Careers at One Acre Fund

About the Role

• From R&D to sales to strategy to operations, the Global R&D Data Analyst has the unique opportunity to improve decision-making across all aspects of One Acre Fund’s program using many diverse data types, such as sales, yield, demographic and satellite data, to help us reach more farmers with greater impact. 
• The Global R&D Data Analyst will help us reach over one million farmers by executing analyses for strategic decision-making on repayment, expansion, and other business functions, and work directly with program leaders to interpret results and make data-driven decisions. The Global R&D Data Analyst will play an integral role in shaping One Acre Fund’s data strategy, including dreaming up and executing new ways to use our data to improve our program.
• Additionally, One Acre Fund has a robust agronomic and socioeconomic research program spanning all countries of operation. This role will work closely with country R&D teams to ensure all trials are executed at the highest possible standards, provide follow-up analytical support and training to team members, and support with warehousing of our agronomic data to make our research outputs accessible to external collaborators, further increasing One Acre Fund’s smallholder farmer impact across the continent.
• To succeed in this role, you will need to be a strong communicator and have a solid analytical background with experience in experimental design. You will need to be comfortable interpreting ambiguous results generated with imperfect data and advising leaders on the relative risk associated with different decisions based on the results of your analysis. 

This is a deliberately hybrid role. Success requires the ability to operate effectively as:

• an experimental methodologist (trial design & causal inference),
• an applied data scientist (production analytics, geospatial methods, modelling), and
• a delivery-oriented project manager (prioritisation, documentation, coordination).

Responsibilities

Own methodological rigour and analytical quality for trials and surveys (30%):

• Design and analyse trials and surveys, including:
  • Sample size and power calculations
  • Stratification and experimental design
  • Recommend the appropriate statistical methods (e.g., hypothesis testing, regression, ANOVA/mixed models)
• Lead analysis of agronomic and product trials to estimate treatment effects and program impact
• Quality assure trial designs and analyses produced by other analysts
• Translate trial findings into clear recommendations for product design, agronomic guidance, and program strategy.

Develop scalable analytical products and decision-support tools using program, survey, and spatial data (30%):

• Build, maintain, and improve analytical pipelines and production codebases that power operational decision tools (e.g., sowing date or input recommendations), including occasional support at the production level.
• Integrate survey, MEL, and operational data with geospatial layers (soil, climate, vegetation, remote sensing) to generate localised recommendations and program targeting strategies.
• Conduct spatial and remote-sensing analyses for program design, prioritisation, and impact estimation (e.g., soil erosion modelling, site suitability analysis).
• Analyse historical trial and soil data to generate input and soil management recommendations (e.g., lime application, fertiliser rate application).
• Evaluate potential impact of alternative interventions and support pilot design, iteration, and scale decisions.
• Translate analyses into decision-ready outputs (briefs, dashboards, and memos) for non-technical stakeholders.
• Identify new, high-leverage analytical use cases that improve program reach, impact, or cost-effectiveness.

Lead impact data management and project management (~20%)

• Lead curation and standardisation of historical yield, agronomic practice, and trial datasets to enable reuse and external research collaboration.
• Own knowledge management for impact data and trials, including:
  • Central documentation of methodologies, assumptions, sample sizes, and results for all projects
  • Reusable analysis templates and reference implementations
• Manage external data requests in compliance with client data protection and confidentiality protocols.

Provide portfolio-level project management (~20%):

• Maintain project plans, priorities, and timelines
• Track dependencies and risks
• Coordinate with program and R&D stakeholders to identify potential delivery risks
• Establish durable documentation and planning systems (e.g., project roadmaps, project trackers, shared repositories).

Career Growth and Development

• We have a strong culture of constant learning, and we invest in developing our people. You’ll have weekly check-ins with your manager, access to mentorship and training programs, and regular feedback on your performance. We hold career reviews every six months and set aside time to discuss your aspirations and career goals. You’ll have the opportunity to shape a growing organization and build a rewarding long-term career.

Qualifications

Across all roles, these are the general qualifications we look for. For this role specifically, you will have:

