About the PRI

The PRI is the world’s leading proponent of responsible investment. It works to understand the investment implications of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors and to support its international network of investor signatories in incorporating these factors into their investment and ownership decisions. The PRI acts in the long-term interests of its signatories, of the financial markets and economies in which they operate and ultimately of the environment and society as a whole. The PRI is truly independent. It encourages investors to use responsible investment to enhance returns and better manage risks but does not operate for its own profit; it engages with global policymakers but is not associated with any government; it is supported by, but not part of, the United Nations.

Working at the PRI provides an opportunity to engage with highly motivated, culturally diverse professionals on a wide range of cutting edge issues through the lens of sustainable finance. The PRI provides scope for development at all levels with opportunities for project leadership and management working alongside some of the most influential signatories and leaders across financial markets and economies. In combination with a supportive culture that encourages continuous learning and flexible working policies, PRI is a highly engaging place to work on truly transformative issues.

Job description

We are expanding and building new capabilities within the IT team. This role will be key in accelerating our capabilities and capacity to provide support and development for data, reporting and analysis services to both internal users and external customers (mainly our members, PRI signatories).

You will be involved in the ongoing development of existing data services, new projects (usually in conjunction with 3rd party partners) and, working alongside other members of the technology team, you will be the subject matter expert and main resource maintaining and monitoring our databases and associated data infrastructure.

Working closely with our analysts you will work to understand the business and customer needs and how these can be met. You will have the confidence to challenge others, influence the decisions being taken and experience in managing ambiguity and conflicting priorities while setting expectations of the achievable outcomes.

As well as your subject matter expertise in this role you will ideally have experience of working with global organisations in ESG, Government, RegTech or the Financial Markets industry. The work will be based primarily in the London, but candidates will need to work and accommodate our international colleagues.

PRI is a growing organisation with a great culture and an excellent mission. The technology team is on an exciting path of growth in size and importance. We are front and centre in the work to define PRI’s Digital Transformation Roadmap and working hard to increase our capabilities and capacity to meet the organisation’s needs as it continues to add employees, signatories (our external customers) and becomes more sophisticated in its use of data and insights.

We are looking for an experienced data/database engineer that can help us provide reliable business as usual services, be part of our continuing drive towards the cloud and be the help lead on technical projects and innovation expanding our capabilities in the data space.

Core Responsibilities:

■ Technology Support- maintain our databases, reporting templates, tools and the underlying infrastructure (mainly co-lo and Azure).

■ 3rd / 4th line support for issues escalated by the service desk. Perform root cause analysis to identify issues and implement solutions

■ Provide business as usual support for key databases and data systems, including: Reporting and assessment tool. Data portal (including connectivity to other systems such as Salesforce) and Organisational dashboards.

■ Protect our data both in terms of quality and from ongoing cyber threats.

■ Design & requirements gathering: document data, reporting and analysis reequipments, engaging with the IT analysts and business teams to ensure solutions are fit for purpose and deliver to requirements.

■ Provide project support and subject matter expertise as needed.

■ Data connectivity: Integrate and connect different data sources into data lakes, schemas, etc. so that business data analysts and researchers can produce insights using sophisticated analysis tools such as Plotly, PowerBI and languages such as Python and R.

■ Reports and datasets: Build business reports templates and associated datasets that that enable end users and customers to self-serve their reporting needs using BI tools and dashboards.

■ Data Governance, Management and Innovation: collaborate with the IT Leadership team, internal domain experts and third parties to:

■ Establish a data roadmap and logical model for our data that includes an interoperable data ecosystem for our many data sources and allows for easy integration of new sources.

■ Be an advocate for innovative technologies (such as big data, machine learning, graph databases)

■ Training: provide occasional training and coaching to users in reporting, data manipulation, aggregation, and visualisation. Promote best practises in use of data and tools.

Core Competencies:

PRI expects roles at a ‘Senior Specialist level’ within the organisation to demonstrate skills across the following core competencies:

Analytical

•Looks for opportunities to add value by sharing specialist knowledge and insights

•Broadens the view to consider all possible options even if they initially seem unlikely solutions

•Can effectively capture and structure ill-defined or vague problems and is comfortable handling uncertainty (in own work and that of team members)

Considers examples outside of the PRI in offering alternative solutions or guidance.

Business Awareness

•Demonstrates an understanding of the business, including its finances, mission, and its culture

•Identifies and utilises key relationships (both internal and external) for successful execution of project or piece of work

•Knows when and how to challenge senior managers

•Applies industry knowledge and understanding of external influences, coupled with an appreciation of PRI mission and strategy to inform decisions

Collaborative

•Demonstrates ability to build good working relationships at all levels

•Drives collaboration within projects or work programmes to deliver high quality outputs

•Aligns expectations with senior managers to reach agreement

•Promotes knowledge sharing across the organisation

•Flexes style and approach based on colleagues’ level of understanding and preferences

Communicative

•Independently delivers well-structured, logical outputs that deliver maximum impact with minimum editing

•Presents advice or recommendations within the context of the recipient’s area of focus to gain buy-in

•Improves the knowledge of senior managers by making complex specialist principles easy to understand

•Appreciates the impact of their communication on others, modifying behaviour and communication style to work in different situations

Developmental

•Shares specialist knowledge openly with others, creating opportunities for others to learn, grow and succeed

•Builds an environment within the PRI which values forward thinking, creative solutions and innovation

•Is active in specialist networks as a means of furthering own knowledge and applying at the PRI

•Uses good questioning skills in a way that causes others to think about their approach

Structured

•Prioritises where contributes own time based on the value it would deliver

•Uses project management and oversight of individual work processes to improve organisational performance

•Continuously monitors external developments to incorporate into own work activities

•Translates project objectives into own work plans

Technical Competencies & Experience

■ Demonstrable experience of database modelling, working with SQL databases, writing complex queries and designing and building efficient ETL processes is essential.

■ Broad experience of providing support to databases on-premise, co-lo and in the cloud is essential, including updating, monitoring, logging and tuning.

■ Experience working on data platform migrations to the cloud is desirable.

■ Microsoft Azure experience is highly desirable, but other cloud technology experience will be considered.

■ You will have worked in a full-stack environment and have an appreciation of front-end technologies; ideally having direct development experience (Python, Javascript, APIs, etc.).

■ You will have worked on at least a couple of complex data projects ideally for medium or larger sized companies.

■ Experience of working in an Agile/Scrum environment and ideally exposure to Dev-ops best practise is desirable.

■ A demonstrable interest of broader technology trends such as big data, AI and innovative cloud technologies is an advantage.

■ Excellent communication skills, both verbal and written; experienced in translating technical topics for a business audience in a clear and concise way.

■ A collaborative and consultative approach to working with others, committed to fostering an inclusive working environment