Our goal is to create as much good as we can for every dollar we spend. We do that by tackling acute childhood malnutrition - through treatment programs in northeastern Nigeria, and through innovation designed to make treatment available to every child who needs it.
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Summary
- We’re looking for a talented mid career professional to help manage Taimaka’s operations team. You’ll oversee our finance, HR, and compliance activities in Nigeria. You’ll be supported by an operations contractor who can help instruct you in the technical aspects of your role, as well as our Executive Director, who will assist with setting priorities for the Operations Team (though we expect you to do a lot of independent prioritization).
- With Taimaka on track to treat 75,000 cases of severe acute malnutrition in U5 children in the next three years, your work will be critical in keeping our organization’s growth on track so that we can deliver for our patients.
- We want someone who can learn by doing, can solve problems from first principles, and is comfortable working and setting priorities independently. Good candidates will have substantial past experience managing operations for large organizations (see About You section below).
About the Job
- Taimaka’s operations team supports the rest of Taimaka’s work by creating key systems and overseeing human resources and finance. Operations’ job is to worry about everything our program team or research team does not have expertise or capacity to so that the whole organization can carry out the business of saving lives as effectively and efficiently as possible.
- Our Operations team currently consists of ~1.5 FTE: our Admin Officer in Nigeria, who carries out day to day tasks in Nigeria like initiating payments and managing our office, an operations contractor, who handles bookkeeping, legal filings, and other compliance tasks, and our Executive Director, who backfills additional capacity on some of these tasks.
- The Operations Manager (this job) is designed to substantially increase the capacity on this team, and take charge of most of these activities.
- You would oversee the Admin Officer and assist in their professional development, take over some of the operations contractor’s responsibilities (ramping up over time depending on how much spare capacity you have), and help set priorities for this team (instead of our Executive Director, who has a limited amount of time to spare for operations).
- You would also work on projects we currently do not have the capacity to undertake, like improving our payment and expense tracking system or procuring key commodities from overseas (where they may be substantially cheaper).
Specific Responsibilities
Human Resources and HR Systems - 25% of your time:
- Proactively propose and develop comprehensive HR policies (promotion frameworks, salary inflation adjustments in Nigeria, fraud whistleblowing, child safeguarding, sexual harassment, etc.). Create and oversee reporting lines for breaches of policies, and monitor compliance with policies.
- Onboard new employees, reinforcing key organizational values.
- Iterate on our hiring protocols and practices and facilitate individual hiring rounds by writing job descriptions, designing test tasks with input from managers, etc.
- Help systematize performance reviews across the organization by developing standard review templates, training modules for managers on how to conduct performance reviews, and a framework to ensure performance reviews are conducted with fidelity.
- Create systems to assess staff satisfaction and collect feedback from staff.
Financial Management and Compliance - 25% of your time:
- Create and manage improved systems to track expense and payment requests. Ensure payments are being released to staff and vendors in a timely manner. Assist in processing payments.
- Either perform bookkeeping yourself in QuickBooks for our Nigerian entities or liaise with an external bookkeeper to do so.
- Manage the technical aspects of the budget creation process, and ensure that budgets across the organization are prepared in a standardized manner. Provide monthly reports on budgeted vs. actual expenditures.
- Coordinate with our legal counsel in Nigeria to ensure Nigerian compliance filings are completed in a timely manner.
Logistics and Procurement - 10% of your time:
- Work with our logistics team in Nigeria to improve their systems and practices, e.g. by developing a system that tracks procurement requests from request to approval to purchase to delivery in a way that is visible to our whole team.
- Coordinate overseas procurement when necessary (e.g., by managing the purchase of RUTF from non-Nigerian suppliers and shipping those supplies to Nigeria).
Travel, Housing, and Office Administration - 10% of your time:
- Oversee the Admin Officer in Nigeria in managing our office in Gombe and the housing we maintain for staff in Gombe. Ensure constant supply of internet, electricity, water, etc. Establish points of contact for staff for maintenance issues, etc.
