Chief Technology Officer (remote work) 

 

Technology has been the foundational enabler of The Land Portal Foundation’s mission since our establishment. Landportal.org has become the leading online platform for land governance information, with a linked open data information architecture that aggregates and visualizes land governance information. We strive to continuously evolve to ensure that our platform can meet the needs of the land sector and beyond.

We are thus seeking a Chief Technology Officer to lead the provision and ongoing development of the core Land Portal online presence, and to provide technical leadership in our work to create an open and inclusive information ecosystem for land. The successful candidate will demonstrate  a deep understanding of established and emerging technology, and translate this understanding into impact for the Land Portal Foundation.

---

Responsibilities: 

You will have overall responsibility for all of Land Portal’s public-facing technologies, including providing technical vision for the Land Portal platform, driving the development of the technology roadmap, evaluating new and promising technologies, and incubating minimum viable products and new initiatives that can significantly unlock scale and impact opportunities.

You will be responsible for developing strategic plans and setting timelines for evaluation, managing the development, and deployment of all technical, web, and mobile services, and establishing software development processes and setting objectives for the process.

In particular, the role involves:

Technical Strategy and Leadership: Provide technical leadership and strategic direction to the team responsible for developing and maintaining the website and associated tools. This includes setting technical goals, defining the technical roadmap, and aligning technical decisions with the organization's goals, as well as monitoring and assessing emerging technical trends (including AI related trends), to support the Land Portal in making strategic decisions.

Architecture and Design: Be responsible for designing and implementing the Land Portals website and data architecture. This includes designing the software architecture, data architecture, and infrastructure architecture. Ensure that Land Portal technology  is scalable, secure, and reliable.

Technology Selection and Integration: Have a deep understanding of the technologies used by Land Portal and be responsible for selecting and integrating new technologies. This includes identifying new technologies that can be used to enhance the main Land Portal website's functionality, security, and performance.

Quality Assurance: Ensure that the website and other Land Portal technology outputs are  of high quality by establishing standards and best practices for development, testing, and deployment. This includes implementing quality assurance processes and tools that ensure that they meet the required standards.

Security: Be responsible for  security of the website and associated tools. This includes ensuring that servers and services are protected against cyber threats and compliant with relevant regulations and standards.

Performance: The CTO should be responsible for the website's performance. This includes monitoring the website's performance, identifying performance issues, and implementing solutions to improve performance.

Team Management: Manage a small team of people working on technology development, data integration, and administration. This includes setting team goals, managing team performance, and providing mentorship and guidance to team members.

Collaboration and Communication: Collaborate with other stakeholders in the organization, including members of the Technical Advisory Group, the Team and end-users. This includes communicating technical issues, solutions, and progress to non-technical stakeholders in a clear and concise manner.

External leadership: The right candidate may also take on a role to support the Land Portal’s work to foster an open and inclusive information ecosystem amongst key partners, including supporting our work assessing the State of Land Information at national government level, and our engagement with international and grassroots organizations to promote adoption of open and standards-based information exchange. 

---

Qualifications and skills - required

• Senior leadership and management experience in a technology role covering web, data and content management, user-centered design and enhancing user experience;

• 
  

  Proven knowledge of multilingual content management systems, cross-site search, and open data management;

• 
  

  Experience with web strategy initiatives, planning and conceptualizing websites and web applications; digital marketing;

• 
  

  Excellent command of English, and clear written and spoken communication;

• 
  

  Able to rapidly understand and flexibly support the adoption of new tools and working practices;

• 
  

  Proven knowledge of Web Analytics;

• 
  

  Passion for web management and knowledge of the industry's growth and best-practice standards;

• 
  

  Proven experience in internet marketing, including search engine optimization, promotion of websites, cross promotion and cross linking etc;

• 
  

  Understanding of HTML, CSS design, cross-browser and cross-platform compatibility;

• 
  

  Affinity with the Land Portal’s mission to support sustainable development and eradicate poverty through open development and open data;

• 
  

  Able to provide tutorials, trainings to Land Portal team as well as Land Portal users;

• 
  

  A combination of excellent problem solving, communication and interpersonal skills;

• 
  

  Ability to work in a fast-paced, multitasking and remote environment;

Qualifications and skills - desired

• Experience working with Drupal;

• 
  

  Experience working with GeoServer or other commercial/open source GIS publishing systems;  

• 
  

  Knowledge of French, Spanish and/or Portuguese;

• 
  

  Experience working in non-profit and international development sectors;

• 
  

  Knowledge of Adwords, Survey Monkey and other website applications or survey tools;

• 
  

  Knowledge of photo- and/or video-editing;

Note: This is a role in a small team for a nonprofit organization, and you should expect to get involved in some amount of day-to-day tasks as well as your strategic role. 

 

This position will initially be hired for a three day a week fully remote consultancy, with the perspective of integrating into the team as a full-time employee.

---

Interested?

Interested candidates are expected to submit:

• Cover letter (one-page) that is not a repetition of your CV;

• 
  

  CV;

• 
  

  Two references for similar work who can be contacted and your professional relationship to them..

Deadline: By the end of the day — April 16— to the following email address: jobs@landportal.info.

For questions or clarifications regarding this position, please contact hello@landportal.info.

---

About the Land Portal 

The Land Portal Foundation is a non-for-profit organization based in the Netherlands dedicated to supporting the efforts of the rural poor to gain equitable access to land by addressing the fragmentation of information resources on land.  

We believe access to information is crucial to achieve good land governance and to secure land rights for vulnerable people. Our mission is to build an information ecosystem for land governance that supports better informed decision and policy making at national and international levels. Our belief is that within a functioning and inclusive information ecosystem data, both information and the diversity of perspectives become more visible and accessible to a much larger audience. Ultimately, this significantly increases the chances that the information reaches target groups in a way that contributes to securing people’s land rights.