• Bachelor's Degree in one of the following fields: economics, econometrics, mathematics, or statistics
• Proficiency in R and/or Python, including working knowledge of -
  • Database connectivity (e.g., PostgreSQL) to enable data retrieval, manipulation, and storage from various databases
  • Interact with RESTful APIs (e.g., JSON, XML)
  • Data manipulation libraries (e.g., dplyr, tidyr) for efficient data wrangling, transformation, and exploration
  • Packages for data visualisation (e.g., ggplot2, lattice, plotly)
  • Advanced statistical analysis and modelling (stats, lme4, survival)
  • Machine learning frameworks (e.g., randomForest, xgboost, caret) for building predictive models and conducting machine learning tasks
  • Packages for data manipulation and visualisation, such as numpy, pandas, and Matplotlib
  • Spatial data manipulation libraries (geopandas, rasterio, shapely, GDAL)
• In-depth knowledge of statistically rigorous trial design methodologies, including RCTs, side-by-side comparisons, RCBD, and other experimental designs
• In-depth knowledge of statistically rigorous survey design methods, including random, stratified, and cluster sampling
• Knowledge of relevant meteorological, soil, and vegetation data layers and sources, their uses and limitations (e.g., iSDA, ISRIC, CHIRPS, TAMSAT, NASA, Sentinel Hub, Google Earth Engine, AWS)
• Working knowledge of agronomy, e.g., practical understanding of fertiliser nutrient compositions, plant populations, growing degree days, GxE interactions.
• Working knowledge of GIS tools such as ArcGIS and QGIS, and spatial data analysis techniques.
• Proficiency in version control, such as Git/GitHub.
• Ability to easily explain technical concepts to non-technical decision makers and grow the analytical skills of others.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills for coordinating across teams.

Demonstrated ability to manage multiple analytical projects in parallel, including:

• Scoping ambiguous analytical problems and translating them into deliverable plans
• Prioritising work against timelines and stakeholder needs
• Tracking progress, managing dependencies, and proactively unblocking delivery risks
• Maintaining clear documentation and project plans to ensure continuity and institutional memory

Application Deadline

10 July, 2026

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About the Role

• Seeking a risk and controls professional with 3-5+ year experience to lead internal controls design as well as managing health and safety for Tupande factories in Kenya.

Responsibilities

Food Safety & Product Integrity

• Build the Standards: Help set up and run food safety systems (like HACCP, FSSC 22000, and GlobalG.A.P.) and create tracking metrics (KPIs) for them.
• Inspect Operations: Regularly check the factory to make sure it meets safety and legal rules. This includes:
  • Running swab tests, chemical checks, and moisture tests to double-check the factory lab's accuracy.
  • Testing the recall system unexpectedly to prove the team can track any product from farm to bag in under 4 hours.
  • Doing surprise checks on cleaning, allergen controls, and germ prevention.
• Fix Issues: Investigate food safety problems, figure out what went wrong, and help the factory team fix it.

 Workplace Safety (OSHA)

• Assess Hazards: Check processing machinery to make sure physical safety guards and emergency shut-offs work properly.
• Manage High-Risk Areas: Enforce rules for safe stacking heights and fall protection.
• Protect Visitors: Ensure all guests and contractors get safety briefings, wear the right gear (PPE), and sign liability waivers.
• Audit & Train: Walk through the plant to spot safety issues, train staff, and work with teams to fix any problems.

Sourcing & Supply Chain Quality

• Set Up Early Checks: Make sure field officers test crops for moisture, maturity, and dirt before they leave the collection centers.
• Calibrate Scales: Test and adjust field scales regularly to prevent financial losses from incorrect weighing or fraud.
• Reconcile Inventory: Match the amount of product bought in the field with the amount that actually arrives at the factory.
• Check Transport: Inspect trucks and crates to make sure they are clean and free of pests before moving food.

Financial Controls

• Protect Assets: Create and run control systems to protect company property at all factories.
• Enforce Rules: Monitor operations to make sure everyone is following Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).
• Stop Losses: Investigate missing inventory or financial issues, find the root cause, and follow up with managers to fix them permanently.

Career Growth and Development

• We have a strong culture of constant learning and we invest in developing our people. You'll have weekly check-ins with your manager, access to mentorship and training programs, and regular feedback on your performance. We hold career reviews every six months, and set aside time to discuss your aspirations and career goals. You'll have the opportunity to shape a growing organization and build a rewarding long-term career.

Qualifications

Across all roles, these are the general qualifications we look for. For this role specifically, you will have:

• Work planning and organization
• Ability to understand and communicate complex topics in a simple way
• Findings and report writing
• 3-5 years of experience in conducting regular internal audits of food processing operations to ensure compliance with GMP, HACCP, FSMA, SQF/BRC, and other regulatory or customer standards.
• 1-3 years of experience working on OSHA focused on factory safety.

Application Deadline

03 August 2026.

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About the Role

• We are looking for a strong analyst to provide technical guidance, analytical support, and quality assurance across a portfolio of 2–3 country programs within One Acre Fund’s growth country portfolio. Countries of operation currently include Tanzania, DRC, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Uganda, Zambia, and Burundi.
• Country MEL Leads are responsible for day-to-day MEL operations in their respective programs. The Global MEL Senior Associate complements this by bringing dedicated technical depth and cross-country perspective reviewing and strengthening analytical approaches, advising on evaluation methodology, building tools and frameworks that leads can adopt, and surfacing learnings across the portfolio. Over time, this role is expected to meaningfully build MEL capacity in the countries it supports.
• Beyond country support, the role contributes to selected Global MEL initiatives such as the design and rollout of team trainings, development of shared tools and templates, and cross-program methodology work. Depending on candidate's profile, the portfolio may also include analytical support for One Acre Fund’s Agroforestry program, a large and technically complex area with significant opportunity for rigorous measurement work.
• The Global MEL Senior Associate will report to a Senior Manager on the Global MEL Team.

