Data Scientist

Roles and responsibilities

As a Senior Data Scientist at UpEnergy, you will play a pivotal role in enhancing the impact of our interventions aimed at alleviating energy poverty across Africa and beyond. This position offers the unique opportunity to design and implement Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) that assess the efficacy of our products and services in households and schools. Your entrepreneurial spirit and proactive approach will help foster a culture of continuous improvement.

Key Responsibilities:

Research and Documentation:

• Lead research initiatives to deepen our understanding of end-user needs across various markets.
• Conduct comprehensive literature reviews to stay abreast of advancements in clean cooking, safe water, and related fields.
• Document methodologies, procedures, and findings from experiments for both internal and external stakeholders.
• Develop a robust internal strategy for rigorous, publishable RCTs, serving as the principal investigator.
• Analyze RCT data to contribute to global discussions on clean cooking, offering actionable insights and recommendations.
• Communicate and publish evaluation results and findings from RCTs.

Pilots and Intervention Testing:

• Collaborate with implementation teams to design sampling, data collection methods, and protocols that balance experiment quality, feasibility, and economic viability for scalable implementation.
• Create and refine continuous testing and optimization methodologies, including A-B testing frameworks, to systematically evaluate interventions and treatments.
• Work closely with product and in-country teams to define pertinent research questions and objectives for interventional tests and pilots.
• Cultivate a culture of intelligent experimentation within UpEnergy and with partner organizations, such as Community Carbon.

Desired candidate profile

• Develop and execute statistical analyses to evaluate experimental outcomes effectively.
• Collect, clean, and process datasets using suitable software tools to ensure high-quality data for experiments.
• Partner with field teams to ensure proper implementation of experiment protocols and swiftly address any issues that arise.
• Collaborate with leading global academic micro-economists to design and refine RCTs, testing hypotheses and evaluating interventions.
• Conduct data audits and quality assurance checks on collected data to maintain integrity.
• Organize learnings from user testing in a manner that informs business decisions impacting country-specific metrics.

Qualifications:

• A degree in Data Science, Statistics, Economics, Data-Driven Marketing, or a related field.
• Proven experience in developing rigorous RCTs and proficiency with statistical software (Open Data Kit and/or Salesforce preferred).
• Background in retail sectors such as FMCGs or appliances is a plus.
• Strong communication skills to effectively collaborate with field teams in Sub-Saharan Africa.
• A passionate commitment to climate justice and solutions in low-income contexts.
• Residing in Africa and fluent in English.

If you’re eager to apply your expertise to tackle one of the world’s pressing challenges, we’d love to hear from you!