Software developer x2 - UK Data Service

at  Jisc

Jisc grade and salary: circa £40,000 per annum negotiable depending on experience
Contract: Fixed Term contract until 31/03/2025
Hours: 35 hours per week
Reports into: UK Data Service Director of Impact
Location: Hybrid - A blend of working from home and your nominated hub office, we have hubs in London, Bristol, Manchester and Oxford. Specific patterns for working in the office are not mandated, and the frequency of time worked in the office is agreed with your manager. Meeting in person is something we value so you may need to travel on occasion to any of our hub offices.
About Jisc
Jisc is the UK digital, data and technology agency focused on tertiary education, research, and innovation. We are a not-for-profit organisation with a big ambition to improve lives through education and research by providing hardware, software, and networking solutions. Our talented people bring their own unique skills and experience to empower our members and customers with the technology they need to succeed. Take your next career step with us and you can make a real difference to the education and research sector.
About the role
This fantastic role sits in the UK Data Service, which is a collaboration between Jisc and four UK universities, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council to make social, economic and population data available to researchers who will make a significant impact on policy making and society.
You will be working on a planned project to completely rewrite our platform GeoConvert (including an API). The existing GeoConvert platform is built on very old technology leaving us with not only technical debt, but increased security risk as time goes on. GeoConvert is a valuable and unique offering, adding considerable value for users in comparing data at different geographical levels. We also aim with this rewrite to make it additionally useful with our census data.
You will develop new platforms for making census and international data available to users, maintain current platforms and retire old systems as required.

Key responsibilities and deliverables

• Contribute to the development of a range of applications to UK Data Service platforms by writing high quality code to agreed standards.
• Follow Jisc’s process for secure application and software development.
• Work with users, product owners and team members to understand requirements, and help translate these into development tasks.
• Ensuring that technical solutions adhere to best practice and are robust, extensible and standards compliant
• Participate in software testing and release cycles.
• Follow internal processes and standards for managing software development across its lifecycle, from initial design to regular feature releases and bug fixes, including maintenance and retirement of platforms as necessary
• Maintain and update all relevant documentation
• Maintain an understanding of application usage with UK Data Service users, ensuring software developed matches their needs expectations
• Providing technical expert support, advice and guidance to UK Data Service users and to Jisc colleagues as required

EXPERIENCE IN AT LEAST ONE OF:

• React
• Node.js
• Python (preferred)
• Experience of working with APIs and relational databases like SQL Server or PostgreSQL, being able to understand and develop SQL code.
  Skills & personal qualities

Need to have

• A passion for learning and applying new technology.
• Excellent problem solving skills, bringing flexibility and a willingness to change the way we do things.
• Ability to develop and apply expertise in new languages and technologies as required.
• An ability to explore technology solutions across the technology stack.
• The ability to exercise initiative and self-direction, show a high degree of responsibility and effectively prioritise a busy workload
• Ability to act and work both independently and as an effective team member.

We are constantly changing and evolving at Jisc, so this job description just gives a flavour of what the role involves. It will change as our operations develop.
Don’t meet every single requirement?
We know that sometimes people can be put off applying for a job if they think they can’t tick every box, so we encourage you to apply even if you do not meet 100% of the requirements, but you feel this role is perfect for you. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles!
Why work for us?
At Jisc, everyone plays a key role and gets the chance to feel part of it, that to us is the definition of a meaningful career. We want to create a culture of lifelong learning. You can look forward to a rewarding job with opportunities to develop and make a real difference to the education and research sectors.
We believe a balance between your personal and professional life is essential to your happiness and fulfilment. We work flexibly at Jisc and focus on outputs rather than presenteeism and are open to a whole range of ways of working.
It isn’t about how many hours you spend at home or at work; it’s about the flow you establish that brings energy to both parts of your life. Our hybrid working policy is flexible, and the frequency of time spent in your nominated office will vary across teams and job roles.
Take a look at our fantastic benefits!

• Contribute to the development of a range of applications to UK Data Service platforms by writing high quality code to agreed standards.
• Follow Jisc’s process for secure application and software development.
• Work with users, product owners and team members to understand requirements, and help translate these into development tasks.
• Ensuring that technical solutions adhere to best practice and are robust, extensible and standards compliant
• Participate in software testing and release cycles.
• Follow internal processes and standards for managing software development across its lifecycle, from initial design to regular feature releases and bug fixes, including maintenance and retirement of platforms as necessary
• Maintain and update all relevant documentation
• Maintain an understanding of application usage with UK Data Service users, ensuring software developed matches their needs expectations
• Providing technical expert support, advice and guidance to UK Data Service users and to Jisc colleagues as require