Consulting Data Engineer
Supply Trace
Introducing Supply Trace
Supply Trace is an open-access tool that identifies potential risks in global supply chains to enable effective due diligence and accountability. The tool was created to incentivize and enable businesses, and other stakeholders, to mitigate and provide remedy for adverse human rights and climate impacts in global supply chains.
The pilot phase of the product was launched in March 2024 and focuses on identifying Uyghur forced labor risk in apparel supply chains. Supply Trace will progressively expand to other sectors, affected regions and categories of risk, with a focus on the implications of climate change and how people working in global supply chains will be affected.
While Supply Trace will always remain an open-access product, in the short – mid- term it will launch a series of Premium Features, which form an essential part of its longer-term financial sustainability. Supply Trace receives funding from Laudes Foundation and the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation.
Supply Trace Team
Currently a research project incubated at Northeastern University, Supply Trace is led by Shawn Bhimani, Assistant Professor of Supply Chain Management at Northeastern University.
The pilot phase of Supply Trace has been built by a team of Undergraduate and Masters students at Northeastern University. Since the launch of the pilot phase, additional professional-level expertise has been added to the team, including a Technical Lead, Product Manager, UX Advisor and Stakeholder Engagement Manager.
About the Role
As Supply Trace looks ahead to its ambitious expansion plans, the team is looking to bring in additional short-term data engineering support. While open to discussion, the initial contract will be 3 to 6 months at up-to 100% FTE, starting as soon as possible. Responsibilities will include:
- Leading the development of the Supply Trace ‘data warehouse’ ETL pipelines
- Cleaning, indexing, and cross-referencing bill-of-lading and risk evidence data
- Designing and deploying the ETL pipelines at scale in the cloud
- Contributing to team ways-of-working and culture development.
Teamwork and Collaboration
- Close collaboration with Supply Trace Technical Lead, Product Manager and UX Advisor, as well as Supply Trace leadership (a CTO is also currently being recruited)
- Provide strong peer leadership and guidance to other technology team members, fostering a culture of collaboration and continuous learning, and influencing agile software development practices and culture-building
Compensation
- Up to US $65,500 for the contract duration. Level of effort to be negotiated dependent on experience of the successful candidate
Requirements
- Expert Python (Pandas/Polars, Dask) and SQL programming skills (Essential)
- Expert cloud-native data engineering experience, preferably with GoogleCloud Platform (BigQuery, DataProc, Cloud Build, Cloud Run) (Essential)
- Expert CloudOps and DevOps skills and experience (CI/CD, Github Actions,containerisation, orchestration) (Essential)
- Expert technical operations experience (Agile frameworks) (Essential)
- Experience in working with distributed and / or fully remote teams (Essential)
- Experience in, or a desire to be a part of, a start-up and / or small teamenvironment (Essential)
- This role can be located anywhere geographically, provided the candidate iswilling and able to work for a minimum of 4 hours overlap with standardworking hours (9am – 5pm) of the GMT time zone (Essential)
- Masters degree (or above) in a relevant technical field (Computer Science,Software Engineering, Machine Learning, or some other STEM field)(Desirable)
- Experience in Tech for Good (Desirable)
- Experience working with academic institutions (Desirable)
- Experience in global supply chain software, open data and/or open-sourceprojects (Desirable)
- Domain knowledge in shipping and supply chains (Desirable)
- Domain knowledge in corporate and risk data, especially labor and climaterisk (Desirable)
- Experience in data product management, and/or data quality analysis(Desirable)
- Machine learning technical skills and experience (Desirable)
Apply:
- To apply for this position, please submit your CV, cover letter (no more than 2 pages each) and links to your public GitHub repo / blog / website / LinkedIn profile via this form.
- Deadline: 6th April 2025. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis, so we encourage interested applicants to apply as soon as possible.
- This role will be hired on a contractor basis by Northeastern University for an initial term of 3 - 6 months.
Evaluation Stages
Recruitment for this role will consist of a short screening call of 20 minutes, a technical assessment, and a 60-minute interview. A potential third-round interview of 60 minutes may also be requested. The technical assessment will assess skills and knowledge of Python- and SQL-based data handling, as well as basic use of cloud services, containerization, and orchestration.
About Supply Trace
Supply Trace is an open-access tool that identifies potential risks in global supply chains to enable effective due diligence and accountability. The tool was created to incentivize and enable businesses, and other stakeholders, to mitigate and provide remedy for adverse human rights and climate impacts in global supply chains. It does this by highlighting potential risks in specific production locations and presenting the data in an accessible, open platform. Supply Trace is available for anyone with an interest in understanding and improving supply chain conditions. Users include companies, civil society, governments, trade experts, human rights defenders, lawyers, auditors, advocates, journalists, researchers and more. Currently a research project incubated at Northeastern University, the Supply Trace methodology has been developed by academic subject matter experts. The base layer of trade data in Supply Trace consists of shipping and bill of lading data, which is overlaid with a layer of desk-based research intelligence. This research is conducted by a team of experts who have lived experience of the issues Supply Trace seeks to address.
For more about Supply Trace:
Our Commitment
Supply Trace is committed to creating an inclusive and representative environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status.
Supply Trace is an equal opportunity employer.