Lead Developer (Integration and Systems) - IT Services - 104348 - Grade 8

at  University of Birmingham

POSITION DETAILS

IT Services
Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK
Full time starting salary is normally in the range £45,585 to £54,395 with potential progression once in post to £61,198
Grade: 8
Full Time, Fixed Term contract up to October 2025
Closing date: 29th September 2024

REQUIRED KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, QUALIFICATIONS, EXPERIENCE

• Educated to degree level or equivalent qualification plus substantial work experience in a relevant technical/scientific and/or management/supervisory role in a specialist area. A higher degree may also be held. Where no equivalent qualification is held a proven track record of extensive and substantial work experience in a series of progressively more demanding and relevant roles will be required.
• Proven technical specialist knowledge and understanding in a relevant technical area (specialists will require advanced technical expertise).
• Meaningful and relevant experience of integration development using the following Azure services:
• Logic Apps,
• Service Bus,
• API Management,
• Event Grid,
• Azure Functions, and
• Azure Data Factory
• Meaningful and relevant experience of integration development using Microsoft Biztalk
• Experience of C# development.
• Experience using Git and GitHub.
• Experience using Team Foundation Service
• Experience of using Terraform.
• Experience writing and applying automated tests.
• Experience creating and maintain Continuous Deployment/Continuous Integration pipelines using GitHub actions.
• Experience of developing databases and stored procedures on Microsoft SQL Server.
• Must be able to effectively communicate with user/customer areas to understand their requirements and then deliver them.
• Must have good supervisory and coaching skills to manage, motivate and develop staff.
• Must be able to provide advice to others and often required to persuade them to follow a particular course of action.
• Must have strong people and project management skills where needed.
• Proven analytical and problem-solving skills with sufficient technical skill and knowledge to be able to act as a mentor and coach.
• Must have strong software and solution development experience with a proven record of delivering and supporting complex integration and software solutions in medium to large organisations, on time and to budget.
• Experience of delivery methodologies such as Kanban, Scrum and other agile approaches as well as experience of .NET, Java, Biztalk, ServiceNow and Oracle would be an advantage.
• Evidence of literacy and numeracy.
• Experience of championing Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in own work area.
• Ability to monitor and evaluate the extent to which equality and diversity legislation, policies, procedures are applied.
• Ability to identify issues with the potential to impact on protected groups and take appropriate action.

CORE COMPETENCIES/TRANSFERABLE SKILLS

Working at this level you will be able to develop and successfully demonstrate the core competencies/transferable skills outlined in each of the areas shown below. You will be expected to take ownership for getting things done, including calling on or joining others to assist. You will be expected to be flexible as required in supporting your department and wider University.

Planning and organising

• lead and manage a technical/IT/specialist team to deliver a service, balancing short term delivery with longer term planning horizons;
• determine priorities and allocate resources to meet planned objectives and requirements;
• monitor performance standards, taking appropriate actions to ensure service delivery is uniformly excellent
• ensure health and safety of the area and equipment/hardware;
• carry out project work including planning and delivering programmes of work to budget and deadline;
• advise on future requirements of, for example, equipment, apparatus, furniture and fittings, space;
• make a major contribution to the development of policies and procedures to ensure that all legislative and University requirements are met within the laboratories/workshops and work areas.

OR

• make significant contributions to the design/development/application of services, techniques, specialist equipment or materials;
• design, plan and deliver programmes of specialist work;
• operate as a high level specialist – initiating and developing ideas/approaches, promoting and delivering innovative solutions.

Problem solving and decision making

• use analytical and problem solving skills to resolve specialist and technical issues; may be one of the few able to provide solutions in a specialised field;
• provide comprehensive advice and make innovative contributions.

Organisational understanding

• has an excellent understanding of own working area and a broad understanding of the contribution other areas make to the success of the University;
• has an excellent understanding of how the University operates, together with an understanding of how academia operates in the UK;
• demonstrates empathy with the academic endeavour and seeks to encourage others to do so.

Relationships and communication

• communicate clearly on technical or professional issues to non-specialists and senior level audiences and command their respect;represent the department at internal and external meetings/events/network with colleagues in other institutions to share best practice.

• Informal enquiries to David Madden, email: d.d.madden@bham.ac.uk
  View our staff values and behaviours here
  We believe there is no such thing as a ‘typical’ member of University of Birmingham staff and that diversity in its many forms is a strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation and debate at the heart of University life. We are committed to proactively addressing the barriers experienced by some groups in our community and are proud to hold Athena SWAN, Race Equality Charter and Disability Confident accreditations. We have an Equality Diversity and Inclusion Centre that focuses on continuously improving the University as a fair and inclusive place to work where everyone has the opportunity to succeed. We are also committed to sustainability, which is a key part of our strategy . You can find out more about our work to create a fairer university for everyone on our website

ROLE SUMMARY

The primary responsibility of the Lead Developer (Integration and Systems) is to deliver quality software solutions on time and to budget that meet the needs of the organisation and to provide third line support for those solutions once they are live.

