Data Engineer Specialist

Host entity: DSS BGD

Volunteer type: National

Areas of expertise: Data science, information management, Artificial Intelligence

Application deadline: 06/09/2026

Mission and objectives

The Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS) is responsible for providing leadership, operational support and oversight of the United Nations security management system (UNSMS) globally. As a global leader in security risk management principles, UNDSS enables the safe and effective delivery of United Nations programmes and activities in the most complex and challenging environments, while maximizing precious resources. To this end, the work of the Department is aligned under a clear mission, to enable United Nations system programme activities through trusted security leadership and solutions.

Assignment context

Under the overall guidance and direct supervision of Programme Management Officer, the UNV will work in close collaboration with the Strategic Planning Unit, ensuring timely support in carrying out normative work of the Unit which includes the Department's Performance Measurement, Enterprise Risk Management, Strategic Foresight, and other cross-cutting areas of programme management, research, and analysis.

Task description

Within the delegated authority and under the supervision of a Programme Management Officer or his/her designated mandated representative(s), the UN Volunteer Data Engineer Specialist will:

• Design, develop, and maintain organizational data platforms, data pipelines, and integration frameworks.

• Build and manage data solutions using Microsoft Fabric, Azure Data Services, Power Platform, and related technologies to enable analytics, dashboards, reporting, automation, and decision-support capabilities.
• Develop and integrate AI-powered solutions, including chatbots and intelligent assistants, leveraging organizational data to provide insights, and analytics for strategic workforce decisions.

• Collaborate with business stakeholders to translate requirements into scalable, production-ready solutions while ensuring data governance, security, privacy, and compliance standards are met.

• Monitor, optimize, and continuously enhance data and AI platforms to improve performance, reliability, scalability, reporting capabilities, and evidence-based decision-making.

• Implement solutions to data-related technical problems and data infrastructure updates.

• Extract data features from complex datasets for data scientists and data analysts.

• Understand new data sources and process pipelines, assist in cataloguing/documenting as needed.

• Apply various ML and advanced analytics techniques to perform classifications or prediction tasks.

• Assist in the testing of various data science models, such as cross-validation, A/B testing, bias, and fairness.

• Contributes to the design and develops data science products to reveal insights and provides an understanding or knowledge of the data that would otherwise not be detected without the application of advanced analytical methods such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, predictive analytics, data and text mining, natural language processing, statistics, and use of relevant algorithms and computational approaches.

• Contributes to the design and develops customized visualization and presentation products to reveal the findings of analysis for clients, suitable for all forms of production including briefings, reports, documentation to oversight bodies, interactive interfaces, and publication quality outputs.

• Perform other duties as assigned.

Skills and experience

• Experience designing and implementing scalable data platforms, data pipelines, ETL/ELT processes, data models, and analytics solutions that transform organizational data into actionable insights and decision-support systems.

• Strong experience in React.js, TypeScript, modern JavaScript, React Router, Vite, reusable UI components, data visualization, responsive design, and frontend performance optimization.

• Experience in programming languages such as Python or R is required.

• Hands-on experience with Microsoft Fabric, Power BI, Power Apps, Power Automate, Azure Data Services, and Azure AI Foundry for building integrated organizational data and analytics solutions.

• Experience developing and deploying AI-powered chatbots, AI agents, Copilot solutions, and Generative AI applications, including integration with organizational data sources to enable natural language insights and automated decision support.

• Experience with database programming languages (SQL, etc.) is required.

• Experience in DevOps toolchains like Git, Jenkins or Bamboo – or equivalent tools - and experience with the deployment of data pipelines is required.

• Proven experience of working with multiple stakeholders such as government agencies, academia and industry partners

• Proven experience in collaborating with stakeholders in ensuring data governance standards

• Experience in delivering big data use cases using AI driven solutions to support complex analytics

• Experience in Artificial Intelligence, particularly Machine Learning techniques for data mining and extraction of large amounts of data is desirable.

• Self-motivated, ability to work with minimum supervision; ability to work with tight deadlines.

• Excellent interpersonal skills; culturally and socially sensitive; ability to work inclusively and collaboratively with a range of partners, including grassroots community members, religious and youth organizations, and authorities at different levels; familiarity with tools and approaches of communications for development.

• Ability to work and adapt professionally and effectively in a challenging environment; ability to work effectively in a multicultural team of international and national personnel.

Competencies and values

• Accountability
• Adaptability and flexibility
• Creativity
• Judgement and decision-making
• Planning and organising
• Professionalism
• Self-management

Living conditions

Dhaka is located in central Bangladesh along the Buriganga River. Not only is it the capital city, but it is also the largest in the country. It is the centre of political, cultural, and economic life in Bangladesh. The official language is Bengali, while English is the working language of UN Agencies. In recent decades, Dhaka has seen the modernization of services, communications, and public works. The city is attracting large foreign investments and greater volumes of commerce and trade. It is also experiencing an increasing influx of people from across the nation; this has reportedly made Dhaka one of the fastest-growing cities in the world. Good English-speaking medical, dental services, and educational centres are available for internationals.

Dhaka is connected to other cities by rail, road, and by air and internationals can move easily from one city to another. Dhaka has venerable green spaces, including many gardens and parks, historical places, and nice restaurants. The weather is tropical - hot and very humid during the summer monsoon season (April-September) and drier and cooler in the winter (October-March). Historically, Bangladesh has been a safe country for internationals so far. While Dhaka is not categorized as a hardship station, the volunteer should be prepared for limitations in freedom of movement on foot, by public transport, and to certain locations.

You can check full entitlements at the duty station at https://app.unv.org/calculator. The complete UN Volunteer Conditions of Service is available at https://explore.unv.org/cos.”

Full eligibility requirements, conditions of service and application instructions are available on the official UNV platform.