មុខតំណែង : Data Engineer Intern

Reports to: Economic Policy Advisor

Location: Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Duration: 6 months

Employment type: Paid internship, full-time

Eligibility: Open to Cambodian residents/citizens only

Position Summary

The Data Engineering Intern will provide technical support across CAPRED’s data engineering and software development. The role combines two things that are usually kept apart: building reliable data pipelines and building the software that puts those pipelines to use, including management information system, internal web tools, APIs, and dashboards that economists and policy analysts actually open every week.

This position suits an early-career professional with solid technical foundations, genuine curiosity, and a willingness to learn through practice and mentoring; someone with a disciplined, independent approach to problem-solving and a positive, learning-oriented attitude. Above all, the role suits someone who likes to test ideas, learn from mistakes, document what they find, and turn experimentation into practical tools that improve how CAPRED works.

The intern will be placed in the Policy Hub team and will work alongside and learn from senior economists, data scientists, and policy analysts, with structured supervision and mentoring from senior technical staff.

Program Background

Cambodia-Australia Partnership for Resilient Economic Development (CAPRED) is Australia’s flagship bilateral economic development program in Cambodia, focusing on economic recovery and resilience. The Facility supports Cambodia in implementing a range of necessary economic interventions and transformation to maintain and support the country’s economic transition. These interventions are primarily aimed at encouraging more productive and inclusive public and private investment that promotes a resilient, inclusive and sustainable economy (RISE).

CAPRED interventions fall under three technical components, namely (i) Agriculture and Agro-processing; (ii) Trade, Investment and Enterprise Development; and (iii) Infrastructure Development; and three cross-cutting sectoral areas: (1) Gender Equality, Disability and Social Inclusion (GEDSI); (2) Climate Resilient initiatives; and (3) the Policy Hub. GEDSI is at the heart of all that CAPRED does.

Position Background

CAPRED’s policy and economic analysis work increasingly relies on timely, integrated, and high-quality data. This includes official statistics, administrative datasets, macroeconomic and financial indicators, enterprise and survey data, geospatial and satellite data, web-scraped information, and other high-frequency data sources. CAPRED also supports internal and external stakholders to use evidence more effectively for policy monitoring, investment facilitation, private sector development, and economic resilience.

In parallel, rapid advances in AI create new opportunities to improve how CAPRED collects, processes, analyses, and communicates evidence. Practical AI applications that CAPRED is currently working on include Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) systems, AI-assisted extraction of information from PDFs and scanned documents, automated classification and summarisation of research and policies, conversational tools for data access, workflow automation for routine analytical tasks, and Big Data and AI for macroeconomic nowcasting.

Delivering this work requires more than analysis. It requires data that is well-modelled and dependable, and user-friendly software that makes it usable, which is why this role sits at the intersection of data engineering and software development.

Roles and Responsibilities

Data and software engineering

• Support the ingestion, cleaning, transformation, validation, and integration of data from structured and unstructured sources, including databases, spreadsheets, APIs, web sources, PDFs, survey data, and high-frequency indicators.
• Assist in building and maintaining reproducible data pipelines using Python, SQL, and related tools, with appropriate checks for data quality, consistency, and version control.
• Support the development and testing of prototype AI tools, including RAG-based document assistants.
• Assist in building and maintaining internal web tools and interfaces that allow colleagues to access, filter, submit, and explore data using JavaScript/TypeScript and modern web technologies.
• Build, configure, and maintain dashboards and data visualisation products that insights are clear, accessible, and useful for decision-making.
• Identify routine analytical or administrative tasks that could be automated and propose practical improvements.
• Support macroeconomic, trade, investment, enterprise, geospatial, and other policy-relevant data analysis under the guidance of senior staff.

Collaboration, learning and documentation

• Work collaboratively with economists, policy analysts, data scientists, and project coordinating teams to translate analytical needs into practical data and software solutions.
• Work collaboratively with CAPRED’s external counterparts in the public and private sectors to deliver technical support on AI, data, and digitalisation, and to strengthen their technical capacity.
• Maintain organised code, files, documentation, and version control practices to support collaboration and continuity.
• Demonstrate a constructive attitude toward teamwork, feedback, trial and error, and continuous improvement.
• Perform administration support tasks and other relevant tasks assigned by the supervisor and CAPRED’s management.

Selection Criteria

Essential

• Year 4 student or recent graduate with a bachelor’s degree in data science, data engineering, software engineering, computer science, statistics, or a related field.
• Good working knowledge of Python and JavaScript, with the ability to write clear, reproducible, and well-documented code.
• Foundational understanding of relational databases and SQL, APIs, data cleaning, data transformation, and quality-control concepts.
• Evidence of having built at least one working software, data, or automation project from coursework, a personal project, or a hackathon that the candidate can explain and walk through.
• Familiarity with version control using Git.
• Good communication skills and the ability to work respectfully and collaboratively in a diverse team environment with economists, policy analysts, project coordinating staff, and technical colleagues.
• Strong professional attitude, including reliability, humility, curiosity, attention to detail, and willingness to ask questions when needed.
• Willingness to experiment, test ideas, encounter errors, debug problems, learn from failure, and use those lessons to improve tools and introduce practical innovation at work.
• Working proficiency in written and spoken English and Khmer.

What the Role Offers

• Competitive renumeration.
• Structured supervision and mentoring from senior colleagues.
• Exposure to real practical problems and to government counterparts, rather than sandbox exercises.
• The opportunity to work across the full stack of a data product from raw source to pipeline to database to interface within a single role.
• Practical experience with applied data and AI on live use cases.
• A dedicated allowance of time for structured learning and skills development.
• A written reference and portfolio of demonstrable work at the end of the assignment.

Other Information

• Qualified female candidates are HIGHLY encouraged to apply.
• This position will commence as soon as possible.
• Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis, and the position will close once filled. Early application is strongly encouraged.

How to Apply

Please send your cover letter and CV, including your name and contact details (phone and email), to recruitment@capred.org , mentioning the position in the subject line: “Data Engineer Intern”.

In your application, please include a link to your GitHub, GitLab, portfolio, or any project you have built, and briefly describe one technical problem you solved and how you approached it. Candidates without a public repository are welcome to describe a project instead. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted for an interview.

Preferred candidates will subsequently be asked to provide three professional referees.

Cowater International (managing contractor of CAPRED) is an equal opportunity employer, basing employment on merit and qualifications as they relate to the professional experience and position expectations. Cowater does not discriminate against any employee or applicant on the basis of race, religion, sex, gender identity, disability, age, or any other basis protected by law. CAPRED aims to have a diverse workforce at all levels, and a workplace that is supportive of gender equality, disability and social inclusion. Women, people with disabilities and other minorities are highly encouraged to apply.