- Coordinate cost-efficient travel arrangements for staff.
- Manage visa process for personnel traveling to Nigeria.
Administrative Staff Oversight - 10% of your time:
- Supervise administrative staff (e.g., the Admin Officer in Nigeria), conducting weekly check-ins, setting clear expectations, and evaluating their performance.
- Coordinate with external contractors, like bookkeepers, accountants, and legal services providers.
- Work with the Executive Director to set quarterly goals for the operations team, and translate those quarterly goals into monthly goals.
Ad Hoc Tasks - 20% of your time:
Future Growth Trajectories
Future growth trajectories for excelling hires could look like:
- Overseeing a growing team and budget as our organization grows and our operations needs expand with it.
- Specializing in a specific area of operations, like HR or finance, as our needs grow.
- If you don’t want to stay in operations, garnering hands-on experience with humanitarian programming that you could parlay into another role or into starting your own organization.
About You
- This is a position for a mid career operations specialist. We are looking to hire someone with a lot of talent and potential who can grow with us as we expand.
Must Haves:
Candidates must have the following to qualify:
Experience:
-
Past work in finance, accounting, legal compliance, HR, or similar admin tasks, where you:
- Worked at a company with more than 50 employees and more than 750 million naira in annual revenue
- Oversaw the work of at least 2 other employees
- Designed and implemented new systems to improve the efficiency or effectiveness of finance, accounting, compliance, HR, or admin tasks (and can speak to the specifics of how you were critical in making these new systems happen)
- 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
- Is a highly organized, conscientious person
- Is general tech-savvy, and has used or is willing to learn tools like Google Workspace, Slack, Airtable, Zapier, etc.
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.
Education:
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
- 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:
-
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.
Compensation
N1,000,000 - N3,000,000 million Naira per month, depending on skills and experience. We may be willing to exceed this range for exceptional candidates.
go to method of application »
Summary
- We’re looking for an enterprising mid career professional to lead Taimaka’s Monitoring, Evaluation, and Data Systems team. You’ll maintain our ODK-based digital case management application, design processes to prevent fraud, and ensure that actionable data and insights reach our key decision-makers. 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 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, team management, and the ability to learn on the job. If you’re resourceful, ambitious, and eager to dedicate your career to helping others, we encourage you to apply.
- We expect that this team will need to expand by another few staff members as our program grows, meaning the team lead will need to carry out some recruitment and hiring as well.
- We view this role as fitting into a candidate’s mid 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.
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 Monitoring, Evaluation, and Data Systems team lead role is designed to do three things:
- Improve and maintain our digital treatment application (e.g., by updating protocols for care guidance given to staff). Your responsibilities here are distinctly ‘low-code’ (though still technical): more complicated tasks requiring detailed programming knowledge will be done in collaboration with the Executive Director or volunteer programmers.
- Co-design and independently implement a strategy to effectively and efficiently utilize our data program decisions, by conducting data analysis and creating systems to get data into the hands of senior staff and field managers. This will require good knowledge of a statistical computing language (like R of Python Pandas), SQL, and dashboarding software (like Metabase).
- Oversee our other Monitoring and Evaluation team members to ensure they are effectively contributing to these two core efforts.
Our current Monitoring and Evaluation 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.
Specific Responsibilities
Update and Maintain Digital Case Management Software - 20% of your time:
- Implement simple 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)
- 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.
Data Quality Assurance - 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.
Fraud Detection and Prevention - 20% of your time:
- Conduct ongoing risk assessments for ways fraud could be committed by Taimaka staff or patient caregivers that would divert resources away from treatment. Prioritize the most impactful risks.
- Design and implement data-driven fraud prevention and detection measures - like randomized home visit checks, biometric verification, or other novel solutions - to prevent these risks. Refine these checks over time with minimal external guidance.
- Implementation may include hiring and onboarding new members of the M+E team.
