Senior Analyst – MENA focus

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Position description

ExTrac is a decision intelligence company used by governments, defence organisations, financial institutions, and corporates operating in complex, fast-moving environments. Our capabilities fuse curated data sources, domain-specific AI, and deep human expertise to transform information overload into clear, actionable foresight.

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is a core region for ExTrac’s intelligence coverage, spanning the political and security dynamics, actors, movements, and online ecosystems that shape risk across the region and beyond it. We are the analytical backbone for decision-making when geopolitical uncertainty becomes an opportunity or a strategic risk. More at extrac.ai.

The Role

As a Senior Analyst covering the MENA region, you will help ExTrac understand and anticipate political and security developments across the region, including the activities of state and non-state actors, violent extremist organisations (VEOs), and the online ecosystems in which they operate. Working in Arabic every day, across standard and dialectal material, you will turn what you find into timely reporting that feeds ExTrac’s intelligence products and data platform.

What the job involves

Intelligence collection and analysis

• Monitor and assess political, security, and socio-economic developments across MENA, including regional diplomacy, state and non-state actors, and geopolitical risk, with the ability to contribute to wider global coverage when required.

• Conduct daily monitoring of Arabic- and English-language media, including news outlets, social media platforms, official statements, and other open-source information environments.

• Track VEO and non-state armed group activity, including organisational developments, propaganda and communications activity, governance dynamics, operational activity, and regional linkages.

• Identify new narratives, actors, platforms, and threats appearing across online ecosystems.

• Apply structured analytical techniques to assess complex information and identify patterns and relationships.

Intelligence production

• Lead and contribute to daily, weekly, monthly, flash, and deep-dive analytical reporting, with a particular focus on MENA and VEOs.

• Translate and assess Arabic-language documents and other source material.

• Contribute to client-facing discussions, briefings, and ad hoc research requests as required.

• Develop and maintain subject-matter expertise across designated countries, actors, organisations, and thematic areas.

Data curation

• Lead and contribute to source coverage for the region, identifying and proposing new actors, entities, channels, and outlets for inclusion in ExTrac’s research ecosystem.

• Verify and assess sources in the original language prior to inclusion.

• Maintain coverage against intelligence requirements, identifying where it should expand or deepen.

• Contribute to the taxonomy and tagging decisions that structure MENA and violent extremism data.

• Work with the wider research and data teams to translate analytical judgement into structured data that others can rely on without further verification.

Leadership and collaboration

• Support the Team Lead with the reviewing, and quality assurance of analytical outputs.

• Mentor junior analysts on research methodology, analytical standards, and source validation.

• Support other teams across ExTrac on projects and deliverables when required.

Innovation and capability development

• Help develop research methodologies, monitoring frameworks, and analytical processes to improve team efficiency and product quality.

• Integrate AI systems and AI-assisted workflows into analytical practice where they create genuine improvements.

Qualifications

You should apply if

• MENA is the region you already follow closely, across its politics, security dynamics, and the violent extremist movements and online ecosystems operating within it. This is the region you want to go deeper on rather than a rotation on the way to something else.

• You work in Arabic, not just alongside it. You read Modern Standard Arabic and dialect comfortably, you notice when slang is doing something new, and you can tell the difference between a shift in language and a shift in intent.

• Writing is one of your strengths. You can turn a fast-moving, ambiguous picture into a concise, evidence-based assessment under deadline, and you take pride in doing it well.

• You care about the quality of the underlying data as much as the quality of the analysis built on it, and you hold both to the same standard.

• You want to keep producing analysis at volume and take on more alongside it. Reviewing others’ work, helping set priorities for a small team, and mentoring junior analysts appeal to you as additions to the writing, not a step away from it.

• You thrive on operational tempo. Daily and flash reporting alongside longer deep dives suits how you like to work, and the pace energises rather than drains you.

• You are already using AI in your workflow and are interested in what it changes about analytical craft.

Where this role can take you

• Build recognised subject-matter expertise across your assigned countries, actors, and thematic areas, and take on broader analytical scope as it deepens.

• Build leadership experience through mentoring junior analysts, quality-assuring their work, and supporting prioritisation across a small team.

• Support the development of the monitoring frameworks and analytical methodologies used across the team.

• Shape how AI changes intelligence work itself, championing new tools and methodologies across the Research & Analysis team and influencing how the whole function operates.

Requirements

• At least five years of professional experience in intelligence analysis, geopolitical risk, disinformation analysis, strategic communications, international security, international relations, or a related field.

• Strong subject-matter knowledge of the MENA region, including its key political and security actors and regional dynamics.

• A working understanding of VEOs, their online ecosystems, communications strategies, narratives, and operational activity, built through direct analytical experience.

• Fluency in written Arabic, across both Modern Standard Arabic and local dialects, including knowledge of slang, with the ability to monitor, analyse, and translate Arabic-language content from a range of sources.

• Demonstrable experience applying structured analytical methodologies to complex information environments and online ecosystems, including OSINT, network analysis, narrative analysis, sentiment analysis, or other quantitative and qualitative approaches.

• Strong written communication skills, with a track record of producing concise, high-quality, policy-relevant intelligence and analytical outputs under tight deadlines.

• Hands-on experience curating source coverage: identifying and verifying online sources, assessing their affiliation, and maintaining structured datasets to a defined standard.

• Experience proofreading, editing, and quality-assuring analytical products.

• Strong organisational skills and the ability to work independently while managing multiple concurrent workstreams and competing priorities.

• Strong attention to detail and the ability to distinguish meaningful developments from high-volume information flows.

• Able to communicate complex political, security, and extremist-related developments clearly to both specialist and non-specialist audiences.

• Comfortable integrating AI systems into your workflow to improve outputs and efficiency.

• A strong understanding of the legal and ethical considerations surrounding intelligence collection, open-source research, and data handling, including responsible use of publicly available information.

Desirable

• Experience leading analysis on international security, violent extremism, terrorism, or state- and non-state-aligned influence and disinformation ecosystems.

• Demonstrable experience researching VEOs and extremist online activity, including monitoring affiliated media operations, narratives, actors, and various platforms, such as Telegram, Facebook, Instagram, RocketChat, TikTok, and others.

• Experience with data science, AI-enabled research tools, or advanced OSINT platforms.

• Proficiency in one or more additional relevant languages, such as French, Farsi, Turkish, Kurdish, or Russian.

• Familiarity with the PHIA Yardstick.

• Experience developing analytical methodologies, research frameworks, monitoring requirements, or data schemas and taxonomies.

• Experience mentoring junior analysts, reviewing analytical outputs, or leading small analytical projects.

Interview Process

We aim to ensure that each person who interviews with our team has the opportunity to showcase their experience and strengths, and to have honest conversations about whether ExTrac and the role align with their career aspirations. The process for this role is as follows:

• Initial interview with the hiring manager – 30 minutes

• Technical craft assessment – two tasks covering analytical writing and source curation, returned within 24 hours

• Competency-based interview – 45 minutes

• Senior Executive interview – 45 minutes

Benefits

• Competitive salary based on skills and experience.

• A generous benefits package, including medical health insurance and 401(k).

• $500/year education budget with more expensive items (like conferences) covered with manager approval.

• 33 days of leave across the year inclusive of national holidays.

• A role that combines mission-driven purpose with cutting-edge technology in a fast-growing company.

Application instructions

Please be sure to indicate you saw this position on geopolist.com