Job Description

We are seeking to appoint a full-time software engineer/programmer to be based in Addis Ababa, St. Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical College with frequent travel to the field site located close to Debre Birhan town, to support the HaSET Maternal and Child Health Research Program and its sub studies in the BIRHAN field site. This is a collaboration between St. Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical College, the Ethiopian Public Health Institute, and Harvard University. The post holder will work to develop a data system for HaSET, maintain and troubleshoot the data system for the program, and work closely with an international and local team.

St. Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical College, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

The Medical School opened in 2007; it is intended to alleviate the severe shortage of medical doctors in the country. In line with various encouraging efforts performed by the Ethiopian Federal Ministry of Health in this regard, it is clear that the newly opened school, with a practical modular and integrated curriculum will be providing much-needed medical professionals to the people of Ethiopia.

Harvard University, USA

Harvard University traces its roots to public health activism. The faculty commits themselves to research as well as teaching. The University produces knowledge through research, reproduces knowledge through higher education, and translates knowledge into evidence that can be communicated to the public, policymakers, and practitioners to advance the health of populations.

HaSET Maternal and Child Health Research Program

The HaSET (“happiness” in Amharic) Global Maternal and Child Health Research Program generates evidence to improve maternal and child health programs and policies. Within the HaSET research program are several nested sub-studies, including the Antenatal Care/Postnatal Care Research Collective (ARC) and the BIRHAN Maternal and Child Morbidity and Mortality Surveillance program, aimed at understanding the causes of maternal and child morbidity and mortality in Ethiopia. Research takes place at the BIRHAN field site in North Shewa Zone, Ethiopia. The BIRHAN and ARC studies are a joint partnership between St. Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical College in Ethiopia and Harvard University.

PRINCIPAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

The post-holder will work full-time in Addis Ababa with frequent travel to Debre Birhan and regular interaction with the investigators, data system developers, research manager, clinical research coordinator, and data management team. The post-holder will be responsible for developing and maintaining HaSET’s data system in collaboration with other staff developers and international partners, troubleshooting data system challenges, and ensuring data quality from a systems perspective. NB: To minimize exposure during the COVID-19 pandemic, HaSET staff are working primarily from home with limited field activities; regular office attendance will resume when risk is reduced.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Translate user stories into software application feature
• Write clean, maintainable, and testable code following coding standards
• Refactor existing code for reuse, efficiency, and extensibility
• Assess and validate solution options against requirements
• Work closely with the field and data team in the design, configuration, and customization of solutions
• Author application and system design documents (manual), document implementation and operation processes
• Provide production support and fix bugs
• Maintain and troubleshoot data system and participate in data management activities
• Improve existing data system performance quality
• Conduct regular security checks and identify existing or potential security breaches to the existing program
• Installation of applications and support and training of personnel as required
• Working with closely related teams with high level of engagement and support  in their routine work

This job description reflects the present requirements of the post but may be altered at any time in the future, as duties and responsibilities change and/or develop providing there is full consultation with the post-holder. The post-holder will carry out any other duties, tasks or responsibilities as reasonably requested by PI and investigators.

Location: Addis Ababa with frequent travel to Debre Birhan

Position Report to Program Manager

Position Supervised by:  Lead Data System Developer 

No. of posts :1

Duration of contract  :1 year with likely extension

Personal Specification 

Essential requirements

• A bachelor’s or master’s degree in software engineering, computer science, information technology or a related field
• 4+ years of professional experience with HTML, CSS & JavaScript or web-based platforms
• Demonstrated understanding of front end build tools/pipelines including Yarn/NPM, Webpack, Node.js
• Very good familiarity with Chrome DevTools
• Understanding of Progressive Web Apps(PWA) development
• Solid understanding of object-oriented principles
• Experience with RESTFUL web services
• Experience with SQL & NoSQL databases
• Familiarity with Cloud Hosting environments (AWS, GCP)
• Knowledge about CI/CD processes
• Hands on experience with the Git version control system
• Excellent verbal and written communication and presentation skills with ability to communicate effectively with technical and non-technical people

Preferred requirements

• 3+ years’ experience working on field related epidemiology research in low-income country settings
• Experience with Tangerine or CommCare data collection platform
• Experience with Angular web framework