR principles).
• Manage multi-database environments (PostGIS, BigQuery, Snowflake, NoSQL) for seamless access to support the above.
• Design scalable ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) pipelines using Google Earth Engine, Open Data Cube, and cloud platforms (AWS/GCP) for petabyte-scale processing.
• Deploy big data pipelines (Spark, Dask) for water data (streamflow, reservoirs, evapotranspiration, precipitation).
• Develop APIs and dashboards for real-time researcher and policy access.
• Design data architecture and ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) and ELT (Extract, Load, Transform) processes to support various data approaches and centralized integration.
• Provide mentorship, team building, and foster international collaboration for WDS flagship products and tools for societal impact.
• Work with project leads, coordinators, and pillar leads in the implementation of data pipelines for projects.
• Support a work environment that promotes a culture of collaboration, learning, effective knowledge sharing, knowledge transfer, and interdisciplinary teamwork.

Requirements

EDUCATIONAL QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE:

Essential:

• Master’s degree in digital, geospatial data engineering or a closely related discipline.
• Minimum of 7 years of work experience in senior data engineering roles.
• Proven expertise in managing water and related data (hydrological, climate, environmental, social).
• Experience in data pipelines – Big Data (Spark, Dask) and AWS (S3, EMR, Lambda, Athena).
• Experience in Open Data Cube deployment and Analysis Ready Data (ARD) processing.
• Experience in multi-database management (relational, NoSQL, geospatial).
• Experience in Data Architecture and Design, ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) and ELT (Extract, Load, Transform) to support various data approaches, handling, and centralized integration.
• Experience in spatial data management, cloud engineering, data quality, and governance.

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS & ABILITIES:

Essential:

• Excellent ability to interpret, summarize, synthesize, present, and utilize outputs of environmental (i.e., hydrological, agricultural, and/or climate) and socio-economic models for evaluation purposes, to support planning, and/or to inform decision-making processes.
• Proficiency in Google Earth Engine, Python/JavaScript APIs, and other geoservers.
• Strong expertise in geospatial libraries, building open data standards for sharing, integration, and seamless applications, including GIS expertise (PostGIS, GDAL/OGR, GeoPandas).
• Excellent oral and written language skills in English, including effective listening and strong verbal and written communication abilities.

Benefits

This is an internationally recruited position with a competitive salary, an attractive retirement plan, comprehensive international health insurance, life insurance, accidental death and dismemberment (AD&D) insurance, and long-term disability coverage. Internationally recruited staff who are employed at a duty station outside of their home base/country of nationality will also receive relocation assistance, a housing allowance, home-leave plane tickets for self and eligible dependents and education assistance for eligible dependents. The duration of the contract will initially be for a period of three years.

HOW TO APPLY: Apply for the position by following the application instructions at www.iwmi.org/jobs. We will be accepting applications through 24:00 (IST) on March 26, 2026 (applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis). Your application must include a CV, cover letter, and three (3) references, which may be contacted if you are shortlisted. Receipt of all applications will be acknowledged, but only short-listed candidates will be contacted.

IWMI believes that diversity powers our innovation, contributes to our excellence, and is critical for our mission. We offer a multi-cultural, multi-color, multi-generational and multi-disciplinary working environment. We are consciously creating an inclusive organization that reflects our global character and our commitment to gender equity. We, therefore, encourage applicants from all cultures, races, ethnicities, religions, sexes, national or regional origins, ages, disability status, sexual orientations, and gender identities.