Digital Impact Specialist, Development Lead (P-3), Temporary Appointment, #00137354, Digital Impact Division, Valencia, Spain

UNICEF works in over 190 countries and territories to save children’s lives, defend their rights, and help them fulfill their potential, from early childhood through adolescence.

At UNICEF, we are committed, passionate, and proud of what we do for as long as we are needed. Promoting the rights of every child is not just a job – it is a calling.

UNICEF is a place where careers are built: we offer our staff diverse opportunities for professional and personal development that will help them reinforce a sense of purpose while serving children and communities across the world. We welcome everyone who wants to belong and grow in a diverse and passionate culture, coupled with an attractive compensation and benefits package.

Visit our website to learn more about what we do at UNICEF.

For every child, the right to Digital opportunities

How can you make a difference?

The fundamental mission of UNICEF is to promote the rights of every child, everywhere, in everything the organization does — in programs, in advocacy, and in operations. The equity strategy, emphasizing the most disadvantaged and excluded children and families, translates this commitment to children’s rights into action. For UNICEF, equity means that all children have an opportunity to survive, develop, and reach their full potential, without discrimination, bias or favoritism. To the degree that any child has an unequal chance in life — in its social, political, economic, civic and cultural dimensions — her or his rights are violated. There is growing evidence that investing in the health, education and protection of a society’s most disadvantaged citizens — addressing inequity — not only will give all children the opportunity to fulfill their potential but also will lead to sustained growth and stability of countries. This is why the focus on equity is so vital. It accelerates progress towards realizing the human rights of all children, which is the universal mandate of UNICEF, as outlined by the Convention on the Rights of the Child, while also supporting the equitable development of nations.

Strategic office context:

The Digital Impact Division (DID) is at the heart of reshaping how UNICEF delivers lasting results for children. We are committed to harnessing the full potential of emerging digital technologies to advance UNICEF’s mission.

DID works in close collaboration with regional Digital Impact teams and colleagues across headquarters divisions, regions, and country offices to leverage technologies and capabilities that accelerate progress on UNICEF’s goals, strengthen community resilience, and expand access to essential digital services and information.

Our mission is to enhance UNICEF’s global digital impact by promoting equitable access to information and services, empowering communities to create lasting, positive change for children, and foster a more inclusive, interconnected, and sustainable world for every child, everywhere.

Digital Foundations (DF) creates and sustains transformative, data- and AI-ready digital solutions grounded in human-centered design. Leveraging resilient, scalable cloud technologies provides a secure and adaptable technology backbone to deliver results for children with greater efficiency and agility.

Through forward-looking technology roadmaps and continuous improvement, the Digital Foundations function modernizes core systems, strengthens cybersecurity, and fosters innovation to ensure future-resilient systems. As a key enabler of UNICEF’s digital transformation, it enhances data-driven decision-making and enables operational excellence to achieve sustainable results for children.

Ensuring the traceability of UNICEF's supplies from distribution to the final recipient is crucial for upholding our accountability to both donors and beneficiaries. It serves as concrete evidence of our commitment to equity principles and enables us to pinpoint potential areas of supply loss.

Supplies are dispatched to beneficiaries in various countries either directly by UNICEF or through our collaborating partners. While UNICEF maintains oversight of supply movement until handover to partners, beyond this stage, monitoring processes become inconsistent across different Country Offices (COs). Information relayed by implementing partners lacks standardization and is often manual, leading to a significant information gap.

Purpose for the job:

UNICEF has built an MVP Last Mile Supply Monitoring solution that enables the collection of data by and from Program implementing partners, and a suite of business logic and dashboards to visualize the application data merged with internal supply chain information.

The solution requires further improvement to include new features, scalability, and enterprise level functionality, serving all country offices in UNICEF. The platform is an open-source project, and the backend codebase can be reviewed at https://github.com/unicef/etools.

The Last Mile Supply Monitoring (LMSM) solution deployment is being accelerated. The current focus is in scaling and developing additional functions and self service capabilities.

This role will be critical for the implementation of countries earmarked for roll-out, providing technical leadership in support of the development process, for the collaboration with stakeholders by managing the project execution and ultimately by providing capacity for backend development and reporting.

