GIS Data Governance Specialist  

Join MSF OCG as a GIS Data Governance Specialist!

We are looking for passionate candidates ready to contribute to our humanitarian mission.

Below, you will find the job details and the qualifications we are looking for.

Inclusivity and Diversity at MSF

Do your qualifications and experience not exactly match all requirements of the job?

At MSF OCG, we are committed to an inclusive culture that supports and amplifies the diverse voices of our staff members. We strive to create workplaces where teams of people with diverse backgrounds, characteristics, perspectives, ideas and experiences work together to advance MSF's social mission and create better outcomes for our patients and the communities we work with.

We understand that some people may hesitate to apply for employment if they don't meet all listed job requirements. Research shows that this is especially true for women. If you believe your profile is a good match for this position, we invite you to apply even if you don't fulfil every listed qualification.

We encourage applications from individuals of all genders, ages, sexual orientations, ethnicities, background, religions, beliefs, ability status, and all other diversity characteristics.

MSF does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of discrimination or harassment, including sexual harassment. All selected candidates will undergo reference checks.

Context & mission

Médecins Sans Frontières is an independent, international medical and humanitarian organization that provides care to people in need, people affected by natural or man-made disasters, and victims of armed conflict, without discrimination and without regard to race, religion, creed or political affiliation (MSF Charter).

GIS at MSF has been developed as a service to MSF operations since 2013 and is, since January 2021 an Intersectional Centre of Expertise & Services serving the full Movement. The GIS Centre's core mission is to support informed decision making through better spatial comprehension, enhancing the focus of health services around patients, and increasing the impact and efficiency of MSF's regular and emergency interventions. The GIS Services team aims to provide an intersectional operational support system, thanks to a framework of dedicated tools and services, that is reliable, agile, adapted to emergency contexts and needs, timely, and efficient.

The GIS Centre is organized as a coordinated network, composed of GIS specialists dedicated to successfully providing MSF with GIS products & services. The GIS Centre works with a specific set of actors grouped around a common objective, but who are of varying statutory natures (internal vs. external MSF, NGO, academic, industrial, vendors, etc.), and whose physical locations are spread over several countries.

Data is at the core of the services offered by the GIS Centre. The demand for ad hoc data and for managed reference dataset keeps increasing. In order scale its data capacity and to meet stakeholders' needs, the GIS Centre has decided to reinforce the Data Management Team with a Data Governance Specialist.

MSF GIS Centre is looking for a Data Governance Specialist to join its Data Management Team. This new role will be tasked to establish and operationalize a robust data governance framework for geospatial and operational data.

The role bridges strategic governance and hands-on technical implementation. You will define policies as well as build the pipelines, deploy and maintain data catalogues, and any required tooling to enforce them and to make data available to both internal and external stakeholders.

You will work closely with the Data Management Lead, GIS staff along the GIS support chain and operational teams across MSF's global programs.

Tasks & Responsibilities

Key Responsibilities

· Define and maintain the data governance framework, policies, and stewardship roles for the GIS Centre.

· Design and operate automated data quality monitoring across geospatial and operational data pipelines.

· Implement and maintain a data catalogue with standardized metadata and lineage documentation.

· Build/deploy governance tooling and automation integrated into the GIS Centre's data infrastructure (FME, PostGIS, ArcGIS, MS Sharepoint).

· Develop training materials and documentation to embed governance data management practices across the team.

· Report on governance maturity and guide continuous improvement in alignment with recognized frameworks .

What Success Looks Like

· The team operates under a living framework with assigned stewardship roles and standards that adapt to MSF's context.

· Data quality is continuously monitored through automated checks, with a structured process for resolving incidents, leading to a high degree of trust in the GIS Centre data.

· A data catalogue provides a reliable reference for dataset discovery and access, with consistent metadata and lineage

· Governance controls are automated and embedded in infrastructure and practices well understood across teams, backed by clear documentation and data accountability.

Your profile

Education

· Master's degree in Geographic Information Systems, Computer Science, Information Science with a focus on data management, or previous relevant professional experience.

Experience

· Minimum 5 years of experience in roles that include GIS Data Analytics (or similar) and Data Governance / Stewardship, Data Quality Engineering (or similar)

· Field experience or humanitarian exposure is an asset.

Languages

· Fluency in English is mandatory

· Working proficiency in French is an asset.

Skills/ Technical competencies

· Strong knowledge of Data Governance, Data Lifecycle, Data Integration, Master Data Management and Data Cataloguing

· Demonstrated knowledge of at least one major data governance framework (DAMA-DMBOK, DCAM, or equivalent) is an asset

· Strong experience in building ETL pipelines (ex: FME, Talend) and managing entreprise grade geodatabases (ex: PostGIS)

· Strong experience in working with ESRI's ArcGIS Entreprise (ArcGIS Server)

· Strong experience in Python and GIS libraries (ex: Arcpy, GDAL, Geopandas)

· Strong experience in data integrations and APIs.

· Strong and demonstrated knowledge in data modeling, metadata management

· Experience working with infrastructure teams

· Experience in using GeoAI is an asset

· Excellent written and oral communication skills

· Ability to work within geographically distributed teams

· Coordination, and information management skills

· Excellent coordination, communication, and stakeholder engagement skills.

Personal qualities

· Strong alignment with MSF's humanitarian values

· Strategic mindset, ability to connect vision to measurable business impact

· Autonomous, proactive, detailed oriented

· Ability to work with multidisciplinary & multicultural teams.

Terms of employment

· Full-time position 100%

· Open-ended contract

· Working place: one of the MSF Operational Centers (except Geneva)

· Ideal start date: June 1st, 2026

· Gross annual salary depends on the work location

How to apply

Candidates are invited to submit their application exclusively through our recruitment platform, following these guidelines:

• CV (maximum 2 pages)
• Cover letter (maximum 1 page)
• Documents must be submitted in either English or French.

The application deadline is April 26th, 2026.

We reserve the right to close this vacancy earlier if we receive a sufficient number of quality applications.

APPLY

All applications will be treated confidentially.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

Please note that we do not wish to use the services of recruitment or placement agencies.