Senior Data Scientist, MNO Data

Responsibilities

Develop and adapt analytical methods to infer residence, displacement, and potentially poverty from mobile network operator data, and specify, test, and guide implementation with operator engineering teams. Support operator and internal stakeholder discussions, design analyses with privacy and operational constraints in mind, and improve reusable templates and training materials.

Requirements

Candidates should bring strong modeling, machine learning, statistics, and spatio-temporal data expertise, along with sound judgment when working with sparse data and no ground truth. They should be able to write clear technical specifications, review SQL and Python, communicate effectively with technical and non-technical partners, prioritize privacy and confidentiality, and travel internationally; direct CDR or latching-data experience is a strong plus.

Skills

• Mathematical Modeling
• Machine Learning
• Statistics
• Spatio-Temporal Data Analysis
• Geographic Information Systems
• Mobility Data Analysis
• Call Detail Record Analysis
• Data Privacy
• Privacy-Enhancing Technologies
• SQL
• Python Code Review
• Technical Specification Writing
• Data Validation
• Large-Scale Data Processing
• Stakeholder Communication
• Training Material Development

Benefits

• Annual Benefits Stipend
• Performance Bonus

About this role

About GiveDirectly
What if the most effective way to fight poverty was also the simplest: give people money and trust them to decide what they need?
Since 2011, GiveDirectly has proven that idea at scale. We’ve delivered more than $1B in cash directly to 2+ million people living in poverty and crisis across 15 countries, and rigorous research shows the results: healthier kids, stronger businesses, sturdier homes, and more resilient families and local economies. Cash is now widely recognized as one of the most scalable, cost-effective, and dignified forms of aid.
Our ambition goes beyond our own programs. We want cash to become the benchmark for aid, much as the index fund became the benchmark for investing, so that every aid dollar is held to one question: is this doing more good than giving the money directly to people living in poverty?
We’re growing fast, and this is a rare and important moment to join.
We expect to hit $1B in revenue in 2026 with significant growth forecast for 2027. At the same time we are building a new technology stack and operating model designed for a roughly 10x change in scale, and we are actively pursuing partnerships with major funders to move even more money in bigger ways, to people who need it. We are known for our extensive integration of technology into field processes; our quantitative approach to performance measurement; and our commitment to rigorous, independent, experimental evaluation of our impact, with multiple Randomized Control Trials completed and others in progress.
How we work
Our team spans 20+ countries and 69 languages. Our culture is candid, analytical, and non-hierarchical. We expect high ownership and give people real responsibility early. Our values are central to how we hire, work, and grow, and they are deliberately opinionated:
Recipients first. Recipients’ preferences come before those of donors or ourselves.
Team next. We optimize for organizational success, not individual success.
Be proactively candid. We say what we believe and share information openly.
Create positive energy. We aim to be a source of energy for colleagues, not a drain.
Think rigorously; act quickly. We reason from first principles, then act rather than debate.
Know yourself and grow. We own our imperfections and seek feedback to grow.
Accept reality. Propose solutions. We focus on what can change and bring solutions, not just problems.
Be productively ambitious. We take risks for step-change impact, not incremental progress.
If they describe how you like to work and they energize you, this could be a great fit.
Want to learn more? Read and listen:
We are one of Time100’s Most Influential Companies of 2026, and our work has been covered by The Economist, NPR, TED, and The Washington Post. We're now preparing to deliver billions of dollars a year to people in extreme poverty, if funding allows. Read our CEO's essay on what that will take.
About this role
GiveDirectly gives cash directly to people living in poverty and in emergencies. Both depend on the same question: did this person live in this place, at this time? We ask it when we target the poorest households, and when a disaster displaces a community overnight. Location records held by Mobile Network Operators (MNO) can help us estimate an answer to this question at scale. We work with MNOs so they can infer, from their own records, whether a subscriber was resident in a target area over a defined period. Robust residence location inference from MNO data requires in-depth analytical work, and the methods we design have to run on an operator's systems - most often implemented by their engineers - under strict data protection and confidentiality rules.
We are hiring a Senior Data Scientist to progress our work on location inference from MNO data, and to make it repeatable. Your job is to improve and extend our library of method templates, adapt them to each new operator and setting, and design new elements when an intervention requires it. You'll assess what can be inferred from a given operator's data, specify the analysis clearly enough for their data engineers to implement, then test it with them remotely or on site. You'll support introductory meetings with MNOs, describing methodologies at a high level, and inform the work of data privacy and cybersecurity teams to ensure only necessary data are shared securely. You'll also help colleagues across GiveDirectly understand the strengths and limitations of this data source, so we design programs around questions it can best answer.
This work is live in several countries, and we're expanding it across the countries where we have offices and to low- and middle-income countries anywhere in the world when a crisis hits.
Reports to: Senior Product Manager - MNO data
Level: Senior Manager
Location: At this stage of GiveDirectly’s growth and scale, we’re prioritizing hiring in the countries below, where we can employ you through a GD entity or an established employer of record: Cameroon, Canada, Colombia, DRC, Germany, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Netherlands, Nigeria, Poland, Portugal, Rwanda, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, Uganda, United Kingdom, and United States. This list reflects where our employment infrastructure is established today, and may evolve as we grow. If you’re based elsewhere and not open to relocation, we may not be able to consider your application for this role right now, but we’d encourage you to check back. Please note that we are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of employment Visas in the U.S. or U.K. at this time.
Travel Requirement: Substantial international travel, roughly 25 to 50% of your time depending on emergencies, sometimes at short notice - for workshops with operators to support programs and emergency responses.
What you’ll do:
Improve and extend our library of analytical method templates for establishing where people live from MNO data, and depending on circumstances, for detecting displacement or estimating p...

About GiveDirectly

Non-profit Organizations · 501-1,000 employees · headquartered in New York, NY · founded 2008