IMPORTANT NOTICE REGARDING APPLICATION DEADLINE: please note that the deadline for applications is indicated in local time as per the time zone of the applicant’s location.
This post is a limited-term fixed-term post.
1. Organizational Context
a. Organizational Setting
The position is in the Brand and Design Database Section of the Global Databases Division. This Section is responsible for the WIPO Global Brand Database and Global Design Database, which include millions of harmonized records from the collections of Madrid, Lisbon, Hague and Paris 6ter emblems and from an expanding number of national collections contributed by IP Offices. These systems offer advanced Trademark and Industrial Designs search functions to the public. They are used by thousands of users daily and are essential components of WIPO Global IP Infrastructure on the internet.
b. Purpose Statement
WIPO Global Brand Database and Global Design Database are built and deployed on a common cloud-based platform, which also ensures the operation of various APIs, as well as the daily ETL and indexing of trademark and industrial design data from multiple data sources. The goal of the Senior Cloud Application Architect is to ensure from an end-to-end perspective that the Section's applications built on this platform are first-class internet systems, attracting the largest possible user base by providing premier search services using the latest technologies.
The Senior Cloud Application Architect understands the Section business requirements, designs and implements scalable and resilient solutions, taking advantage of relevant cloud-native principles and integrating the best current technologies. The incumbent participates to new development and projects, ensuring the strategic evolution of the cloud-based platform to successfully maintain its performance over time following the current and future business needs of the Section.
The incumbent also collaborates with IP office technical teams to integrate their national trademark and design data collections into WIPO Global Databases, to identify their new business requirements and to develop adapted solutions.
c. Reporting Lines
The incumbent reports to the Head of the Brand and Design Database Section.
2. Duties and Responsibilities
The incumbent will perform the following principal duties:
a. Identify and plan new developments for Global Brand Database and Global Design Database to establish them as leading applications for searching brand and industrial design information, while being easily usable by the general public.
b. Lead the development of Global Brand Database, Global Design Database and their data ingestion pipelines in the cloud, making appropriate use of technological advances, ensuring control and security mechanisms are established, developing programming standards and continuous monitoring.
c. Conduct database analyses, prepare, implement and document system processes and user operating procedures. Specify and implement additional processes for normalizing, enriching and improving the data, possibly involving machine learning techniques.
d. Provide technical support for web applications and API to all IP Offices as well as all necessary technical assistance to stakeholders for their participation in the Section's Global Databases.
e. Develop the monitoring and observability capacities of the current cloud platform to ensure efficient, cost-effective operation and daily maintenance of the systems managed by the Section.
f. Provide advice and support to the Head of the Section on all relevant technical issues.
g. Participate in training sessions, international conferences and seminars/workshops on IP matters to promote WIPO databases and applications.
h. Identify user needs, perform feasibility studies particularly for new features that can be integrated with existing systems and technologies, and explore new technological solutions.
i. Perform other related duties as required.
3. Requirements
Education (Essential)
Advanced university degree in information technology, computer science, engineering, technical fields with programming or other related fields. A first-level university degree plus two years of relevant professional experience in addition to the experience requested below may be accepted in lieu of an advanced university degree.
Education (Desirable)
Cloud Certifications such as AWS Solution Architect Certification; Azure.
Experience (Essential)
At least seven years of professional experience in software engineering, including experience in the management of complex web projects involving data and search.
Experience in project management.
Experience with designing and delivering solutions using cloud base tools, integration of standard cloud components.
Experience with testing, integration, and maintenance of machine learning-based components.
Experience (Desirable)
Experience in using and designing neural networks (CNNs, RNNs, transformer models etc.).
Experience with machine translation (especially neural machine translation).
Experience in implementing Machine Learning projects and/or making significant scientific contribution in Machine Learning.
Language (Essential)
Excellent knowledge of written and spoken English.
Language (Desirable)
Knowledge of other UN official languages.
Job Related Competencies (Essential)
Extensive knowledge in data engineering including data analysis and modelling, database design, large database systems (relational and NoSQL databases), JSON/XML, ETL dataflow and pipelines.
Strong knowledge of Amazon Web Services technologies, including experience in several of CloudFormation, AWS Security Model and IAM, DynamoDB, serverless services such as Lambda, Fargate and API Gateway.
Strong knowledge of web technologies, including SOLR or Elasticsearch, as well as UI design CSS, HTML and related technologies.
Strong software development skills, including several of the following languages/frameworks: Python, TypeScript, Angular, JAVA, as well as CI/CD, containerization, testing.
Excellent communication and interpersonal skills and ability to maintain effective partnerships and working relations in a multicultural environment with sensitivity and respect for diversity.
Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills.
Knowledge of IP information tools, products and standards, in particular WIPO standards for IP data exchange and business understanding of IP data (Trademarks and Industrial Designs).
Job Related Competencies (Desirable)
Knowledge of Neural Networks frameworks: (Tensorflow, Pytorch, Keras, ...).
Understanding of new capabilities brought by latest technologies, including Machine Learning.