Lead Geospatial Analyst

About Meridia

Meridia is an AgTech company specialised in field data within complex smallholder-heavy agri-commodity supply chains such as cocoa, coffee, palm oil, rubber and soy.

Meridia Verify®, its flagship SaaS product, verifies supply chain field data in real time – and validates compliance with frameworks such as the EUDR (EU Deforestation Regulation). With Verify, companies can reduce commercial and reputational risk, minimise supply chain disruption and accelerate evidence-based decision-making for strategic sourcing, procurement and trade.

Meridia’s mission is to improve the veracity of datasets driving decision making in global agri-commodity supply chains. Its purpose is to build transparent and inclusive supply chains that afford smallholders a level playing field.

See https://www.meridia.land for more information on our work.

Job Description

As a Lead Geospatial Analyst, you will serve as a geospatial data and analytics expert by sourcing, analyzing, and producing datasets related to deforestation, land use, and compliance with local regulations. You will be responsible for leading the development of geospatial datasets to use in Meridia’s SaaS products with global, multinational business customers.

You will be based in Indonesia and will work closely with our teams in The Netherlands, Lithuania and Ghana, as well as with colleagues across Indonesia. You will report to the Data Manager in Indonesia.

Responsibilities

The Lead Geospatial Analyst has the following areas of work and responsibilities: 

Core Geospatial Skills

• Acquire, organise, and analyse satellite imagery data and land use datasets to identify global trends in deforestation, land use change, and management of protected areas
• Produce unique datasets by combining geospatial data from various sources and document the detailed methodology to reproduce such data
• Evaluate and compare geospatial datasets and select appropriate datasets based on criteria required for Verify product features
• Perform quality assurance and quality control on a wide variety of spatial data used by the organisation and ensure metadata standards are followed
• Design processes for quality assurance and accuracy assessment of geospatial datasets being produced, and train staff to follow procedures and record the results

Data analysis and programming

• Conduct spatial analyses to identify trends in deforestation and land use changes communicate results such as (but not limited to) comparing results in geospatial overlap after changes in parameters, comparing common domain datasets developed using different methodologies
• Acquire data and process data from various academic, government, or commercial sources for use in Meridia’s product development, and collaborate with Data Engineers to develop automated processes to update data
• Provide input on development of  internal tools to automate data processing and use cloud technologies to scale and optimise ETL tasks of geospatial data 
• Oversee and support colleagues in data cleaning, review and data export for Meridia’s SaaS products

Domain knowledge and research

• Develop domain knowledge of relevant land cover datasets and guide GIS team on dataset creation using software and scripting tools
• Contribute to our (internal) data catalogues, manuals, dictionaries, glossary and broader set of terminology in a coherent way across countries, products and projects.
• Identify new opportunities for improvement, solve bottlenecks and tackle efficiency issues

Learning and Development

The ideal candidate should be eager and willing to learn and grow in the role. You will be engaged in on-the-job training and development to learn about the land rights sector and our data systems and workflows. You will be mentored by our Data & Methodology team in Indonesia and senior colleagues in Lithuania and the Netherlands.

Requirements

The ideal candidate has/is:

• 4+ years of experience in geospatial data analysis of forest cover change, degradation, deforestation, and land use from satellite imagery datasets
• Knowledge of land cover datasets from publicly available sources such as GLAD, JRC, ESA and local government agencies
• Understanding of geospatial coordinate systems and projections with the ability to pre-process datasets to combine different data sources effectively
• Strong proficiency in GIS software such as QGIS, ArcGIS, or similar tools for spatial data analysis 
• Proficient in geospatial libraries (e.g. GDAL, Rasterio, Geopandas)
• Experience using Google Earth Engine
• Independently driven, proactive, accountable, and a reliable team player
• Full working proficiency in English

The following are an advantage:

• Familiarity with European Union Deforestation-free Regulation (EUDR) forestry and deforestation definitions
• Demonstrated projects or case studies involving forest monitoring or land-use analysis
• Start-up experience.

Benefits

The benefits package includes:

• Market rate salary commensurate with your skills and competencies
• Four-day work week
• A remote working position
• Being part of a fast-growing impact venture with an informal, professional work culture
• A laptop and an external monitor for your work
• Annual employee led Learning & Development budget
• Being part of a fast-growing impact venture with an informal, professional work culture
• Engaging with team members, clients and users in various other countries

The ideal starting date is August 2025. 

Please note that only applications submitted through Workable will be reviewed.

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to jobs@meridia.land for more information about this position.