Data Science and Analytics

Spektrum supports apex purchasers (NATO, UN, EU, and National Government and Defence) and their Tier 1 supplier ecosystem with a wide range of specialist services. We provide our clients with professional services, specialised aerospace and defence sales, delivery, and operational subject matter expertise. We are looking for personnel to join our team and support key client projects.

Who we are supporting 

The NATO Communication and Information Agency (NCIA) is responsible for providing secure and effective communications and information technology (IT) services to NATO's member countries and its partners. The agency was established in 2012 and is headquartered in Brussels, Belgium.

The NCIA provides a wide range of services, including:

• Cyber Security: The NCIA provides advanced cybersecurity solutions to protect NATO's communication networks and information systems against cyber threats.
• Command and Control Systems: The NCIA develops and maintains the systems used by NATO's military commanders to plan and execute operations.
• Satellite Communications: The NCIA provides satellite communications services to enable secure and reliable communications between NATO forces.
• Electronic Warfare: The NCIA provides electronic warfare services to support NATO's mission to detect, deny, and defeat threats to its communication networks.
• Information Management: The NCIA manages NATO's information technology infrastructure, including its databases, applications, and servers.

Overall, the NCIA plays a critical role in ensuring the security and effectiveness of NATO's communication and information technology capabilities.

The program

Assistance and Advisory Service (AAS)

The NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCI Agency) is NATO’s principal C3 capability deliverer and CIS service provider. It provides, maintains and defends the NATO enterprise-wide information technology infrastructure to enable Allies to consult together under Article IV, and, when required, stand together in the face of attack under Article V.

To provide these critical services, in the modern evolving dynamic environment the NCI Agency needs to build and maintain high performance-engaged workforce. The NCI Agency workforce strategically consists of three major categorise's: NATO International Civilians (NIC)'s, Military (Mil), and Interim Workforce Consultants (IWC)'s. The IWCs are a critical part of the overall NCI Agency workforce and make up approximately 15 percent of the total workforce.

Role ID – 2025-0352

Role Background

The NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCIA) has been established with a view to meeting the collective requirements of some or all NATO nations in the fields of capability delivery and service provision related to Consultation, Command & Control as well as Communications, Information and Cyber Defence functions, thereby also facilitating the integration of Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance, Target Acquisition functions and their associated information exchange.

NCIA is dedicated to acquiring, deploying, and defending communication systems for NATO’s political decision-makers and Commands. It operates on the frontlines against cyber-attacks, collaborating closely with governments and industry to prevent future debilitating attacks. NCIA plays a crucial role in maintaining NATO’s technological edge and ensuring the collective defence and crisis management capabilities of the Alliance. In pursuit of our mission, we require specialized advisory services to enhance our interim workforce capacity.

Role Duties and Responsibilities

• Designs and implements data pipelines and data stores to acquire and prepare data.
• Applies data engineering standards and tools to create and maintain data pipelines and extract, transform and load data.
• Carries out routine data quality checks and remediation Programming/software development
• Designs, codes, verifies, tests, documents, amends and refactors moderately complex programs/scripts.
• Applies agreed standards and tools to achieve a well-engineered result.
• Proposes practical solutions to resolve issues.
• Collaborates in reviews of work with others as appropriate.
• Defines the software modules needed for an integration build and produces a build definition for each generation of the software.
• Assesses the integrity of data from multiple sources.
• Provides advice on the transformation of data from one format/medium to another.
• Enables the availability, integrity and search ability of information through the application of formal data and metadata structures and protection measures.
• Applies standard data modelling and design techniques based upon a detailed understanding of requirements.
• Establishes, modifies and maintains data structures and associated components.
• Communicates the details of data structures and associated components to others using
• the data structures and associated components.
• Designs, implements, and maintains complex data analytics solutions to acquire and prepare data.
• Creates and maintains data pipelines to connect data within and between data stores, applications and organisations.
• Carries out complex data quality checking and remediation.
• Applies a variety of visualisation techniques and designs the content and appearance of data visuals.
• Operationalises and automates activities for efficient and timely production of data visuals.
• Selects appropriate visualisation approaches from a range of applicable options.
• Contributes to exploration and experimentation in data visualisation.
• Supports business intelligence needs of specific management or governance processes or operational areas.
• Investigates the need for business intelligence reporting and analysis where there is some complexity and ambiguity.
• Selects and applies non-standard business intelligence tools and techniques to provide insights and aid decision-making.
• Selects, acquires and integrates data for analysis.
• Identifies opportunities to digitise and streamline operational data handling and optimize business intelligence capabilities.
• Investigates enterprise data requirements where there is some complexity and ambiguity.
• Plans own data modelling and design activities, selecting appropriate techniques and the correct level of detail for meeting assigned objectives.
• Provides advice and guidance to others using the data structures and associated components.
• Provide technical leadership and guidance to support project teams and decision- making
• Support multidisciplinary teams and technical and operational stakeholders
• Participate in meetings with technical and operational experts, offering advice and seeking/applying solutions
• Liaise with Chief Technology Office (CTO), engineering, project management, and operational teams

Essential Skills, Experience and Certifications

• Ability to design, build and manage data pipelines for data structures encompassing data transformation, data models, schemas, metadata and workload management in an on premise environment.
• At least four years' experience planning and maintaining data lakes, databases and pipeline processes, both batch-wise and (near) real-time;
• Experience in working with large, heterogeneous datasets in building and optimizing data pipelines, pipeline architectures and integrated datasets using data integration technologies on premise.
• Experience in using of data engineering tools to support data science, data analytics and data visualisation (KNIME, SQL Server, Power BI is the preferred toolset)
• Experience with state-of-the-art data engineering, analytics, data integration and pipeline tools/programming language (Python).
• Solid understanding of data security best practices, including data encryption, access controls, authentication/authorization mechanisms, and compliance requirements.
• Experience with monitoring and logging tools to ensure the reliability and performance of data pipelines.
• Familiarity with containerization and orchestration tools such as Docker and Kubernetes is a plus
• Knowledge of best practice of software development. g. CI/CD pipelines, unit/functional testing, following styling guides is a plus.
• Familiarity with KNIME Analytics Platform and Server is preferred
• Demonstrable experience as a Data Analyst, Data Scientist, or similar role, or experience performing these functions roles as part of another job.
• Demonstrable experience with at least one programming language or tools, such as KNIME
• and Python.
• Experience with commercially available or open source data visualization tools, such as
• Power BI.
• Experience with SQL and relational databases, such as SQL Server.
• Experience in working with on premise environments.
• Experience working within NCIA or similar defence-related environments
• Knowledge of NATO Communication and Information Systems Infrastructure
• Prior experience working in an international environment comprising both military and civilian elements.

Desired Essential Skills, Experience and Certifications

• Experience working within NCIA or similar defence-related environments
• Knowledge of NATO Communication and Information Systems Infrastructure
• Prior experience working in an international environment comprising both military and civilian elements.

Education

• A minimum requirement of a relevant degree at a nationally recognised/certified University in a related discipline and 4 years post-related experience. Or exceptionally, the lack of a university degree may be compensated by the demonstration of a candidate’s particular abilities or experience that is/are of interest to NCI Agency, that is, at least 6 years extensive and progressive expertise in duties related to the function of the post.

Language

• Language Proficiency: English: C1

Working Location

• Wiesbaden, Germany

Working Policy

• Onsite

Travel

• Some travel to other NATO sites may be required

Security Clearance

Valid National or NATO Secret personal security clearance