Program Optimization and Data Lead At Taimaka

Application Deadline: Rolling, with a final closure no later than April 30th, 2025. Applications may close sooner if a suitable candidate is found.

Expected Hours: 40 hours/week (full time)
Location: Gombe, Nigeria (for at least 9 months out of the year, for truly exceptional candidates we are open to 6 months per year)

Compensation: Dependent on need and experience. For expatriates, Taimaka will provide housing, fund visa costs, and reimburse twice per year international travel to/from Nigeria.

Reports To: Executive Director, CMAM Program Director

Supervises: M+E Supervisor, Data Entry Clerk(s), Field Data Collectors

Start Date: As soon as possible, ideally sometime in May 2025.

Summary

We’re looking for an enterprising and analytical late-early career or mid-career professional to lead Taimaka’s data-driven decision making strategy as our Program Optimization and Data Lead. You will leverage our rich program data to generate actionable insights, drive improvements in the delivery of our services, and enhance our overall effectiveness. Your role involves optimizing our ODK-based digital tools, proactively identifying and mitigating risks like fraud through data analysis and by building new systems, and identifying and championing data-informed solutions to program problems. With Taimaka on track to treat 75,000 cases of severe acute malnutrition in U5 children in the next three years, your work will directly shape the growth of our life-saving program.

We’re not looking for someone who can only use data for reporting – we’re looking for someone who will actively use our data to drive problem-solving and improvements in our service quality.

We want someone who’s comfortable setting priorities independently, solving problems from first principles, and bringing a scrappy, innovative mindset to a startup-style environment. You’ll need experience in data analysis (R or Python), SQL, and team management. Even if you don’t check all the other boxes laid out below, a talent for learning fast matters most. If you’re resourceful, ambitious, and eager to dedicate your career to helping others, we encourage you to apply.

Note: this role shares some characteristics with our Program Improvement Associate role. The Program Optimization and Data Lead works more directly on the program itself, and deals with more day-to-day decisions (e.g., nonresponse rates are spiking at facilities in this LGA, what can we do about it?) vs. the Program Improvement Associate role, which deals with more theoretical research trials (e.g., what if we launched an RCT to study whether conditional cash transfers could reduce nonresponse generally). This position (Program Optimization and Data Lead) also requires more technical expertise in coding (though all of this should be learnable). We encourage interested candidates to apply for both!

About Taimaka

Taimaka is a highly cost-effective, Founder’s Pledge recommended nonprofit that delivers reimagined pediatric malnutrition treatment to save the lives of the world’s most vulnerable children. We implement a modified form of community management of acute malnutrition (CMAM) treatment targeting children with severe acute malnutrition (SAM) in Gombe State, Nigeria. We are currently dramatically expanding our treatment program to reach 15k patients with SAM in 2025, 25k patients in 2026, and 35k patients in 2027. You can read more about our work here.

About the Job

Taimaka’s enrollment and treatment process for children with acute malnutrition is entirely digitized. Staff using our mobile phone application are guided step-by-step through the treatment process for each case they see, with that data then uploaded to our database to create a complete record of every touchpoint a child has with one of our providers. This, in theory, provides us with a fantastic amount of data to use to inform program design and execution. However, sometimes, we often find ourselves with too much data and not enough staff capacity to use it well.

The Program Optimization and Data Lead role is crucial for transforming Taimaka’s data into smarter, more effective programming. Your core responsibilities will be:

Optimize and Enhance Digital Tools: Continuously improve our ODK application to ensure high-quality data collection that supports real-time decision-making and evolving program needs (this involves ‘low-code’ technical work, collaborating on complex programming). Modify clinical guidance provided through ODK (in collaboration with our program team) to provide the highest quality care possible.
Drive Data-Driven Program Improvement: Develop and execute a strategy to unlock the potential of our data. This involves proactively identifying key questions, conducting analyses (using R/Python, SQL), creating insightful dashboards (e.g., Metabase), and building systems to embed data use into operational workflows for senior staff and field managers. Work with senior program leadership to identify problems and brainstorm solutions. Again, we want someone who is going to actively suggest fixes, not someone who merely hands over data and stops there.

Lead and Develop the Data Team: Manage and build the capacity of our M&E and data staff (currently ~3 FTEs, expected to grow) to effectively support data quality, analysis, and insight generation.

Our current data team consists of ~3 FTEs:

An M+E Supervisor who monitors form submissions and makes corrections when needed, provides data on a by-request basis to program management staff, and who runs tri-annual field patient screening efforts with temporary staff contracted for ~1 week per screening.
A Data Entry Clerk who manually enters some paper forms filled by staff not equipped with smartphones (e.g., community mobilizers conducting at-home follow-up visits for patients).
A few part-time Field Data Collectors who conduct backchecking visits of admitted patients to verify their anthropometrics.

We expect that this team will need to expand by another few staff members as our program grows, meaning you will need to carry out some recruitment and hiring as well.

We view this role as fitting into the later half of someone’s early career. Our priority is finding candidates who can work entrepreneurially – identifying key problems, work independently, and self-start – and think for themselves. We’re looking for scrappy innovators, so if you think you fit that, please apply even if you have to do some learning on the job.