Key functions include:

• Technical Leadership,
• Backend development,
• Project management

If you would like to know more about this position, please review the complete Job Description here: DID Development lead, P3, TA, DF-Business, DID, Valencia, Spain (4).pdf

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…

Minimum requirements

• Education: Master or equivalent (Advanced University Degree) in Computer Science, Technology, Information Systems, information technology management, backend development.
• Work Experience: At least 5 years of relevant work experience in Information Technology, Django and Python backend development is required with proven experience as a Project Manager and Technical Lead.
• Experience working with Agile development teams and continuous development/deployment.
• Experience developing and deploying solutions globally.
• Experience working with Docker and Kubernetes.
• Experience with quality assurance testing processes.
• Skills: Strong expertise in Django and Python, project management and Agile methodologies, project management tools, techniques, and delivery approaches, ability to align technical goals with UNICEF’s strategic priorities.
• Language Requirements: Fluency in English is required.

Desirables

• Excellent leadership, communication, and interpersonal skills.
• Ability to quickly understand complex business problems and the value of commitments to end users, product teams, and project teams.
• Familiarity with waterfall, agile, and hybrid delivery practices, especially with external vendors.
• Dynamic self-starter able to work with minimal supervision.
• Relevant experience at country level, particularly in development, fragile settings, or humanitarian contexts.

For every Child, you demonstrate...

UNICEF's Core Values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust and Accountability and Sustainability (CRITAS) underpin everything we do and how we do it. Get acquainted with Our Values Charter: UNICEF Values

UNICEF competencies required for this post are…

(1) Builds and maintains partnerships
(2) Demonstrates self-awareness and ethical awareness
(3) Drive to achieve results for impact
(4) Innovates and embraces change
(5) Manages ambiguity and complexity
(6) Thinks and acts strategically
(7) Works collaboratively with others

Familiarize yourself with our competency framework and its different levels.

UNICEF promotes and advocates for the protection of the rights of every child, everywhere, in everything it does and is mandated to support the realization of the rights of every child, including those most disadvantaged, and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, minority, or any other status.

UNICEF encourages applications from all qualified candidates, regardless of gender, nationality, religious or ethnic backgrounds, and from people with disabilities, including neurodivergence. We offer a wide range of benefits to our staff, including paid parental leave, breastfeeding breaks and reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities. UNICEF provides reasonable accommodation throughout the recruitment process. If you require any accommodation, please submit your request through the accessibility email button on the UNICEF Careers webpage Accessibility | UNICEF. Should you be shortlisted, please get in touch with the recruiter directly to share further details, enabling us to make the necessary arrangements in advance.

UNICEF does not hire candidates who are married to children (persons under 18). UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination based on gender, nationality, age, race, sexual orientation, religious or ethnic background or disabilities. UNICEF is committed to promote the protection and safeguarding of all children. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks, and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check, and selected candidates with disabilities may be requested to submit supporting documentation in relation to their disability confidentially.

UNICEF appointments are subject to medical clearance.  Issuance of a visa by the host country of the duty station is required for IP positions and will be facilitated by UNICEF. Appointments may also be subject to inoculation (vaccination) requirements, including against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid). Should you be selected for a position with UNICEF, you either must be inoculated as required or receive a medical exemption from the relevant department of the UN. Otherwise, the selection will be canceled.

Remarks:

As per Article 101, paragraph 3, of the Charter of the United Nations, the paramount consideration in the employment of the staff is the necessity of securing the highest standards of efficiency, competence, and integrity.

UNICEF is committed to fostering an inclusive, representative, and welcoming workforce. For this position, eligible and suitable female candidates are encouraged to apply.

Government employees who are considered for employment with UNICEF are normally required to resign from their government positions before taking up an assignment with UNICEF. UNICEF reserves the right to withdraw an offer of appointment, without compensation, if a visa or medical clearance is not obtained, or necessary inoculation requirements are not met, within a reasonable period for any reason.

UNICEF does not charge a processing fee at any stage of its recruitment, selection, and hiring processes (i.e., application stage, interview stage, validation stage, or appointment and training). UNICEF will not ask for applicants' bank account information.

Mobility is a condition of international professional employment with UNICEF and an underlying premise of the international civil service.

Humanitarian action is a cross-cutting priority within UNICEF's Strategic Plan. UNICEF is committed to stay and deliver in humanitarian contexts. Therefore, all staff, at all levels across all functional areas, can be called upon to be deployed to support humanitarian response, contributing to both strengthening resilience of communities and capacity of national authorities.

All UNICEF positions are advertised, and only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process. An internal candidate performing at the level of the post in the relevant functional area, or an internal/external candidate in the corresponding Talent Group, may be selected, if suitable for the post, without assessment of other candidates.

Additional information about working for UNICEF can be found here.