- Integrate fraud detection mechanisms into ODK forms, database systems, and M+E dashboards. For more complex prevention mechanisms requiring more in-depth coding abilities (like biometrics), project manage volunteer software developers.
Creating Systems to Provide Data to Program Staff - 10% of your time:
- Identify key metrics program personnel need to make decisions and track program quality, through a combination of independent thought and work with the program team.
- Some examples would be things like: facility-by-facility reports of reasons for non-recovery of patients, staff-level caseload reports to monitor distribution of workload, or automatically updating dashboards of stock levels at different facilities.
- Create dashboards or other methods (or delegate the creation of these) to share these metrics on an ongoing basis with program staff.
- Continuously refine these systems to tune them to make sure the right data is getting to program staff in a way that is helpful to them.
Gathering and Analyzing Data for Key Program Decisions - 20% of your time:
- In response to requests from Taimaka’s senior executive team, plan and undertake larger data collection and analysis projects to inform key decisions and inflection points for the program.
- For instance: plan and execute a data collection effort to gather needed information to prioritize where to open new treatment facilities; conduct a detailed investigation of submitted data at one facility over a six month period to identify possible cases of data fabrication.
- 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.
Program Management for Monitoring and Evaluation - 20% of your time:
- Work with Taimaka’s executive director and nutrition program director to set quarterly priorities for the M+E team. Translate quarterly targets into monthly and weekly plans for the team.
- Provide day-to-day oversight of the M+E team (2-6 people), conduct performance reviews, provide training, and support team members’ professional development.
- Write job descriptions, advertise new roles, and assess applicants to hire new members of the M+E team as needed.
- Coordinate with external collaborators, like volunteer developers, data scientists, or researchers assisting on specific projects.
Future Growth Trajectories
Future growth trajectories for excelling hires could look like:
- Overseeing a growing team and budget as our program expands and our M+E department grows with it
- Several years down the line, helping set up new M+E 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 a mid-career public health or M+E specialist. Our preference is for someone with a fair bit of work experience under their belt.
Must Haves:
Candidates must have the following to qualify:
Either of:
- A PhD in economics, biostatistics, epidemiology, public health, or similar AND 3+ years of work experience in a leadership role at a large NGO or INGO doing measurement and evaluation, applied field research, or program management on a development project
- High-quality publications in a reputable international journal can be substituted for NGO/INGO work experience
- A masters in economics, biostatistics, epidemiology, public health, or similar AND 8+ years of work experience at a large NGO or INGO doing measurement and evaluation, applied field research, or program management on a development project
- At least 3+ years of this work experience must have been in a leadership role
Past experience with:
- Data analysis in either R OR Python Pandas
- SQL.
Skills:
- 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
- Mindset - Taimaka is not a traditional NGO. We value honesty, transparency, and ability to think outside of the box very highly. We don't want dogmatic adherence of talking points, we want people who aren't afraid to tell us when we're doing something wrong and to hold everyone on the team accountable.
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
- Demonstrated past experience with decision-making based on cost-effectiveness analyses or Effective Altruism is ideal.
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:
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.
Compensation
N1 million - N3 million per month, depending on skills and experience. We may be willing to exceed this range for exceptional candidates.
go to method of application »
Summary
- We’re looking for an enterprising mid career professional to join Taimaka’s Program Improvement team and lead projects designed to drive forward the cutting-edge of malnutrition treatment implementation, improve program outcomes, reduce costs, and save more lives.
- This is a hybrid role, covering implementation and research, where you will design and implement ideas to improve the cost-effectiveness of our programming, and then evaluate the impact of those ideas.
- You won’t be running huge trials or massive surveys: the focus here is on pre/post assessments and quick turnaround projects. Expect a wide variation of projects and tasks, from biometric verification one quarter to hybridized therapeutic food dosing protocols the next.
- What we’re really looking for here is someone with solid public health implementing experience who wants to come into our programs, dive into the details, and obsess about how to implement better than we are now.
