About the Organization
Splash is an international development organization founded in 2007 and headquartered in Seattle, Washington, USA. In 15 years, we have reached nearly 1,000,000 children in cities around the world. In 2019, we embarked on an exciting, five-year initiative, Project WISE (WASH in Schools for Everyone), focused on serving over 800,000 children in three major growth cities: Addis Ababa and Bahir Dar, Ethiopia, and Kolkata, India, with improved water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) infrastructure, WASH behavior change programs, and strengthened school-based menstrual health programs. This is an exciting time for Splash as we pivot to new ways of working and aim to expand our impact to new cities across 3-5 countries.
Splash supports local leaders, institutions, and partners to drive lasting change on the ground. We believe that local capacity to solve problems at scale exists, and our job is to strategically support and magnify the impact of local governments and nonprofit and for-profit actors for the good of children and families across the cities in which we work.
Our core values guide everything we do, including every hiring decision we make. They are:
People – People first. People second. People third.
Quality – Beautiful products that function and last.
Honesty – No drama, no surprises, no BS.
Joy – Kids at heart, seeing potential everywhere.
Mistakes – Make them, don’t repeat them.
Splash values the unique skills and experiences everyone brings to the organization, and we are committed to creating and maintaining an inclusive and accessible environment for everyone. We provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and qualified applicants for employment. To learn more, please visit
www.splash.org
.
Job Summary
The WASH Technical Advisor, Operations and Maintenance (O&M) will translate Splash’s global O&M strategy into practical, locally owned operating models. This role helps Splash move from infrastructure delivery to reliable daily school WASH services by ensuring maintenance, financing, workforce, supply chain, and accountability systems are in place before handover to counterparts, starting in Zambia, Ethiopia, and Malawi, with learning that informs future cities.
This is a manager-level role. The successful candidate will move comfortably between systems-level work with governments and utilities, service-level work with maintenance providers and supply chains, and school-level work focused on practical daily reliability.
Reports to: Senior Director, Programs
Key Responsibilities
Strategy implementation and work planning
Support country teams to implement Splash’s sustainable O&M strategy across country workplans, including Ethiopia, Zambia, and Malawi
Translate the global strategy into action plans, tools, decision gates, and country-ready guidance for pilot, delivery, and exit phases
Working closely with country-based technical staff, track O&M readiness across school cohorts, service providers, utilities, and government counterparts, adapting approaches based on implementation evidence
Government financing and institutional ownership
Support national and sub-national O&M financing discussions, including Operating Expenses (OPEX) commitments and “who does and who pays” matrices
Build templates for O&M roles, budgets, decision rights, escalation routes, and handover conditions
Monitor whether government and school-level commitments are documented, actionable, and aligned with Splash’s exit criteria
Partner with country leadership to embed O&M into education, water, utility, and municipal planning processes wherever feasible
Partnerships and relationship management
Identify and prioritize O&M partners: service providers, utilities, technical partners, and local implementers
Advance global partner conversations into agreements covering scope, service levels, roles, and costs
Support country teams to develop service agreements and contracts that define responsibilities, performance expectations, and handover conditions
Manage global O&M partner relationships, tracking commitments and escalating delivery and/or performance issues
Service delivery, workforce, and supply chain
Design O&M service models covering preventive, scheduled, and reactive maintenance
Support country offices to implement tools for service provider performance measurement, SOPs, and maintenance schedules
Strengthen local workforce capacity through mentoring, handover documentation, peer learning, and locally sustainable support structures
Analyze O&M supply chain needs, with a focus on spare-parts availability, supplier reliability, and procurement standards, ensuring sustainability is built into design and contractor handover
Monitoring, learning, and collaboration
Collaborate with the Impact team to develop lean monitoring approaches tracking infrastructure functionality, repair response times, and service provider performance
Collaborate across program, infrastructure, finance, procurement, impact, and country teams so O&M is integrated into design rather than treated as post-construction
Support country leadership to engage government counterparts, utilities, and schools to clarify expectations and build shared ownership
Required Qualifications
7+ years in WASH, infrastructure sustainability, municipal service delivery, public systems strengthening, operations, maintenance, or utilities.
Demonstrated experience managing complex workstreams across government counterparts, local partners, service providers, and technical teams.
Strong grounding in O&M systems: preventive and reactive maintenance, lifecycle costing, service standards, and handover planning.
Track record developing tools, SOPs, workplans, dashboards, or implementation frameworks that help teams execute consistently.
Excellent writing and facilitation skills, with the ability to make systems-level concepts practical for diverse audiences.
Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience required. Experience in East or Southern Africa, school WASH, or performance-based contracting strongly preferred.
Required Skills and Competencies
You are a practical systems thinker who turns strategic concepts into usable tools, routines, and decisions.
You bring structure to ambiguity and enjoy building models that help partners own the work over time.
You work across technical, financial, and government-facing teams without losing sight of school-level realities.
You are motivated by infrastructure that keeps functioning long after installation.
You are comfortable working across cultures, time zones, and levels of seniority, and you manage multiple moving pieces independently.
You thrive in a workplace culture that is playfully professional.