Technology Director – Global Health

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in Maryland.

📋 Description

• Spearhead technology modernization initiatives across global health and survey programs.

• Take ownership of the comprehensive delivery of the program's AI innovation portfolio.

• Oversee workstreams that include automated data-to-report production, natural-language data access, multilingual questionnaire design, field data quality, and innovative measurement methods.

• Execute stage-gate processes, lead go/no-go evaluations, discontinue underperforming workstreams, disseminate findings, and reassign funding.

• Act as the principal technical liaison to the funder, managing progress reporting and learning evaluations.

• Collaborate with the project manager to manage the innovation portfolio, including scheduling, risks, inference costs, and cloud operating expenses.

• Facilitate coordination among global development programs, sharing methodologies and outcomes.

• Serve as the technical lead and architect for workstreams, responsible for system design and associated documentation.

• Maintain a hands-on approach through prototyping and production activities.

• Establish quantitative acceptance criteria and quality benchmarks in collaboration with survey specialists.

• Define architecture and standards for model selection, privacy-preserving design, offline and low-connectivity deployment, and security measures.

• Implement engineering practices such as specification-driven development, agentic coding tools, evaluation-first delivery, code reviews, and testing protocols.

• Safeguard data quality and comparability across countries and over time.

• Supervise responsible AI practices, data governance, ethical standards, ICF security compliance, IRB requirements, and partner-country data sovereignty.

• Lead and mentor teams of applied AI, software, ML, and platform engineers.

• Connect technology and survey expertise among methodologists, statisticians, field teams, and engineers.

• Collaborate with national statistical offices and health ministries to design deployable tools.

• Disseminate results through public documentation, publications, and presentations at technical and global health conferences.

• Contribute to business development through client engagement, white papers, and proposal creation.

⛳️ Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in IT, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related technical discipline, or equivalent experience.

• At least 10 years of professional experience in designing and delivering technology solutions.

• Hands-on experience in the architecture of multiple complex systems that have been deployed in production.

• A minimum of 5 years leading and mentoring teams in software or data engineering.

• Proven track record in architecting and delivering AI/ML or LLM-powered systems in a production environment.

• Experience in measuring system quality and diagnosing failures.

• Background in managing a multi-workstream technology program for a foundation, donor, or government client, with responsibility for budget and outcomes.

• Extensive knowledge of system architecture, data pipelines, software development methodologies, and proficiency in at least one major cloud platform such as AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud.

• Practical experience with agentic coding tools and specification-driven development.

• U.S. citizenship is required due to federal government contract obligations.

• Preferred: working proficiency in French or Portuguese.

• Preferred: experience in survey operations or data collection.

• Preferred: background in global health or international development within low- and middle-income countries.

• Preferred: knowledge of low-connectivity field data collection systems or offline/edge deployment.

• Preferred: experience collaborating with national statistical offices or health ministries.

• Preferred: leadership experience in stage-gated R&D or innovation portfolios.

• Preferred: understanding of quantitative acceptance thresholds for AI or data systems.

• Preferred: experience with multi-country deployments involving jurisdictional data restrictions, data privacy, governance, and IRB processes.

• Preferred: knowledge of cybersecurity practices, security controls, and authorization protocols.

• Preferred: publications or presentations in AI, survey methodologies, or global health.

• Preferred: advanced degree in computer science, statistics, demography, public health, or a related field.

• Credibility with both engineers and executives.

• Ability to exercise sound judgment in uncertain situations.

• Excellent communication and presentation skills.

• Capacity to translate between technical and non-technical stakeholders across different cultures.

• Self-motivated with the ability to work with minimal supervision.

🏝️ Benefits

• Opportunities for occasional international travel.

• Commitment to equal opportunity employment.

• Provision of reasonable accommodations for disabilities, disabled veterans, and sincerely held religious beliefs.

• Benefits information is provided in accordance with the Transparency in Coverage Act.