- If you can move fast, think rigorously, implement quickly, and are already on your way to being a subject matter expert on acute malnutrition and how to treat it, you fit the position.
- Taimaka is planning to treat 75,000 children with severe acute malnutrition over the next three years. You will help shape the protocols we use to do that. If done right, you can help us save more lives than we would have otherwise.
About the Job
- A portion of Taimaka’s work is dedicated to identifying ways we can improve the implementation of acute malnutrition treatment in our program. Over the years, these innovation efforts have led to a couple of key advances, like creating a digital case management application for our field staff to guide them through the treatment process, implementing a reduced RUTF dosage protocol for the first time in Nigeria, and integrating complementary food for the treatment of moderate acute malnutrition into a facility-based program.
- These advances are a key part of the reason our cost-per-child-treated is less than half that of the average NGO in northeastern Nigeria, and we’re keen to drive our cost-effectiveness even higher through new advances.
- As an associate on our Program Improvement team, you would be in charge of running key innovation projects designed to improve our programming. While there is an element of research and evaluation to these projects, our goal is to avoid large-scale research trials and focus on quicker turnaround initiatives that are responsive to program needs. Think less abstract/academic research and more iterative design. A few examples of projects we are considering for 2025 are:
- Integrating ORS/Zinc co-pack distribution into our mass screenings for acute malnutrition cases to save additional lives, along with a post-distribution follow-up data collection round to verify that households actually received the packs and understand when and how to use them.
- Creating a biometric identification solution to track patient enrollment and improve identification of patients across time and facilities. This would involve identifying a developer who could implement this solution, project managing the implementation of it into our existing tech stack, and working with the programs team to roll the solution out.
- Do a sprint on overhauling our care protocols for under-six months children based on the latest research and published guidance from the WHO. Interview with experts at other organizations to incorporate their lessons learned. Team up with the programs team to roll out these new protocols and do a pre/post analysis to understand what effect they have.
- Our goal in hiring for this position is to find someone who can embed closely with our programs team and spend substantial time every week out in our facilities, understanding pain points and problems. We want someone who will obsess about optimizing implementation, and who can add capacity to our existing program improvement team to form the missing link between identifying a good idea and actually developing it into something actionable.
- You would report to our Research and Program Improvement director, who would assist in setting priorities and identifying projects for you to work on. However, once you are assigned to a project, we will expect you to work independently, recruiting additional staff as needed, planning implementation, and executing, with guidance and mentoring from your supervisor. In this role, you will likely oversee 1-2 mid-level managers along with a variable number of field personnel to collect data or perform similar tasks.
- We evaluate the cost-effectiveness of our programming in the GiveWell/Effective Altruist style, meaning we judge the success or failure of our program improvement projects based on whether they reduce our estimated cost-per-life saved. You will be expected to learn how to model cost-effectiveness in this way, and incorporate it into your decision making.
Specific Responsibilities
Manage Implementation of Specific Program Improvement Projects - 75% of your time
Planning and Setup - 35% of this chunk of time:
- Once assigned to a project, draft plans on how to go about implementing it. You may receive a very specific brief, or a more general task like “figure out novel ways to reduce nonresponse.”
- You will likely need to carry out literature reviews and other research, like expert interviews, to identify possible strategies, and then develop a preferred approach out of that research.
- Draft protocols to implement the project, as well as an evaluation strategy to efficiently/frugally study its impact.
- Hire and train staff members required to to carry out the project (for instance, a team of temporary field enumerators).
- Create paper forms, supervision documents, Open Data Kit (ODK) digital forms, and other necessary tools to implement the project.
Implementation - 50% of this chunk of time:
- Project manage the implementation of the idea: set timelines, ensure they are met, troubleshoot issues as they arise
- Monitor implementation and data quality by conducting weekly meetings with your junior staff, writing R or Python code to pull and clean any necessary data for checks, including by cross-checking program and survey data
- Design and implement feedback loops to ensure identified problems are effectively addressed in a timely manner
- Provide day-to-day oversight of your team, conduct performance reviews, provide training, and support team members’ professional development.