Specific Responsibilities

Optimize and Enhance Digital Case Management Software – 20% of your time

Implement updates to the Open Data Kit (ODK) forms Taimaka staff use to enroll patients and track their progress through the program (e.g., add a new biographical data collection question to the admission form) to improve user experience and care outcomes
Execute more complex additions, like adding a warning to facility staff if a child has already been seen that week and is coming in for a second time (this requires integrating data from database queries into ODK attachments to provide real-time data back to the form)
Make changes to these core ODK forms to ensure they remain in line with treatment protocols (e.g., changing recommended drug dosages in the section of the form that provides treatment guidance, based on changes in treatment protocols provided to you)
Develop new ODK forms to meet program needs, such as digital attendance verification, supervision checklists, mapping new catchment areas, and replacing paper-based forms with digital versions.

Conduct Proactive Data Analysis for Program Strategy and Optimization – 30% of your time

Proactively identify opportunities and initiate data analysis projects to answer critical strategic questions, evaluate program components, and guide key decisions (e.g., site selection, or identifying causes of programmatic challenges like data fabrication).
- Brainstorm solutions to identified issues with senior program staff, work with program staff to implement these solutions.
In some cases, plan and run field research efforts to gather more data to factor into decision-making than we usually collect.
For data collection efforts, expect to delegate a lot of the data collection efforts (once you plan it) to your junior staff. For more complex data analysis, expect to undertake this yourself. These tasks will often require reviewing academic and grey literature, searching practitioner forums and guidelines, and organising discussions with other organisations.

Ensure High-Integrity Data Pipeline – 10% of your time

Design and implement systems for your staff to routinely check data issues (like duplicate patient IDs, duplicate form submissions, etc.). Monitor your staff’s performance in carrying out these checks.
Take initiative to improve these quality checks without external guidance. Brainstorm and refine over time what data needs to be checked to prevent problems.

Future Growth Trajectories

Future growth trajectories for excelling hires could look like:

Overseeing a growing team and budget as our program expands and our data team grows with it
Several years down the line, helping set up new data teams as we expand to new states in Nigeria
As part of your professional development, we could explore more technical routes like investing in coding training to do more in-depth work on our digital case management system

About You

This role will likely suit an early to mid-career public health, data, or M+E specialist, or a very bright early to mid-career generalist capable of learning on the job. Our preference is for someone with a few years of work experience under their belt, but we may make exceptions for truly exceptional candidates.

If you are not sure whether you’re the right fit for the position, err on the side of applying. Our initial application is designed to be fairly painless to complete and our priority is finding candidates with high overall potential, an ability to learn, and who align with our core philosophy of cost-effectiveness and innovation, rather than who check specific boxes.

Must Haves:

Candidates must have the following to qualify:

Bachelor’s degree or higher
Past experience with:
- Data analysis in either R OR Python Pandas
- SQL OR proven competence in any non-statistical programming language (taken as evidence of your ability to quickly learn SQL)
An ability to learn new skills, particularly by diving in headfirst and learning by doing
An ability to set your own priorities and independently solve problems

Nice to Haves:

The more of these that describe you, the better, but none are required. Even if none of these describe you, but you feel like you are talented and can learn, err on the side of applying.

Past experience with:
- Technical:
  - An XLSForm based data collection platform (e.g., Open Data Kit, KoboCollect, SurveyCTO)
  - Python (general use, not for data analysis)
  - Metabase or similar BI/dashboarding software
  - Geospatial data collection and mapping using ArcGIS, QGIS or similar software
- General:
  - Public health, humanitarian interventions, or biostatistics
  - Field experience in an LMIC, particularly if you were doing work related to data collection
  - Overseeing small teams (1-5 people)
  - Familiarity with GiveWell/Effective Altruist methods of evaluating cost-effectiveness
A Master’s degree in public health, statistics, economics, or similar
2 years or more of work experience in data or M+E or 4 years or more of other work experience

Why Work At Taimaka

A job with a large, tangible impact on the world – your work will drive a highly cost-effective global health program and save lives
A high degree of autonomy and opportunity to shape Taimaka and our work as we continue a period of rapid growth
A passionate and dynamic startup culture, with talented colleagues and the opportunity to take ownership of meaningful projects
An opportunity to work in the field, directly with beneficiaries, and iteratively design and improve programming in a hands-on way.
Challenging, but rewarding and stimulating work.

Why Not Work At Taimaka
Working at Taimaka may not be the right fit for everyone! If you aren’t comfortable with the following, this may not be the right job for you:

Living in a remote part of a developing country.
- While we provide housing with most of the amenities you are used to (air conditioning, hot water, backup power, high-speed internet), things will not always work right. Expect the power to go out, water to run out, etc. – we will minimize these things, but life will be harder than in the US/Europe.
- Gombe is a small city in Nigeria, without some of the attractions or ways to unwind that you might find in Abuja or Lagos. As a result, Gombe can sometimes feel isolating and lends itself to overworking and burnout. Our staff community is welcoming and a place to become friends with colleagues, and we encourage/fund taking time to go home or travel twice per year, but please expect to be living in a quiet town.
Dealing with ambiguity
- Taimaka is a maturing startup: there is a lot less bureaucracy and oversight than you would find at a larger organization. This can be good, in the sense that you can get hands on with projects and move fast, but it also means that you will typically receive less support from your manager than you might expect. You will need to set your own priorities and do a lot of independent problem solving in order to succeed.