E T Consultant – Industry Specialist (Cloud)

World Bank Group•Washington, DC

About The Position

Do you want to build a career that is truly worthwhile? The World Bank Group is a unique global partnership of five institutions driven by a bold vision to create a world free of poverty on a livable planet. As one of the largest sources of funding and knowledge for developing countries, we help solve the world’s greatest development challenges. When you join the World Bank Group, you become part of a dynamic, diverse organization with 189 member countries and more than 120 offices worldwide. We work with public and private sector partners, invest in groundbreaking projects, and use data, research, and technology to bring tangible and transformative change around the globe. For more information, visit www.worldbank.org. VPU Context: Digital technologies offer a unique opportunity to transform development through digital solutions. The Digital and AI Vertical Vice Presidency and its global and regional teams support client countries in building their capacities for digital transformation and AI use. The WBG Digital and AI Vertical is led by a Vice President and was established in July 2024. WBG recently published its Digital and AI Strategy which includes four pillars: access, affordability, ecosystem and AI readiness. The strategy identifies the priorities that WBG will engage across the client segment over the next five years. The implementation plan is currently under preparation. The Vertical will deploy a range of products, services, and partnerships to advance global knowledge across the four pillars of the Strategy through: • Supporting World Bank regions that provide financing to governments in the form of grants, loans, guarantees, and risk management products to support digital investment projects and implement policy reforms. • Supporting World Bank regions that provide advisory services including targeted policy guidance, technical assistance, and capacity building. • Knowledge products include data and diagnostics to provide actionable insights at regional, country, and local levels, research and thought leadership to expand the global knowledge base, as well as thematic operational toolkits. • Convening services that bring together key stakeholders, from both public and private sectors as well as international and non-governmental organizations involved in advancing global digital transformation. For more information: https://www.worldbank.org/ext/en/topic/digital-and-ai Unit Context: Within the Knowledge Bank, the Digital Access team (WKDAX) leads work on foundational digital infrastructure and affordability, focusing on knowledge generation, solution design, and the scaling of proven approaches across regions and country programs.

Requirements

Master’s degree or equivalent in Engineering, Information Systems, Computer Science, or related field.
A minimum of 5 years of experience in cloud adoption, enterprise IT modernization, or related fields.
Demonstrated experience with AI infrastructure, including compute (GPU/TPU), data pipelines, and deployment of AI systems in production environments.
Strong understanding of AI system design trade-offs (cost, latency, energy, scalability), including edge vs centralized architectures.
Experience in structuring or advising on technology investments, including commercial viability, cost models, and engagement with private sector providers
Experience advising both private sector and governments on digital transformation strategies.
Strong understanding of digital infrastructure ecosystems, including cloud services, data centers, connectivity, and emerging AI infrastructure needs.
Experience supporting complex projects, investments, or advisory programs related to technology or digital infrastructure.
Strong analytical, communication, and stakeholder engagement skills, with the ability to translate technical concepts into strategic guidance.
Ability to bridge technical, policy, and investment perspectives, translating infrastructure decisions into development impact and commercially viable solutions.
Experience working in emerging markets.
Fluency in English required (written and spoken)

Nice To Haves

French, Portuguese and/or Spanish strongly preferred.

Responsibilities

Advise governments on strategies to modernize public sector IT systems and adopt cloud and digital infrastructure solutions that improve efficiency, resilience, affordability and service delivery.
Support countries in developing national approaches to data hosting, cloud adoption, and digital infrastructure that balance cost, security, and sovereignty considerations, leveraging both private and public solutions.
Help governments transition from legacy systems toward more flexible, scalable, secure and resilient digital infrastructure environments.
Support governments in preparing their infrastructure for emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and data-intensive applications, leveraging private and public solutions.
Advise on infrastructure needs related to computing capacity, data storage, connectivity, and resilience required for AI-enabled public services.
Advise on AI deployment architectures, including trade-offs between centralized and edge/Small AI approaches, with a focus on cost efficiency, resilience, and applicability in low-resource environments.
Assess and advise on AI workload requirements, including training vs inference needs, utilization patterns, and implications for infrastructure sizing, energy demand, and cost optimization.
Advise governments on data readiness and governance frameworks, including data quality, interoperability, and secure data-sharing mechanisms.
Support the development of localized datasets, language models, and sector-specific data ecosystems to enable effective AI deployment.
Provide technical and strategic advice leveraging both private and public sector perspectives.
Support the preparation and supervision of digital infrastructure investments and advisory programs across the World Bank Group.
Develop analytical work, policy notes, and knowledge products on cloud, data hosting and AI-readiness.
Support identification and structuring of private sector investment opportunities in digital and AI infrastructure, including engagement with cloud providers, data center operators, and AI infrastructure players.
Contribute to de-risking frameworks that enable private capital mobilization (e.g., blended finance, PPP models).
Advise project teams on enterprise architecture frameworks and end-to-end digital infrastructure design.
Advise on AI-ready enterprise architectures, including integration of AI systems into government platforms, MLOps pipelines, and data infrastructure layers.
Support the modernization of legacy systems through structured cloud migration approaches (e.g., 7R framework, well-architected principles).
Develop cloud readiness diagnostics, migration roadmaps, and infrastructure reference architectures (public, hybrid, sovereign models).
Provide technical guidance on disaster recovery, business continuity, cybersecurity and high-availability architectures.
Facilitate knowledge exchange across regions on best practices in cloud adoption, digital infrastructure policy, and government modernization.
Engage with public and private sector stakeholders to support the development of sustainable and competitive digital infrastructure ecosystems.
Build partnerships with leading AI, cloud, and infrastructure providers, as well as research institutions, to bring cutting-edge but practical solutions to client countries.