Analysis - 15% of this chunk of time:
- After the conclusion of projects, write up reports on lessons learned
- Carry out statistical analysis of any evaluation data to determine whether the project had the desired impact
- Use impact and cost data to make recommendations as to whether the project should be incorporated into the CMAM program permanently, abandoned, or further iterated upon
- If adopting the project, write protocols and work with the core CMAM program team to institutionalize it within their activities
Identify Future Program Improvement Projects - 15% of your time:
- Embed with the CMAM program team, spend time in Taimaka treatment facilities, interview staff - generally work to have very good context across the treatment program on what is working well, what isn’t, and what could work better
- Get in the weeds, obsess about details
- Speak with experts and implementers at other organizations, understand what they are thinking about and see as potential ways to improve treatment outcomes and reduce costs
- Stay up to date on published literature in acute malnutrition treatment and related fields, as well as grey literature. Suggest ideas as they come to you, no matter how out there!
- Work with the Research and Program Improvement director to conduct back-of-the-envelope cost-effectiveness assessments of new ideas to prioritize them for implementation
Mentor Program Improvement Fellows:
- Taimaka typically has 1-2 fellows per year (typically MPH students doing a practicum) come to Gombe to work on specific projects.
- You would support the Research and Program Improvement director in showing these fellows the ropes of Gombe, helping them understand our program, and give them tips on how to go about executing on their own projects.
Future Growth Trajectories
- If you excel in this role, you will become a leading expert on the cutting edge of acute malnutrition treatment programming, and accumulate a large store of knowledge and experience on implementing global health programming in a developing context.
- At Taimaka, you could end up managing a larger team and budget on an expanding set of more ambitious research and innovation projects as you demonstrate your ability to successfully identify and implement improvements to CMAM programming. You could also parlay this experience into starting your own organization or pivoting to work on a portfolio at a grantmaker or large INGO focused on institutionalizing more cost-effective solutions to global health challenges across implementers.
About You
- This role will likely suit a mid-career public health/global development professional. Our preference is for someone with a fair bit of work experience under their belt. We’re looking for someone who wants to become obsessed with optimizing malnutrition treatment to save as many lives as possible.
Must Haves:
Candidates must have the following to qualify:
-
Either of:
- A PhD in Economics, Biostatistics, Epidemiology, Public Health, or similar AND 3+ years of work experience in a leadership role at a large NGO or INGO doing measurement and evaluation, applied field research, or program management on a development project
- High-quality publications in a reputable international journal can be substituted for NGO/INGO work experience
-
A masters in Economics, Biostatistics, Epidemiology, Public Health, or similar AND 8+ years of work experience at a large NGO or INGO doing measurement and evaluation, applied field research, or program management on a development project
-
Past experience with:
- Data analysis in either R OR Python Pandas
- 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
- Mindset - Taimaka is not a traditional NGO. We value honesty, transparency, and ability to think outside of the box very highly. We don't want dogmatic adherence to talking points, we want people who aren't afraid to tell us when we're doing something wrong and to hold everyone on the team accountable.
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)
- 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
- Demonstrated past experience with decision-making based on cost-effectiveness analyses or Effective Altruism is ideal
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:
-
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.
Compensation
NGN1,000,000 - NGN3,000,000 / Month, depending on skills and experience. We may be willing to exceed this range for exceptional candidates.
go to method of application »
Job Summary
- We’re looking for an enterprising early career research professional to join Taimaka’s CMAM Evaluation team as a Field Research Associate.
- This team is working on a set of research projects in partnership with a large, well-known Effective Altruist charity evaluator to improve estimates of the cost-effectiveness of malnutrition treatment.
- Based on the work this team does, tens or hundreds of millions of additional dollars could be channeled into acute malnutrition treatment every year.
- You’ll lead field studies, oversee data collection teams, and refine cost-effectiveness models while working in Gombe, Nigeria.
