Purpose of the post

HDR UK requires the services of an experienced Full Stack Software Engineer to develop the next phase of our technical solutions including the Health Data Research Gateway (https://healthdatagateway.org/), Safe People Registry (https://safepeopleregistry.org/), Cohort Discovery and future technology services. This includes how our services, standards and associated open APIs work with the wider Technology Ecosystem across a range of academic, clinical, and industry groups.

The successful candidate will be part of a multidisciplinary team that develops an over-arching interoperable infrastructure to ensure that UK health data assets are Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reuseable (FAIR) and accessible for research, innovation and clinical trials. The chosen applicant will be expected to work within an Agile software development team, providing development of infrastructure and services to deliver scientific insights, that improve health and healthcare of the UK and worldwide populations.

The successful candidate will be expected to provide individual contribution as a full stack hands-on developer, work within the Gateway and wider Technology Ecosystem development teams, carry out code review & quality checks and document as required.

Main Responsibilities:

·       Software Development:

o   Full Stack software development

o   Developing all different aspects of the Technology Teams Products including Search, Content Management, APIs, Visualisations and Integrations

o   Working to an agile methodology

o   Documenting code, conducting code reviews for the team and maintaining high quality, performant and testable code

o   PSR standards and optimisations surrounding code

o   Champion entire feature additions, from feature breakdown to user stories and implementation

·       Technical expertise

o   Troubleshooting and supporting development issues as they arise working with the team and escalating to Technical Programme Director as necessary

o   Demonstrable ability to collaborate and guide external partners on how to utilise, and integrate with, our new developments

·       Training and Capacity building          

o   Maintain and share awareness of current best practices in software development, open science, reproducibility and agile methodology

o   Engage with national and international bodies to identify opportunities for collaboration and support to upskill the HDR UK community

·       Community and Engagement

o   Identify and initiate new activities to sustain and diversify the HDR UK technical community

o   Demonstrate technical leadership by voicing concerns about proposed solutions and offer alternatives where appropriate

o   Be a technical voice for developments of proofs of concept to completion, including design and documentation of new systems

Continuous Improvement:

HDR UK is dedicated to continuous improvement through our quality management system and demonstrated by our commitment to achieve ISO 9001 accreditation. The post-holder will review, analyse, identify and implement opportunities for quality improvement within their specialism and as part of the wider team through our strategy development and internal audit processes.

Key contacts / relationships:

The successful candidate will need to work collaboratively across the Innovation Gateway internal team: Technical Programme Director, Product Owner, Chief Solution Architect, Scrum Master, Business Analysts and Automation Test Engineer and the wider Technology Ecosystem community.

Knowledge, skills and experience

Essential:

·       Experience working in an agile / scrum software development team

·       Comfortable operating across national teams and different strategic initiatives (i.e. science and technology)

·       Experience using Confluence, JIRA, Trello or similar Agile project management tools

·       Proficient in English

·       5+ years software development experience

·       Exceptional attention to detail

·       Demonstrable experience using Git (preferably GitHub)

·       Have worked with software development best practice (e.g.  testing, continuous integration, documentation, release management)

·       Have been through all software development life cycle stages (requirements, prioritisation, specification, design, code and test).

·       Delivered code in an iterative project management-based context.

·       Worked as part of a team of engineers (four or more concurrently) working on a codebase.

• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills

·       Excellent time management and organisational skills

·       Ability to work independently and as part of a team

·       Ability to liaise confidently and effectively with a range of individuals

·       Willingness to learn and develop

·       A good BSc. (2:1 or better) in Computer Science or other related subject with a strong computational component or equivalent experience

·       Experience presenting at technical and non-technical workshops

·       Ability to research, adapt to and adopt new technologies and approaches

• Interest in engaging with research challenges relevant to Health Data

Desirable:

·       A good understanding of health data research

·       Experience of working within academia as well as industry

·       Google Cloud Platform experience

·       Working knowledge of front and back end testing frameworks such as Cypress and Pest

·       PHP, GO and Python knowledge

·       A working knowledge of Google’s Material UI

·       Kubernetes and/or Docker orchestration experience

·       Distributed Open Development

·       2+ years’ experience working with React, Node.js and SQL Technologies (Maria DB/MySQL)

·       PhD. In a computing, computing related subject, Life Science subject with a strong computational component or equivalent experience

• Awareness of national and international RSE landscape

• Active awareness of researcher/practitioner communities in relevant domains adjacent to Health Data (e.g. bioinformatics, bio/medical data visualisation, machine learning)

·       Awareness of existing and emerging standards and technologies for reproducible computational science

Dimensions

·       This is a full-time role. We are happy to consider job share applications or consider applications for part time hours. Travel in the UK may be required to partner organisations

·       HDR UK is a national institute, and our activities take place across the UK

Application Process

How to apply:  Unless specified, please apply using our online portal. We use a recruitment process that is based on finding out more about the relevant skills and knowledge an applicant has and to help us with this we ask you 3 or 4 skills-based questions as part of the application process.

We will ask you to upload your CV and covering letter, these will be anonymised and will be used if you are shortlisted.

Please contact recruitment@hdruk.ac.ukrecruitment@hdruk.ac.uk if you have any queries regarding your application.

Summary of Benefits

·       27 days annual leave plus 8 days for Bank Holidays

·       Annual leave purchase scheme

·       Medical Cash-Plan and Doctorline

·       Wellbeing support, including access to the TogetherAll app

·       Generous pension scheme, with 10% employer contributions

Equal Opportunities Policy Statement

Health Data Research UK is an equal opportunities employer, and as such aims to treat all employees, consultants and applicants fairly. It is our policy to provide employment equality to all, irrespective of: