National Early Warning and Data Officer

• Lead coordination and communication with national institutions to source, standardise and ingest data into the national hazard platform
• Source key datasets from national, regional and global centres for the national system and prepare data standards and metadata
• Monitor the national platform on a continuous duty basis, verifying that data ingestion, processing and dissemination services are functioning
• Review incoming hazard signals and threshold exceedances and prepare warning products for authorisation by the national approving authority
• Construct, validate and issue Common Alerting Protocol messages with correct urgency, severity and certainty parameters, geographic targeting, updates, corrections and cancellations
• Perform first-line fault diagnosis on system components and apply documented remedial procedures
• Escalate unresolved faults to ICPAC technical staff and service providers through structured fault reports
• Develop and maintain the national hazard geodatabase, including data loading, spatial query, indexing, integrity checks and backup verification
• Maintain the operational link with the IGAD Disaster Operations Centre and keep a daily operations log with monthly operational reports
• Plan and conduct system tests, alerting drills and end-to-end exercises, and prepare after-action and defect reports
• Prepare and maintain national operating procedures, fault-handling runbooks and user documentation, and provide first-line user support to OPM staff and institutional users
• Participate in capacity development activities and deliver national training to sectoral users

Qualifications & Experience:

• Minimum of a bachelor's degree in computer science, GIS, geomatics, computer engineering, information technology, meteorology or a related field; a master's degree is an added advantage
• Minimum of three years of relevant experience in the operation, administration or development of geospatial, meteorological or emergency information systems
• Experience in an operational environment with defined service continuity obligations is an added advantage
• Familiarity with Uganda's disaster risk management and early warning institutional arrangements is an added advantage

Skills & Competencies:

• Proficiency in SQL and spatial databases, particularly PostgreSQL with PostGIS
• Working knowledge of OGC service standards (WMS, WFS, WCS and OGC API) and fault diagnosis in service publication
• Demonstrated understanding of the Common Alerting Protocol and alert lifecycle management
• Competence with QGIS, GeoServer and GDAL, and ability to read and modify Python scripts
• Understanding of meteorological and hydrological data formats and products
• Structured approach to fault diagnosis, incident recording and escalation
• Proficiency in English with ability to communicate warning information clearly to institutional users and decision-makers