Company Summary

Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is a membership organization hosting the largest formal community of organizations committed to solving problems and creating value out of geospatial, or location information. OGC connects people, communities, and technology to solve global challenges and address everyday needs. The organization represents over 550 leading businesses, government agencies, research organizations, and universities united with a desire to make location information FAIR – Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable.

OGC is well-known for developing free, publicly available standards used in countless instances for searching, accessing, and processing geospatial data. To ensure we keep pace with the pace of innovation, OGC stood up and invested in a dedicated Collaborative Solutions & Innovation Program (COSI). COSI became the driving force behind OGC’s agile research and now drives agile exploration, prototype evaluation, and knowledge transfer of new ideas in geospatial information technology from their speculative beginnings to market-ready technologies. To get an overview of the wide range of projects and more information, go to https://www.ogc.org/innovation.

Position Summary

Do you enthusiastically tackle complex issues that require you to engage multi-sector teams and collaboratively develop a solution in the IT landscape? Do you want to help develop data infrastructures that can power Smart Cities and Digital Twins, be used in Climate and Disaster Resilience, or support Open Science? Do you see yourself in a challenging position that combines business development activities with project execution and communication?

If you want to work with the best experts in geospatial in the world at the edge of innovation and prototype development, together with leading experts from organizations such as ESA, NASA, Google, AWS, NGA, and many more, then this job is for you! Never a dull moment at OGC!

OGC Collaborative Solutions & Innovation (COSI) is seeking a Director, Collaborative Solutions & Innovation to work on the intersection of R&D project proposal development, project execution, and project results exploitation. Among many other topics, these R&D projects accelerate our collective readiness for climate change, build Digital Twins for the oceans and artificial Intelligence frameworks for climate intelligence, deal with semantic interoperability, or enable reproducible workflows with data integration on ground and in space.

The ideal candidate combines a strong technical background with good communication and organizational skills. The candidate feels confident in a shared position that includes personal and other research work as well as the use of research results from other OGC COSI research projects and the standardization program. The candidate is good at explaining content and making it available in the context of a web platform, has programming skills and experience in data model development.

The position allows working from home at any location. The employment contract is with the OGC office in VA, USA. Availability for meetings during business hours in North American Time zones is required.

Required Skills

  • You are someone that understands geospatial data and technology and can have detailed conversations with experts in our field
  • You can guide a team to deliver on a schedule
  • You can communicate with a client and understand their needs
  • You have the courage to make decisions
  • You can grow quickly into a leadership position
  • You are accountable and hold yourself to a high standard
  • You are curious, inquisitive and want to know how things work
  • You understand the complexities of a team, with an empathetic, calming effect on others
  • You are motivated and disciplined to achieve your goals
  • You fit into our unique culture, with open and equal communication from all team members in a distributed work environment and home offices for all team members
  • You have experience creating and managing project budgets
  • You have experience with prototype development and managing projects to completion
  • You have experience creating presentations and presenting publicly

Minimum Qualifications

  • Minimum of ten (10+) or more years of experience with technical project management or a PhD in a technical field
  • Experience building solutions for cross-organizational data discovery, exchange, and processing
  • Experience with state-of-the-art Web technologies such as Web protocols and APIs, data models, linked data, geospatial data, edge & cloud services, and others
  • Organized, team oriented, detail oriented, and able to handle multiple projects concurrently
  • Excellent English verbal and written communication skills 
  • Ability to work in a fast-paced environment that is primarily timeline-driven
  • Proficient with project management and collaboration software for distributed, collaborative research and development

Desired Qualifications

  • Background in geospatial IT, good understanding of the value, challenges and trends in plus
  • MSc in computer science or related field (math, physics) desired but not required
  • Experience with internationally distributed virtual innovation project teams
  • Technical writing and editorial on various expertise levels (proposals, learning materials, web articles)
  • Additional language skills, e.g. Spanish, welcome
  • Oversee multiple project teams, ensuring program goals are reached
  • Manage budget and funding channels for productivity and contract goals

Other Requirements

  • Prolonged periods of sitting at a desk and working on a computer
  • Flexibility to work across time zones
  • Flexibility to travel as needed
  • Able to work independently from home office with a virtual team

What we offer you

You’ll be a member of a phenomenal group of business professionals that have an innovative and team approach to success. We guarantee that you will have tremendous learning opportunities and will be actively encouraged to creatively contribute to our global success. OGC provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability or genetics. In addition to federal law requirements, OGC complies with applicable state and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment in every location in which the company has facilities. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training.

To apply, send a cover letter and resume to jobs@ogc.org. The subject line should include “Director, COSI” and your last name.