- We’re looking for self-starters who can independently set priorities, solve problems creatively, and thrive in a startup-style environment.
- If you have experience in data analysis (R or Python) and public health/economics/statistics/related, and are interested in getting out into the field and getting your hands dirty, this is a perfect opportunity for you.
Description
- As an organization, cares deeply about maximizing our cost-effectiveness. For instance, we shut down our initial program, a post-harvest loans initiative on which the organization was founded, when we ran an RCT and determined that it was insufficiently cost-effective.
- We believe our current work is highly cost-effective, saving a life for every ~$1.6k-$1.7k spent, based on combining our cost and program performance data with GiveWell’s cost-effectiveness modeling for acute malnutrition. However, there are large error bars around that underlying modeling, due in part because of a lack of direct comparison data illuminating the mortality rates of treated vs. untreated children with severe acute malnutrition.
- Taimaka is working with a large, well-known Effective Altruist charity evaluator to collect better data on acute malnutrition treatment programs to try to reduce uncertainty around its estimates of the cost-effectiveness of acute malnutrition. If we are successful in reducing these error bars, and acute malnutrition treatment remains highly cost-effective, this project could lead to that evaluator moving tens or hundreds of millions of additional dollars annually into acute malnutrition treatment.
To implement this project, we are hiring two Field Research Associates on our “CMAM Evaluation” team. As on of these Field Research Associates, you will run a portion of our cost-effectiveness research portfolio, which includes:
- A study of treated children over a 12-month follow-up period with a set of matched, healthy community controls to assess the mortality rate of treated malnourished and healthy children, as well as the relapse rate of treated malnourished children.
- Bi-annual surveys of prevalence, coverage, and mortality rates in the catchment areas served by 6-12 of our outpatient facilities.
- Year-round assessment of what percentage of children we are treating actually live in our designated catchment areas vs. commute to our facilities from outside of those areas.
- Working with other NGOs who implement in areas without functioning malnutrition treatment referral networks to collect data on mortality and anthropometric status.
- In addition, you will conduct desk research to support work on similar priorities, like identifying existing data sources or published literature that may be able to provide points of triangulation around untreated mortality. You will be expected to become familiar with thinking about and modeling cost-effectiveness in the Effective Altruist style.
- You will be guided in your work by Taimaka’s director of Research and Program Improvement. In addition, an experienced consultant will help in the set-up of the prevalence, coverage, and mortality assessments in 2025. You will, in turn, oversee teams of field data collectors, as well as one to two mid-level managers to assist in running those teams.
- We view this role as fitting into someone’s mid 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
Your specific responsibilities may change depending on which elements of our cost-effectiveness research portfolio you end up working on, as well as evolve over time as our plans develop during 2025, but generally we expect your day to day to fall into a couple of key buckets:
Planning Data Collection Efforts:
- Plan implementation methods and timelines for specific research projects. Draw on existing guidelines and field toolkits, upskilling yourself where needed.
- Write protocols, draft guidance documents, develop training materials, prepare budgets, and guide procurements of equipment and commodities for assigned projects, to align with methods and timelines.
- Map program catchment areas and construct population estimates to facilitate sample selection for surveys of prevalence and coverage with the support of an experienced consultant.
- Design and supervise the translation of survey questionnaires.
- Develop data collection tools (Open Data Kit forms, paper forms, etc.) and supervision checklists for data collectors and managers to use in implementing research projects. Implement orientation and training for teams of data collectors and data collection supervisors on SMART methodology or similar, with the support of an experienced consultant.
- Oversee community awareness and sensitisation for assigned research projects, including meeting with community leaders to introduce new projects, sharing updates with relevant contacts, and working with our community mobilisation team to address key tensions as they arise.
- Project-manage implementation of assigned research projects.
Monitoring Data Quality:
- Conduct weekly data monitoring efforts with the supervisors or program officers you manage to assess fidelity of implementation of protocols and check for poor quality submissions from your field teams.
