Citizens of the Great Barrier Reef (non-profit) | Cairns, Australia (it's REMOTE) | citizensgbr.org
Part-time / casual role: guilt-free and potentially highly rewarding, yet no-doubt insanely underpaid, automation automation / backend / devops / cloud work. Potentially hyper casual over 3-6mths+ (what can you do, how long will it take) / flexible schedule to suit budget (we value skill set over availability) / no juniors, interns at this stage unfortunately.
We're a 21st century conservation organisation for the Great Barrier Reef. Or at least that's the idea. We're involved in a broad range of activities[1], but the big picture is a global conversation about climate change.
Our current go-to is a citizen science / research effort called the Great Reef Census[2], currently in its second year. The project incorporates a whole range of (relatively lo-fi / glue-together yet novel) tech solutions, from remote / vessel-deployed offline servers, spatially aware data submission portals, 3d planning tools[3] (we like mapping), plus an ML/CV angle being developed from last year's data[4]. It's an open project, so all data is being released under CC, similarly code open sourced (as soon as time permits). Everything we can build in house we do. We need a few extra pairs of hands for delivery of the project this year.
Last year we successfully trialed the use of edge servers for collecting data, offline, from remote areas of the reef. These were developed at speed with hardware donated by Dell. Config is currently completely manual and stack is a mix of ubuntu / netplan (captive wifi w public dns + 4g) / haproxy / offline mirrors of our web properties / mapping tile server. It is in dire need of some devops love and automation.
We're also looking for help in other areas: on the web we are primarily vue / node (db is firestore, cloud is gcp / cloudflare). At the same time we do a lot of data-wrangling. We also need to prepare the project for open sourcing, to drive further tech engagement and resource. If your skills lend themselves to any of this, it would free up hands.
We are busy and under resourced and find it difficult to recruit / compete in the current landscape (remote / $$$). That said, the work can be rewarding plus we're willing to accommodate any measures that might make it worthwhile for the right person. Tech is currently a one-person show, but we're trying to fix that. The role would likely suit a senior type with some days spare and a passion for the environment. It is a paid position. If you're in Australia, we also do a lot of diving and there's the opportunity to certify & spend some solid time on the reef as part of the project.
Questions / expressions of interest to hq@citizensgbr.org ~ Thanks!
[1] https://citizensgbr.org/explore/atlas
[2] https://greatreefcensus.org
[3] https://lab.citizensgbr.org/census-map/v2/
[4] https://greatreefcensus.org/api