The Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) delivers research-based solutions that harness agricultural biodiversity and sustainably transform food systems to improve people\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n
Alliance solutions address global crises including malnutrition, climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental degradation.<\/p>\n
Through novel partnerships, the Alliance generates evidence and mainstreams innovations to transform food systems and landscapes so that they sustain the planet, drive prosperity, and nourish people in a climate crisis.<\/p>\n
The Alliance is part of CGIAR, a global research partnership for a food-secure future.<\/p>\n
The NDIZI (NLP to Develop and Innovate Zero-shot Intelligence) project seeks a dedicated Machine Learning Operations (MLOps) Consultant to support the development, deployment, and operationalization of machine learning systems powering SIKIA.<\/p>\n
SIKIA is a voice-first and multimodal AI platform for conversational data collection and analysis. The consultancy will also support related AI-driven research workflows.<\/p>\n
The consultant will work across speech, NLP, multimodal AI, and agentic pipelines, helping transition models and data systems from research prototypes into reliable and scalable solutions suitable for real-world field deployment.<\/p>\n
These systems are being developed to help crop improvement systems connect formal breeding processes within controlled experimental trials with real-world on-farm environments.<\/p>\n
Principal use cases include:<\/p>\n
Outputs from this consultancy will be used to address these use cases.<\/p>\n
The consultant will support end-to-end MLOps workflows across data ingestion, validation, dataset versioning, model training, evaluation, deployment, monitoring, and continuous improvement.<\/p>\n
The work will cover both cloud and edge environments.<\/p>\n
The role will involve close collaboration with research machine learning, software engineering, product, and field teams to ensure systems are robust, maintainable, and aligned with project needs.<\/p>\n
The consultant will also support the integration of ML systems within the SIKIA platform, including deployment workflows connecting:<\/p>\n
The role will also contribute to strengthening best practices around:<\/p>\n
This is an 11-month full-time consultancy position, with potential for extension, based at the Alliance office in Arusha, Tanzania.<\/p>\n
The consultant will:<\/p>\n
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Timeline:<\/strong>\u00a0Month 1, approximately Week 4<\/p>\n The consultant will develop an inception report outlining the technical approach, deployment priorities, infrastructure requirements, integration roadmap, and detailed 11-month workplan for MLOps, speech, multimodal, and disease-scoring workflows across the SIKIA platform.<\/p>\n Honoraria:<\/strong>\u00a012,000,000 Tanzanian Shillings \/ 589,762 Kenyan Shillings.<\/p>\n Timeline:<\/strong>\u00a0Month 5, approximately Week 20<\/p>\n The consultant will establish core MLOps infrastructure and workflows, including CI\/CD pipelines, experiment tracking, dataset versioning, model registries, and monitoring systems.<\/p>\n The consultant will also support development, evaluation, and optimization of speech, multimodal, and disease-scoring models across cloud and edge environments.<\/p>\n Honoraria:<\/strong>\u00a018,000,000 Tanzanian Shillings \/ 884,642 Kenyan Shillings.<\/p>\n Timeline:<\/strong>\u00a0Month 8, approximately Week 32<\/p>\n The consultant will deliver integrated deployment workflows connecting ML services with SIKIA mobile applications, APIs, backend systems, and FAIRGrounds-integrated infrastructure.<\/p>\n The consultant will provide operational pipelines for speech processing, conversational analysis, multimodal workflows, and disease-scoring services, including deployment documentation and integration support.<\/p>\n Honoraria:<\/strong>\u00a022,000,000 Tanzanian Shillings \/ 1,081,230 Kenyan Shillings.<\/p>\n Timeline:<\/strong>\u00a0Month 10, approximately Week 40<\/p>\n The consultant will implement monitoring, logging, benchmarking, and evaluation workflows for deployed ML systems, including ASR performance tracking, multimodal pipeline evaluation, disease-scoring validation, and model drift monitoring.<\/p>\n The consultant will also provide recommendations for optimization, scalability, and field deployment improvements.<\/p>\n Honoraria:<\/strong>\u00a016,000,000 Tanzanian Shillings \/ 786,349 Kenyan Shillings.<\/p>\n Timeline:<\/strong>\u00a0Month 11, end of assignment<\/p>\n The consultant will submit a final technical report summarizing completed workflows, deployed infrastructure, system performance, key learnings, and recommendations for future scaling and maintenance.<\/p>\n The consultant will also deliver finalized documentation, deployment guides, pipeline configurations, and knowledge-transfer materials for internal teams.<\/p>\n Honoraria:<\/strong>\u00a022,000,000 Tanzanian Shillings \/ 1,081,230 Kenyan Shillings.<\/p>\n Applicants must have a master\u2019s degree in one of the following fields:<\/p>\n Applicants must have at least 3 years of experience in one or more of the following areas:<\/p>\n Applicants should have:<\/p>\n This is a nationally recruited position based in either Kenya or Tanzania.<\/p>\n The initial contract will be for up to 11 months.<\/p>\n The total estimated consultancy amount is 90,000,000 Tanzanian Shillings or 4,423,212 Kenyan Shillings.<\/p>\n Applicants are invited to visit the application link below to get full details of the position and submit their applications:<\/p>\n CLICK HERE TO APPLY<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Applications should include:<\/p>\n All documents should be saved as one document using the candidate\u2019s last name and first name for ease of sorting.<\/p>\n Email applications will not be considered.<\/p>\n Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.<\/p>\n The Alliance does not charge a fee at any stage of the recruitment process, including application, interview meeting, processing, or training.<\/p>\n The Alliance also does not concern itself with information on applicants\u2019 bank accounts.<\/p>\n Applications closing date:<\/strong>\u00a021 June 2026<\/p>\n Applicants can learn more about the Alliance at:<\/p>\nDeliverable 2: Model development, evaluation, and infrastructure setup<\/h2>\n
Deliverable 3: SIKIA AI pipeline integration and deployment<\/h2>\n
Deliverable 4: Monitoring, evaluation, and optimization framework<\/h2>\n
Deliverable 5: Final technical report and handover package<\/h2>\n
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Experience<\/h1>\n
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Technical competencies<\/h1>\n
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Terms of employment<\/h1>\n
Application process<\/h1>\n
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Important recruitment notice<\/h2>\n
Application closing date<\/h2>\n
Learn more<\/h1>\n