Background

The United Nations Department for Safety and Security (UNDSS) provides management and oversight to the United Nations Security Management System (UNSMS). UNDSS has developed a number of systems to aid in the integration of security related information with in the UNSMS.

UNDSS seeks a technical expert to maintain and further develop, design, deploy, monitor, support, maintain and demonstrate data services between and with all other agencies with in the UNSMS. The contract will be issued by UNDP on behalf of UNDSS, in accordance with the MOU signed between the two organizations.

Duties and Responsibilities

The Web Services / Cloud Services expert shall under the supervision of the Chief, Crisis Management Support section, be responsible for the following:

Design:
  • The design activity includes the creation and extension of the UNDSS core class libraries and improving and extending the data retrieval logic as well as code optimization and documentation. It also requires designing and defining the parameters, service endpoints, URLs, WSDLs, and service discovery sites and tools;
  • In support of asynchronous applications specific logic and data structures need to be designed to support Off-Line capable, data driven applications.
Deployment:
  • Deployment requires the setup, configuration, and most importantly testing of the server and security logic for accessing, logging and hosting the cloud based data services;
  • This currently includes the implementation of client certificate based authentication as well as username authentication against a number of corporate identity systems and services.
Monitor:
  • Monitoring requires the collection, review and diagnosis all the service and application logs;
  • This requires pro-actively reviewing the deployed services and to recommend changes to the model, the core code, data retrieval logic, and server setup or configuration when new vulnerabilities or bugs are discovered, reported, or anticipated; In case of a server or service interruption (Sandy, Certificate Expiration, DoS attack, hack, or simply service overload), the service expert is responsible for informing all the agencies of the service status, the contingencies, as well as the impact and expected duration of the event.
Support:
  • Support mainly requires guidance of the external service design and implementation teams engaged by a growing number of agencies;
  • This includes training, support and guidance to a wide range of IT consultants whom the agencies engage;
  • This often requires sessions with teams at times more suitable for the larger teams located in Mumbai (IMF), Tokyo (UNU) or Entebbe (DPKO);
  • Since services don’t provide a tangible user interface, agency specific guidance is key to maintaining good inter-agency relationships, and to more efficiently market, drive, and support interagency information sharing.
Maintain:
  • Maintenance of the data services requires periodically updating the DSS Core DBML to validate as well as incorporate all the changes to the SQL database;
  • Maintenance also involves making sure the server logs get archived and moved away from the production platform to ensure that sufficient space is available for the services, as well as proper server operation.
Demonstrate:
  • Demonstration of the data services requires the creation of a number of demonstration applications written in Java (NetBeans), HTML5 (SharePoint, MVC, WP8), and XAML (Silverlight, Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8);
  • These demo applications need to demonstrate usability, simplicity as well as scalability features and concepts.
The deployed data services are the gateway between the UNDSS Security systems and other entities of the UNSMS corporate systems based on SAP, PeopleSoft or custom systems and their associated travel services (Travelocity, Carlson-Wagonlit and other Computer Reservation Systems).

Competencies

Corporate Competencies:
  • Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
  • Treats all people fairly without favoritism.

Functional Competencies:
  • Ability to work in a team and respect diversity;
  • Excellent organizational skills;
  • Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

  • Advanced university degree (Master’s degree or equivalent) in electronic, technical or communications engineering; technical science; computer technology or related field.;
  • A first-level university degree in combination with qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.

Experience:

  • A minimum of 10 years experience in information systems with a focus on systems architecture, web services design and implementation, systems design and implementation.
Language:
  • Fluency in verbal and written English.

Skills required:

Systems:
  • Proven working knowledge with Windows 2008 Server, Windows 7, Windows 8 and 8.1. Understanding of IIS, Windows instrumentation, and log analysis in support of the required tasks.
Services:
  • Thorough understanding of the SOAP standards, REST, JSON, WCF protocols, and Authentication and Authorization standards and systems.
  • Understanding and experience programming GIS based applications using either Google Maps, ESRI, Virtual Earth and or GeoNode.
SQL:
  • In depth knowledge of SQL Server, T-SQL and stored procedure development and query optimization;
  • In addition, in terms of data skills we require proven experience and understanding of Linq-To-SQL as well as experience working with the Entity Framework.
WEB:
  • Experience working with, and programming DNN, MVC and SharePoint portals;
  • Proven capability in developing web parts that use secure services instead of SQL for their data functions.
Programming:
  • At least 5 years of experience programming and maintaining data services programmed in C#;
  • In addition, proven track record programming “Offline capable” applications using the Sync Framework, or local XML data repositories;
  • Primary programming language sought after is C#. This requires understanding of proxy classes, provider models, as well as familiarity with patterns and practices such as MVVM, IoC (Inversion of Control) and MVC (Model View Controller).
Team:
  • Experience in the use of Test Driven Development, Unit Tests, and the use of Team Foundation Services and/or GIT for collaboration and sharing of builds, source code, tests and bug reports.
Azure:
  • Optionally, if the candidate has experience with scalable architectures such as Azure or S3, this will be greatly appreciated;
  • The future of services and computing clearly lies in professionally hosted cloud services, and accordingly, insight and experience in this regard is a strategic and a distinguishing factor.
Flexibility:
  • The candidate needs to be able to adapt to work hours related to the prevailing, as well as field based, business needs.;
  • In addition, travel may be needed to areas where SIOCs and Development teams are working to better understand the connectivity issues, as well as the data and operational activity concerns.
Clarifications:

Any request for clarification must be sent in writing, or by standard electronic communication to the address or e-mail dedicated for this purpose: karla.dalimunthe@undp.org and cc to bakhtiyor.khamraev@undp.org. UNDP will respond in writing or by standard electronic mail and will send written copies of the response, including an explanation of the query without identifying the source of inquiry, to all interested consultants.

Documents to be Included when Submitting the Proposals:

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

  • Cover note explaining why they are the most suitable for the work;
  • Personal CV including past experience in similar projects and at least 3 references;
  • Financial proposal. 

Financial Proposals:

The financial proposal will specify the daily fee. Payments are made to the Individual Consultant based on the number of days worked. The consultancy is home based with work up to 11 days per month.

No Travel:

Evaluation:

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodologies:

Cumulative analysis

When using this weighted scoring method, the award of the contract should be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

  • Responsive/compliant/acceptable; and
  • Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation.

Technical Criteria weight; 50%

Interview weight; 30%

Financial Criteria weight; 20%

Applicants are shortlisted based on technical criteria stated below. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted for an interview.

And only candidates obtaining a minimum of 68 points (85%) of the combined technical criteria and interview would be considered for the Financial Evaluation.

Criteria:

  • Technical (Weight: 50%)

Systems (weight 3%)

Web Services (weight 40%)

SQL (weight 4%)

Programming (weight 3%)
  • Interview (Weight: 30%)
  • Financial (Weight: 20%)