Responsibilities

Country Portfolio Support

• Serve as the primary technical resource for country MEL Leads in your assigned portfolio, providing structured guidance, review, and feedback throughout the program cycle.
• Review and strengthen survey instruments and data collection approaches, including questionnaire design and programming in CommCare (or equivalent), prior to deployment.
• Assess and improve data quality backcheck processes, identifying opportunities to automate checks and strengthen data validation pipelines.
• Review and advise on country-level data analysis (Stata required; R a plus), ensuring analytical integrity, reproducibility, and appropriate interpretation of results.
• Quality-control MEL deliverables — including reports, dashboards, and presentations — and provide actionable feedback to raise the standard of country outputs.
• Help country MEL Leads translate data and evaluation findings into clear, decision-relevant insights for program teams and leadership.
• Actively identify and share learnings across your portfolio — bringing effective approaches from one country to another and flagging common challenges to the broader Global MEL team.

Evaluation Design & Methodology

• Advise on evaluation design and review methodology across assigned programs, with fluency in quasi-experimental approaches (propensity score matching, difference-in-differences) and randomized controlled trials.
• Proactively identify methodological gaps or risks in ongoing evaluations and surface these to the relevant Global Senior Manager and MEL Director early — not just at reporting time.
• Contribute to the development and documentation of global MEL standards, evaluation frameworks, and shared analytical tools for use across country programs.

Global MEL Initiatives

• Contribute to the design and rollout of MEL trainings and capacity-building programs for country MEL teams, translating global standards into practical, accessible learning materials.
• Support the development of shared tools, templates, and guidance documents that improve consistency and quality across One Acre Fund’s MEL portfolio.
• Contribute to cross-program methodology projects and special initiatives as prioritized by the Global MEL Director, which may include piloting new approaches, conducting portfolio-level analyses, or supporting strategic planning.
• Depending on candidate profile, provide dedicated analytical support to One Acre Fund’s Agroforestry portfolio. This is a large and technically complex program area with a range of open methodological questions; a key value of this support is having someone with the bandwidth to engage with these questions proactively throughout the year. Work would involve close collaboration with the Agroforestry team and MEL Director on measurement approaches, data systems, and building the evidence base for tree-related program outcomes.
• Peer review cross-country workstreams, providing quality control and suggesting areas for improvement. 

Career Growth and Development

• We have a strong culture of constant learning and we invest in developing our people. You’ll have weekly check-ins with your manager, access to mentorship and training programs, and regular feedback on your performance. We hold career reviews every six months, and set aside time to discuss your aspirations and career goals. You’ll have the opportunity to shape a growing organization and build a rewarding long-term career.

Qualifications

Across all roles, these are the general qualifications we look for. For this role specifically, you will have:

We are seeking a technically strong MEL professional with a passion for smallholder agriculture and a commitment to evidence-based program improvement. Candidates who fit the following criteria are strongly encouraged to apply:

Analytical Excellence

• Advanced quantitative skills; proficiency in Stata is required. R is a strong plus.
• Demonstrated experience with impact evaluation design and methods, including propensity score matching (PSM), difference-in-differences (DiD), and/or randomized controlled trials (RCTs).
• Strong attention to detail and commitment to analytical rigor and reproducibility.

Survey & Data Systems

• Experience designing and programming surveys for mobile data collection; CommCare experience is preferred.
• Demonstrated ability to design and improve data quality assurance processes, including back-check surveys and automated data validation.

Experience & Education

• Minimum 3 years of professional experience in monitoring, evaluation, and/or applied research, preferably in international development.
• Master’s degree in economics, applied statistics, agricultural economics, or a closely related field.
• Experience working in Sub-Saharan Africa and with smallholder agricultural programs strongly preferred.

Domain Knowledge

• Background in agriculture required; familiarity with common agricultural MEL frameworks and indicators (e.g., yield estimation, adoption surveys, income measurement) is a plus.
• Experience with agroforestry, tree planting programs, or forest ecosystem measurement is strongly preferred and will be a significant advantage in portfolio assignment.

Communication & Collaboration

• Professional fluency in English required; strong written and verbal communication skills, including ability to translate complex findings for non-technical audiences.
• Professional fluency in French is a significant asset, particularly for candidates supporting DRC.
• Collaborative working style with a service orientation; comfortable providing structured feedback and coaching to peers and junior colleagues.
• Willingness to travel within the region (approximately 10–25% of time).

Application Deadline

04 August 2026