Technical Architect, PACT in NETHERLANDS

The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) is a global, CEO-led organization of over 200 leading businesses working together to accelerate the transition to a sustainable world. We help make our member companies more successful and sustainable by focusing on the maximum positive impact for shareholders, the environment, and societies.

Our member companies come from all business sectors and all major economies, representing combined revenues of more than USD $8.5 trillion and 19 million employees. Our global network of almost 70 national business councils gives our members unparalleled reach across the globe. Since 1995, WBCSD has been uniquely positioned to work with member companies along and across value chains to deliver impactful business solutions to the most challenging sustainability issues.

Together, we are the leading voice of business for sustainability: with a vision of a world where more than nine billion people are all living well and within the boundaries of our planet, by 2050.

Job overview

Today’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are not enough to meet the targets of the Paris Agreement. Consequently, the external and internal pressures on the business community to accelerate their decarbonization efforts are intensifying. As companies strive to advance their decarbonization journey, all will face a common challenge namely addressing the Scope 3 GHG emissions that occur in their value chains which generally constitute the majority of their GHG emissions. Today, accurately understanding these emissions at the product level remains a big unknown.

The Partnership for Carbon Transparency (PACT) seeks to address this challenge by working with businesses to standardize how GHG emissions data are calculated at the product level and exchanged between companies across their value chains. By bringing together the stakeholders from across industries, standard setting bodies, regulators and leading technology companies, the objective of PACT is to establish the standards, methods and solutions necessary to help companies work better together on their joint decarbonization actions and to substantially reduce their collective Scope 3 GHG emissions.

More details on PACT and its mission can be found here.

We are now looking for an experienced technical architect to join our expanding team and help drive the consensus-based process to evolve the PACT Technical Specifications and supporting digital architecture and infrastructure. This is a unique opportunity to become part of a global, cross industry effort to reduce GHG emissions by helping to lead a truly ground-breaking project which is at the intersection of business, sustainability and technology.

In this role, you will help to shape the PACT Technical Specifications by collaborating with the community to evolve the technical standards in an unbiased way that meets the needs of businesses, initiatives and regulatory bodies and solution providers. You will serve as PACT’s technical leader who will work together with the community to understand the pros and cons of various proposals to evolve the PACT Technical Specifications. Most significantly, you will work closely with technical architects from various other initiatives to ensure the PACT Technical Specifications align and maintain interoperability with evolving global GHG standards.

Responsibilities and duties

Evolve the Technical Specifications

• Collaborate closely with the Lead of PACT Tech Standards and Product (i.e. Product Manager) to translate business requirements of the PACT community into technical proposals; review proposals of the PACT community and support driving these to consensus.

Drive Initiative Alignment towards Interoperability

• Remain open to feedback and the ever-evolving needs of the PACT community
• Drive alignment efforts with initiatives to translate feedback about the Tech Specs into proposals and consensus

Manage the PACT Open-Source Standard

• Serve as editor of the PACT Technical Specifications and supporting API tools, documentation, and resources (Github repo, Swagger, demo API endpoint, documentation, etc.)
• Manage PACT Technical Specifications release planning

Serve as Technical Expert for the Community

• Provide technical expertise and guidance to PACT community as questions arise regarding PACT Technical Specifications and during PACT Conformance testing
• Co-design (with PACT community) proposals for technical tools and products to accelerate PACT’s mission of value chain transparency at scale
• Co-design (with PACT Community) PACT’s digital strategy and technical architecture
• Maintain in-depth knowledge of IT industry best practices, technologies, architectures and emerging technologies (AI, ML) and propose how to leverage innovations to advance PACT’s mission

Qualifications

We are looking for an experienced candidate with strong technical and communication skills:

• Proven experience (5+ years) as a Software Developer and/or Architect, with a focus on APIs, Service Oriented Architecture, web services and REST, enterprise data exchange networks and protocols, data infrastructure, distributed data networks, open-source software, Entity Relationship Diagrams, UML Sequence diagrams, reference architecture and design
• Ability to engage, build trust with and drive consensus among senior stakeholders from public and private sector with different (and sometimes competing) perspectives and interests
• Experience leading and contributing to open-source projects and/or public APIs
• Strong proficiency preparing, maintaining, and editing technical specifications and documentation using standard tech tools (GitHub, Swagger, JSON, Postman, etc.)
• Solid understanding of software development life cycle, design principles, and architectural patterns
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to work effectively in a cross-functional team environment; experience working with a range of skillsets from business users (i.e. sustainability analysts, procurement specialists) to technical architects and software engineers
• Collaborative, people-centric and “can do” attitude with a strong team player ethos
• Demonstrated ability to learn functional domain; no prior sustainability experience required but willingness and ability to learn topics related to GHG Protocol, Product Carbon Foot printing, emissions management, etc.
• Experience developing and promoting technical standards, collaborating across communities and developing enabling tools and utilities to support the adoption of these standards
• Fluency in written and spoken English

We encourage qualified candidates to apply, even if they do not meet every listed requirement, as we value diverse perspectives and recognize that skills and experiences can be gained in various ways.

The position is for an initial fixed term of 1.5 years and based in Amsterdam or London, but will also require occasional international travel with flexibility.

WBCSD is a purpose driven, forward-thinking and action-oriented organization, characterized by diversity of gender, nationalities and work experiences.

The work environment

WBCSD offers a competitive, modern, and flexible working arrangement:

• Geneva-based organization with offices in Amsterdam, London, New Delhi, Singapore and New York City
• Competitive compensation and benefits
• Flexible hybrid working environment
• Dynamic working atmosphere
• Open culture encouraging interaction and sharing of ideas and opinions
• International relocation support
• Sustainable commuting incentives

Please also note that WBCSD will only respond to candidates selected for the interview process.