Systems Developer (closing, 6 January 2014)

ILRI seeks to recruit a Systems Developer who will be tasked in designing and development of in-house systems that will be used in different research settings. The developer will be attached to the Biorepository Unit.

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) works to enhance the roles livestock play in pathways out of poverty in developing countries. ILRI has two main campuses in East Africa and other hubs in East, West and southern Africa and South, Southeast and East Asia. www.ilri.org.

CGIAR is a global agricultural research partnership for a food-secure future. Its science is carried out by 15 research centres that are members of the CGIAR Consortium in collaboration with hundreds of partner organizations. www.cgiar.org.

ILRI’s Biorepository is tasked with proper and efficient collection of research samples and the associated metadata, safe and secure storage of the samples and sharing of the samples and associated metadata with the wider research community. http://azizi.ilri.cgiar.org

In addition, the position holder will be tasked in conducting training on the developed systems and solutions, assist in capacity building of different partners and collaborators, liaise with different projects and teams who will be conducting sampling activities to ensure that their sampling needs in terms of hardware and software requirements are met.

Key responsibilities

• Design and develop of in-house systems that will be used in the biorepository unit and by different projects
• Design and develop robust field sample collection systems that ensures that samples metadata are correctly captured and the systems meets the needs of the different partners
• Considerable data management of projects’ data as collected by the different projects.
• Maintain, secure and upgrade sample collection and data tracking systems.
• Ensure different databases and datasets that support the various systems are up to date.
• Ensure that all systems, databases and datasets are backed up on a regular basis and the backups are viable.
• Liaise with project teams to ensure that their sampling systems are running and are suitable for a field setting.
• Customizing and upgrading of developed systems and software to keep up with the ever changing IT field.
• Training of partners and project teams in the developed systems and software
• Preparations of sampling kits and liaise with project teams to ensure their sampling requirements (hardware and software) are met.
• Considerable field travel to train project teams on the developed systems and solutions.
• Capacity building of data collectors

Requirements

• BSc. in Computer Science, Information Technology or a related field
• At least 2 years of experience in systems development
• Solid skills in popular scripting and programming languages (eg. PHP, JavaScript, Perl, Python, C++, Java)
• Firm knowledge and understanding of object-oriented programming in different languages (eg. C)
• Good understanding of web-based systems and mobile applications.
• Sound knowledge and experience in design, development and implementation of relational databases
• Good working knowledge of SQL is required
• Good English written and oral skills
• Excellent interpersonal skills and an ability to work flexibly in multicultural, multidisciplinary teams
• Willingness to travel nationally and regionally
• Experience in agricultural research is an advantage
• Active on public IT oriented sites eg. github, dbforums, linuxquestions, bitbucket etc and community driven networks eg. Stackoverflow, xda forum, etc is an added advantage (Please include in your CV)

Terms of Appointment
This is a Nationally Recruited Staff (NRS) position based at ILRI’s Nairobi campus. The position is on a 2 year contract with the possibility of renewal, contingent upon individual performance and continued funding.

Job level and salary
This position is job Grade 2C, with a starting salary of KES 116,417 per month. This is exclusive of other benefits provided within ILRI’s National Recruited Staff Scheme.

How to Apply
Applicants should send a cover letter and CV explaining their interest in the position, what they can bring to the job and the names and addresses (including telephone and email) of three referees who are knowledgeable about the candidate’s professional qualifications and work experience. In addition, please include in your CV or cover letter your online presence, eg. Stackoverflow profile, public git repositories, etc if you have any.

Applicants are also requested to attempt the programming task emailed to them after sending in their application and upload their solution to an online and public git repository. They will then email back the url to the git repository following instructions given. 

Applications should be submitted online to the Human Resources through our recruitment portal http://ilri.simplicant.com/before 6 January, 2014. Only online applications will be considered, and only short listed candidates will be contacted. The position title and reference number is REF: SD/AB/12/13 and should be clearly marked on the cover letter.

To find more about ILRI, visit our Website at http://www.ilri.org/
To find out more about working at ILRI visit our website at http://www.ilri.org/ilricrowd/

ILRI is an equal opportunity employer.