Deputy TPM Team Leader – VERITAS UKR At SoCha LLC

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About SoCha

SoCha is an international monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) firm that delivers evidence-driven insights to help development and humanitarian actors make adaptive, impactful decisions. We bring experience from diverse regional contexts, including fragile and conflict-affected environments, combining technical rigour, trusted local partnerships, and innovative approaches to address complex challenges. Our expertise spans third-party monitoring, mixed-methods and complexity-aware evaluations, systems strengthening, and capacity-building, ensuring that programmes remain responsive to local realities and deliver meaningful results for vulnerable populations. Guided by principles of inclusion, equity, and learning, SoCha partners with donors, UN agencies, and implementing organizations to improve outcomes and maximize impact.

Background

SoCha is currently bidding to the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) to deliver the Verification and Technical Assurance Programme-Ukraine (VERITAS-UKR). This flagship programme will provide demand-led independent third-party monitoring (TPM) and portfolio-level evidence services across FCDO’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) portfolio in Ukraine. The programme will also pilot an innovative Civil Society Organization (CSO)-led monitoring model, designed to strengthen accountability and ensure aid is responsive to the needs of Ukrainians.

As part of our proposed team, SoCha is recruiting a Deputy TPM Team Leader. Working under the TPM Team Leader, this role will provide critical technical leadership in remote and geospatial verification, programming support (including Python), and act in a deputy capacity to ensure seamless continuity of the TPM workstream.

This position is contingent on contract award and is expected to commence on or around 30 November 2025.

Scope of Work

  • Support the TPM Team Leader by acting as deputy: stepping in when needed, maintaining oversight of TPM tasks, and ensuring continuity across TPM tasks (in-person TPM, remote verification, geospatial, evidence).
  • Lead the geospatial and remote verification component: selecting appropriate satellite imagery, GIS datasets, performing change detection, mapping installations and damage, integrating remote sensing outputs with field data.
  • Develop and maintain geospatial dashboards; prepare maps, spatial overlays (e.g. of asset delivery, installation sites, population vulnerability layers, access constraints).
  • Use Python (and other relevant tools) to automate processes in remote verification: image preprocessing, feature extraction/classification, georeferencing, data cleaning, spatial analysis.
  • Co-design remote verification sampling strategies: balancing cost, risk, access constraints, combining physical site visits with remote methods (satellite, aerial imagery, open source).
  • Work closely with the physical field verification teams: ensure GPS/photo metadata quality, cross-validate field vs remote observations, help plan field missions based on GIS / imagery findings.
  • Contribute to tool/instrument design: verification checklists, remote detection models, survey tools, ensuring that they are geospatially aware (GPS, mapping, etc.).
  • Support data quality assurance focused on geospatial/remote data: checking for cloud cover, image resolution, projection errors, accuracy of geolocation, consistency over time.
  • Assist in drafting technical components of progress and evidence reports to FCDO: particularly those leveraging mapping, satellite imagery, remote verification, and coding work in Python.
  • Mentor and build capacity of technical staff and partners in remote verification tools, GIS mapping, satellite imagery interpretation, and programming workflows.
  • Contribute to risk management of TPM operations: assess security/access constraints for remote and field operations, propose mitigation especially where physical access is limited.

Minimum Qualifications and Experience

  • Education: Advanced degree (Master’s or equivalent) in GIS, Remote Sensing, Data Science, Geography, Computer Science, Environmental Science, or related field.
  • Professional Experience: Demonstrated experience in TPM, remote verification, or geospatial work in development or humanitarian settings, especially conflict-affected or insecure contexts.
  • Technical Skills: Proficiency with GIS tools (e.g. QGIS, ArcGIS, Google Earth Engine) and satellite imagery analysis; strong programming skills, particularly in Python, for tasks such as feature detection, spatial data pipelines, automations; experience integrating remote sensing outputs with ground data / field verification.
  • Field / Operational Experience: familiarity with planning TPM field missions, GPS/photo evidence collection, understanding ground-truthing vs remote methods.
  • Contextual Knowledge: Strong understanding of Ukraine, its security & access challenges, geography, geo-politics, infrastructure constraints, especially in damaged or conflict zones.
  • Leadership & Management: Demonstrated ability to supervise technical analysts, manage quality of outputs, ensure timeliness, manage risk, and support the TPM Team Leader in oversight.
  • Stakeholder Engagement: Able to translate technical geospatial outputs into understandable reports for donor, implementing partners, CSOs; experience liaising with ministries, implementers, local organizations.
  • Languages: Fluency in Ukrainian required; strong professional proficiency in English (oral and written).

Location

Kyiv, Ukraine (in-country presence required)

How to apply

To submit your application, kindly provide your CV using the form provided.

To apply before 26 September 2025.