MAIN DUTIES

• Solutions architecture
• Leads the development of system integration and internal bespoke solution architectures for complex systems, ensuring consistency with specified requirements agreed with both external, and internal customers and the Business Analyst.
• Takes full responsibility for the balance between functional, service quality and systems management requirements within a project.
• Establishes policy and strategy for the selection of systems architecture components, and co-ordinates design activities, promoting the discipline to ensure consistency.
• Ensures that appropriate standards (corporate, industry, national and international) are adhered to.
• Within a business change programme, manages the target design, policies and standards, working proactively to maintain a stable, viable architecture and ensure consistency of design across projects within the programme.
• Systems development management
• Defines solution development projects which support the organisation’s objectives and plans.
• Ensures that senior management is both aware of and able to provide the required resources.
• Contributes effectively to improving solution development processes within the organisation justified by measurable business benefits.
• Facilitates availability and optimum utilisation of resources, especially in Agile projects.
• Monitors and reports on the progress of development projects, ensuring that projects are carried out in accordance with agreed standards, methods and procedures (including secure software development).
• Applies secure development improvement practices.
• Systems design
• Specifies and designs large or complex integration and systems software.
• Selects appropriate software design standards, methods and tools, consistent with agreed enterprise and solution architectures and ensures they are applied effectively.
• Reviews others’ systems designs to ensure selection of appropriate technology, efficient use of resources, and integration of multiple systems and technology.
• Contributes to policy for selection of architecture components.
• Evaluates and undertakes impact analysis on major design options and assesses and manages associated risks.
• Ensures that the system design balances functional, service quality, security and systems management requirements.
• Systems integration
• Designs and builds integration components and interfaces.
• Leads practical integration work under the technical direction of the system/service designer.
• May contribute to the overall design of the service.
• May define the technical criteria for product/component selection.
• Contributes to decisions about tools, methods and approaches.
• Programming/software development
• Sets local or team-based standards for programming tools and techniques, including security guidelines, and the selection of appropriate development methods.
• Advises on application of standards and methods and ensures compliance.
• Takes technical responsibility for all stages and/or iterations in a software development project, providing method specific technical advice and guidance to project stakeholders.
• Assigns work packages, monitors performance and manages change control dynamically, to optimise productivity.
• Provides advice, guidance and assistance to less experienced colleagues as required.
• Testing
• Accepts responsibility for creation of test cases using own in-depth technical analysis of both functional and non-functional specifications (such as reliability, efficiency, usability, maintainability and portability).
• Creates traceability records, from test cases back to requirements.
• Produces test scripts, materials and regression test packs to test new and amended software or services.
• Specifies requirements for environment, data, resources and tools.
• Interprets, executes and documents complex test scripts using agreed methods and standards.
• Records and analyses actions and results, and maintains a defect register.
• Reviews test results and modifies tests if necessary.
• Provides reports on progress, anomalies, risks and issues associated with the overall project.
• Reports on system quality and collects metrics on test cases.
• Provides specialist advice to support others.
• Software release and deployment
• Assesses and analyses release components.
• Provides input to scheduling.
• Carries out the builds and tests in coordination with testers and component specialists maintaining and administering the tools and methods – manual or automatic - and ensuring, where possible, information exchange with configuration management.
• Ensures release processes and procedures are maintained.
• Porting/software configuration
• When required leads a team, providing expert technical knowledge in the systems testing of platform-specific versions of the software products, on varying platforms.
• Provides specialist guidance information to support, systems testing and quality assurance functions to assist in improving procedures.
• Technical specialism
• Provides leadership and guidelines to promote the development and exploitation of the following applications and technologies in the organisation and therefore must have up to date knowledge and skills, as well as being a highly competent developer in one or more of the following technologies.
• .NET Development
• Java Development
• BizTalk Development
• PL/SQL Development
• ServiceNow Development
• Will provide software development and third line support which includes user requirements gathering, design, development, unit testing and deployment in one or more of the following areas:
• Bespoke applications

ROLE CONTEXT

Roles at this level will either be technical specialists operating at a very high specialist level as expert contributors or experienced functional/technical professionals with a broader knowledge across their discipline with managerial responsibility for the delivery or ownership of a service.