Solutions Technologist

Human Rights Watch • Berlin, DC

3h • $80,000 - $88,000 • Onsite

About The Position

The Digital Investigations Lab within the Technology, Rights and Investigations division of Human Rights Watch (HRW) is seeking a motivated Solutions Technologist to join our innovative team and enhance our capacity for tech-enabled investigations. We believe that integrating technology responsibly through automating processes, bringing in new tools and developing workflows is key to pursuing crucial investigations that would not otherwise be feasible. The Digital Investigations Lab conducts rigorous human rights investigations, working in partnership with HRW’s thematic and regional researchers.
The successful candidate will join a growing team of dedicated technologists. Specifically, this role involves engaging with researchers to understand their workflows and, in collaboration with the Research Technologist and Information Security and Technology department, designing tools that align with infrastructure, research needs and ensure technical solutions are secure, scalable and mission driven.
By helping us grow our tool base, write vital documentation, and mainstream technology to our researchers, you will not only help our day-to-day needs but also directly enable new and ambitious, cutting-edge work. We are seeking someone who is detail-oriented, guided by process and clear documentation, and motivated to build and maintain technology solutions that last.
This 12-month, fixed-term position reports to the head of Open-Source Research in the Digital Investigations Lab. This position will be based within commuting distance from one of the following HRW offices: London, Amsterdam, Berlin, Brussels, New York, Washington DC, Nairobi, Johannesburg, Sao Paulo, or Stockholm, and must be willing to work from the office as needed.

Requirements

• A level of education that when combined with your professional experience will adequately show you have the capability to perform the role of Research Technologist at Human Rights Watch. Candidates who have relevant academic degrees, computer science, or security certifications are encouraged to apply.
• A minimum of five (5) years of relevant work experience in software development, data-systems design or information technology is required, preferably with international human rights, journalism or related organizations.
• Familiarity with values of the human rights mission and work of Human Rights Watch including a solid understanding and respect for maintaining standards concerning the responsible application of technology;
• Curiosity about digital investigations and geospatial analysis and, at minimum, an interest in learning the tools, processes and workflows needed by researchers to do such work;
• Proven ability to build and maintain essential technical tools and infrastructure, ensuring the smooth operation of digital investigations, including clear documentation and support for non-technical research staff.Proficient in extracting data from the internet (via both APIs and scraping) and cleaning unstructured data for analysis;
• Proficiency in Python and modern JavaScript.
• Experience developing or maintaining a range of outputs, such as applications, browser extensions, Jupyter notebooks, or other research-facing tools.
• Understanding of open source software principles and experience in contributing to open source projects;
• Good foundation in collaborative software development practices and processes, including version control (Git), code review, tool deployment, testing, and documentation;
• Proficient using command-line tools for scripting and automating workflows
• Familiarity with AI technologies and an interest in learning about the application of machine learning methodologies to open source research;
• Ability to work in the English language;
• Ability to handle multiple projects simultaneously and adjust to changing priorities;
• Ability to make progress independently toward short- and long-term projects;
• Ability to work collaboratively with both technical and non-technical staff and to respectfully engage with people from different backgrounds, countries and cultures; and
• Excellent organization, communication, and interpersonal skills.

Nice To Haves

• Experience in evaluating and integrating external technical collaborations and pro-bono partnerships;
• Experience with programmatic data visualization; and
• Language skills other than English;

Responsibilities

• Technology Integration and Growth: Implement and maintain new and existing tools and processes related to research, contribute to the growth of the overall technology tool base, write vital, clear documentation, and help mainstream technology to researchers across Human Rights Watch.
• Support the acquisition and analysis of data for human rights investigations across various thematic and geographic areas, in line with the priorities set by Human Rights Watch’s global strategy, and working with the Research Technologist. This acquisition of data could involve: scraping public information; creating machine readable data with approaches such as optical character recognition; finding hard to access data; finding company and website data; and other related processes. Alongside relevant colleagues, develop processes and guidance on the secure and ethical acquisition of data.
• Work closely with HRW’s Information Security and Technology department to ensure that agreed development processes are followed, information is securely managed and that any scripts, software, or new tools conform to HRW’s in-house security and safety standards.
• Automate ways of working, for instance building out technical solutions to automate day-to-day research processes within the Digital Investigations Lab. This could involve integrating open source tools within the team’s existing workflows, software development, writing scripts to automate daily tasks, leveraging internal tools such as Power Automate and Power BI and exploring machine learning techniques.
• Integrate findings and analysis into Human Rights Watch research by collaborating closely with the Digital Investigations Lab and other researchers to analyze the data, write up findings, and present information, either on GitHub or on the Human Rights Watch website in a concise and accurate manner, in accordance with guidance provided by Human Rights Watch;
• Collaborate closely with colleagues with diverse technical backgrounds and located in multiple locations around the world who conduct investigations with non-traditional human rights techniques, such as remote sensing, data analysis and open source research methodologies. You will ensure effective coordination and delivery of activities in a fast-paced environment where new challenges often present themselves;
• Engage with researchers across HRW regional and thematic divisions to understand existing research workflows and adapt solutions developed by our Research Technologist to fit their workflows or requirements.
• Follow and help set best practices as set out by the Digital Investigations Lab on storing data, discovery, verification and analysis of data, ensuring consistency across how research is carried out across the organization;
• Develop internal standards, processes and best practices concerning the acquisition, storage and analysis of data with other interested parties internally;
• Deliver outputs in a timely manner and maintaining consistency with the agreed strategy and priorities of the division;
• Perform other tasks, as may be required.

Benefits

• HRW seeks exceptional applicants and offers competitive compensation and employer-paid benefits.
• If based in the United States, the salary range for this role is USD 80,000 – 88,000. Salary ranges in other locations vary based on local market.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: No Education Listed