Strategic Systems Officer at International Rescue Committee

Position Overview

• We are hiring a Strategic Systems Officer to make Airbel’s most critical department-wide systems function as clearly, efficiently, and intelligently as possible. This role is for someone equally skilled in designing new solutions and implementing them—someone who enjoys rolling up their sleeves to test and iterate and who plans for change management and stakeholder engagement from the outset. 
• The Strategic Systems Officer will own the infrastructure that supports knowledge management, learning, governance, reporting, and key operational interfaces—especially where better system and process design and automation can streamline effort without sacrificing quality. They will collaborate closely with portfolio teams, business development functions, and the finance and operations team to spot inefficiencies, solve for bottlenecks, and streamline team-wide routines and processes. AI and automation will be key tools in this role’s toolkit; driving adoption of both throughout the department will be a priority goal.
• The ideal candidate thrives in entrepreneurial and adaptive environments and meets shifting needs and priorities with agility, curiosity, and a strong customer service orientation. Some quarters will emphasize building or piloting new data tracking tools; others will focus on maintenance and refinement of key learning and decision-making systems. Across all of it, this person will help reduce friction, streamline effort, and raise clarity and usability of centralized systems.

Key Responsibilities

How You’ll Work (Core Competencies)

• Develop practical, user-centered and inclusive systems and tools that meet shared operational needs across the department—prioritizing clarity, simplicity, and efficiency.
• Test new tools and process improvements through structured pilots and help integrate them into daily operations through strong planning, change readiness, and user engagement.
• Keep core systems functional and relevant, identifying where existing tools need updates, streamlining, or sunsetting. Build lightweight, tech-enabled solutions that reduce manual work—leveraging Microsoft 365 (Power Automate, Excel scripting) and AI-based tools where appropriate to enhance efficiency, accuracy, and scalability.
• Work closely with staff across teams to understand needs, gather feedback, and deliver solutions that are adopted and sustained. Bring a service-oriented mindset to make others’ work easier— including identifying opportunities to streamline how the team interacts with shared services (e.g., HR, procurement) where processes allow. Within specific problem-solving instances, identify opportunities to disseminate know-how and transfer knowledge throughout the team, so that each improvement has “teach a person to fish” benefits. One particularly high priority area for this orientation is with AI use and uptake across the team.

Where You’ll Apply It (Focus Areas)

• Maintain intuitive, reliable systems and routines to organize and share information across a distributed team, from centralized repositories to synchronous meetings.  Ensure critical documentation and file management is accessible, current, and easy to use.
• Support efficient decision-making by maintaining clear processes, responsibilities, and documentation for team governance structures and annual goal setting, planning, and progress monitoring.
• Build and improve routines, tools, and dashboards to track project goals, priorities, and progress in a way that leanly supports both accountability and learning.
• Improve internal processes that support proposal development and coordination, easing burden on technical and delivery teams.
• Serve as a systems-savvy collaborator to the finance and operations team—helping identify technical and AI-driven solutions that reduce rework, ambiguity, or duplication.

Required Qualifications

• 6 - 8 years of experience in systems building, process design, or operational strategy roles in a similar operating context (e.g. global nonprofit). **
• Strong technical skills with Microsoft 365 tools (e.g., Power Automate, Excel scripting) and other leading productivity tools (e.g Notion, project management software).**
• Experience developing or implementing AI-enabled tools or smart automations for professional needs.**
• Strong interpersonal and cross-cultural communication skills (written and verbal) to engage diverse global stakeholders, gather feedback across regions and functions, and drive adoption of new processes and tools.
• Demonstrated ability to design, maintain, and optimize systems to meet current and evolving organizational needs.
• Excellent organizational skills, strong attention to detail, and a proven ability to manage multiple competing priorities in a fast-paced environment.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience or strong interest in humanitarian aid, innovation and research methodologies, and/or adjacent areas is highly valuable.
• Comfort with light coding, scripting, or AI integration.
• Familiarity with agile management and change facilitation.