(Published on June 24)
Organization
3iS is a non-for-profit organization that provides information management services to
humanitarian and development organizations. Through information management, we help
our partners target assistance to the world’s most vulnerable populations, and we support
local authorities and institutions to enhance their capacities and become autonomous in their
internal data and information management activities.
Scope of Work
The purpose of this service is to provide the technical leadership necessary to achieve 3iS’s
objective of enhancing information management in humanitarian contexts. This involves
leading the design, implementation, and optimization of the innovative Agentic Risk &
Environmental Management System (AREMS). The Solution Architect or Cloud Engineer
will apply their expertise in AI and data science to architect the entire system on Google
Cloud Platform—from its data processing pipelines and to its chatbots and AI tools—
ultimately ensuring the platform can facilitate informed, timely decision-making for the
benefit of the most vulnerable populations.
AREMS is a groundbreaking initiative designed to transform humanitarian response and
localized decision-making. By leveraging advanced AI, AREMS will create a comprehensive
knowledge graph that fuses formal data (humanitarian reports, statistics, GIS data) with real-time, community-sourced intelligence. The platform will utilize AI agents, accessible via
common messaging apps, to provide non-technical users with actionable insights, risk
analysis, and decision support.
Description of Duties
Architectural Design and Strategy
• Lead the end-to-end design of the AREMS solution architecture in Google Cloud
Platform, encompassing data ingestion, NLP processing, AI agent interaction, and
user-facing applications, supported by the engineering team.
• Coordinate with the engineering team on data ingestion, data processing, and
knowledge graph development.
• Define the technical roadmap for the acceleration phase and beyond, ensuring
alignment with project OKRs.
• Design and oversee the cloud strategy, specifically defining the workflow for initial
data processing and user experience leveraging: Google Cloud Run, Dialog Flow,
Vertex AI, Big Query, Spanner, Kubernetes Engine, Cloud Storage.
Technical Oversight & Implementation Guidance
• Oversee the design and implementation of the data ingestion pipelines for
structured, unstructured, and geospatial data.
• Provide expert guidance on the practical application of the AREMS ontology within
the chosen graph database.
• Architect the interaction between AI agents, Large Language Models (Google
Vertex AI), the knowledge graph, and other data sources like the PostGIS
database.
• Ensure the solution for handling community-generated data (via chatbots) is
scalable and effectively integrated into the core knowledge graph.
Performance, Security & Cost Management
• Identify and mitigate potential performance bottlenecks, especially concerning
complex graph queries and real-time data ingestion.
• Implement best practices for data security and governance across all platforms.
• Design the architecture to be cost-aware, providing recommendations on instance
types, serverless usage, and data storage tiers to optimize cloud spend.
Leadership & Documentation
• Work closely with multidisciplinary teams to identify needs and define technological
solutions tailored to humanitarian contexts and to the project’s needs.
• Strengthen the team’s capabilities in using artificial intelligence tools.
• Contribute to new project proposals development from an AI technical perspective
• Serve as the technical authority for the project team, providing mentorship and
resolving complex technical challenges.
• Create and maintain comprehensive architectural documentation, including system
diagrams, data flow models, and technical specifications.
• Effectively communicate complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical stakeholders, including donors and partners.
Requirements
Education
• Accredited professional in Data Science, Systems Engineering, Applied
Mathematics, Statistics, Economics, or related fields.
• Postgraduate studies in Artificial Intelligence or Data Science will be considered an
asset.
• Certifications in AWS, GCP, or Azure, will be positively valued, especially GCP
combined with a portfolio of Artificial Intelligence and Data Science projects.
Languages
• Fluency in English is required.
• Additional language skills in Spanish, Nigerian Pidgin and Amharic are an asset (to
be specified by the candidate in the application).
Experience
• Proven experience (3+ years) as a Solution Architect, Cloud Engineer, or in a
similar technical role, with a track record of designing and delivering complex dataintensive platforms.
• Demonstrable experience architecting solutions using managed AI/ML services,
specifically Google Vertex AI.
• Strong expertise in data engineering, including designing ETL/ELT pipelines,
processing unstructured data (text, images, audio), and data modelling.
• Proficiency in programming languages, especially Python.
• Solid understanding of serverless architectures, particularly Google Cloud Run, and
their application in event-driven data processing.
• Familiarity with emerging agentic frameworks (e.g., GraphRAG, LangChain,
Langraph, LlamaIndex).
• Familiarity with Model Context Protocol (MCP) and the Agent to Agent (A2A)
framework.
• Experience managing relational SQL, NoSQL, and vector databases.
• Knowledge of data fusion, graph and semantic databases using tools like Google
Spanner, Neo4J, Protégé or ONTOP.
• Proficiency in Prompt Engineering and Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG)
methodologies, including document enrichment and chunking strategies.
Skills
• Ability to work based on objectives and meet standards through performance
indicators.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills including in conducting presentations
to technical and non-technical audiences.
• Capacity to work in multidisciplinary teams and multicultural environments.
• Results-oriented mindset and problem-solving skills.
Organizational
Learning as part of the 3iS’ commitment to organizational development, and in support of
the understanding that learning organizations are more effective, efficient and relevant to
the communities they serve. It is expected that all 3iS’ personnel will commit 5% of their time
to learning activities that benefit 3iS as well as individual professional development.
Terms of Employment
Job Title: Solution Architect / Cloud Engineer
Duty Station: Home-based (time zone acceptable: Colombia, Europe, Africa)
Type of Contract: Consultant
Expected Starting Date: 15 July 2025
Duration of the Contract: 15 months
Fees: 3200 USD – 3500 USD
Accountability to Beneficiaries
3iS’ personnel is expected to respect principles of accountability to beneficiaries of 3iS
programs, in line with international standards while actively engaging beneficiary
communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of field projects.
Guiding Principles
Personnel is expected to respect the local culture and 3iS’ policies, procedures, and values
at all times. 3iS has zero-tolerance for sexual harassment, exploitation and abuse, human
trafficking, child abuse and exploitation. Any violations of these principles and policies will
be treated as serious misconduct. 3iS is an Equal Opportunity Employer regardless of
background. 3iS may carry out reference checks with other organizations on matters related
to sexual harassment, exploitation and abuse