- Write code in R or Python to automatically pull data, clean it, and flag potential problem areas, including by cross-checking research/survey data and CMAM program data. Train and support program officers to regularly review and interpret this data.
- Design and implement a feedback loop to ensure that poor quality submissions and potential problems are documented, investigated and addressed.
- If you identify sources of poor quality data, take immediate corrective action, including form changes, retraining, or replacement of personnel.
- Design and implement processes for data verification and triangulation, including back checks, quality audits, and qualitative data collection (interviews, focus groups) to proactively identify and address data issues.
People Management:
- Write job descriptions, advertise new roles, develop test tasks, and assess applications to hire new field data collectors and supervisors to support your assigned projects.
- Provide day-to-day oversight of your team, conduct performance reviews, provide training, and support team members’ professional development.
- Coordinate with the core CMAM program delivery team to ensure that routine data collection meets the needs of assigned research projects and troubleshoot coordination and quality issues related to program data collected by inpatient and outpatient staff.
- Meet regularly with the research management team to discuss progress and challenges.
Desk Research, Modeling, and Translating Your Learnings into Program Action:
- Conduct literature reviews and other similar research efforts into related areas, like untreated acute malnutrition mortality rates, to support our cost-effectiveness modeling.
- Assist in re-working and improving sections of our cost-effectiveness model.
- Clean and analyse data collected for assigned research projects, including calculating key indicators according to established standards (i.e., death rate, GAM prevalence), conducting exploratory data analysis, and calculating inputs for cost-effectiveness modelling.
- Develop informative, concise reporting of your assigned research projects for internal and external audiences.
- Where your research identifies ways to improve our programming (e.g., creating a better understanding of the relationship between prevalence/coverage and case severity at admission), draw up guidelines to be incorporated into the treatment program.
Future Growth Trajectories:
- This cost-effectiveness modeling effort is a three year project that may expand based on how successful it is. If you excel in this role and we expand this project, you could lead larger, cutting-edge research projects designed to identify the core drivers of how lives are saved via acute malnutrition treatment, like figuring out how to directly compare treated and untreated mortality or leading research into improved triaging methods to target treatment to patients who will not recover on their own.
- Depending on your interests, you could also focus more in this job on specializing in cost-effectiveness modeling. Alternatively, if you are more interested in the field side, you could specialize in running field trials, and work for Taimaka or another implementer on improving our protocols and practices.
About You
- This role will likely suit a mid-career public health (or similar) specialist with an interest in research. Our preference is for someone with a fair bit of work experience under their belt.
Must Haves:
Candidates must have the following to qualify:
- A PhD in economics, biostatistics, epidemiology, public health, or similar AND 3+ years of work experience in a leadership role at a large NGO or INGO doing measurement and evaluation, applied field research, or program management on a development project with High-quality publications in a reputable international journal can be substituted for NGO/INGO work experience
- Or
- A masters in economics, biostatistics, epidemiology, public health, or similar AND 8+ years of work experience at a large NGO or INGO doing measurement and evaluation, applied field research, or program management on a development project and at least 3+ years of this work experience must have been in a leadership role
- Past experience with data analysis in either R OR Python Pandas
- 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
- Mindset - Taimaka is not a traditional NGO. We value honesty, transparency, and ability to think outside of the box very highly. We don't want dogmatic adherence of talking points, we want people who aren't afraid to tell us when we're doing something wrong and to hold everyone on the team accountable.
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)
- Geospatial data collection and mapping using ArcGIS, QGIS or similar software
General:
- Experience or training implementing SMART or similar surveys related to child nutrition and mortality.
- Familiarity with GiveWell/Effective Altruist methods of evaluating cost-effectiveness.
Salary
N1,000,000 - N3,000,000 per month, depending on skills and experience. We may be willing to exceed this range for exceptional candidates.
Method of Application
Note
- Taimaka does not charge a fee at any point in the application process.
- Applications may close sooner if a suitable candidate is found.
Interested and qualified? Go to
Taimaka on airtable.com to apply
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