Jobs - 25129- UN Women: Systems Development Specialist

UN Women: Systems Development Specialist

Location :

New York, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

Application Deadline :

31-Aug-11 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

National Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

Languages Required :

English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence. UNDP does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

Background

Grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, UN Women will work for the elimination of discrimination against women and girls; the empowerment of women; and the achievement of equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security. Placing women’s rights at the centre of all its efforts, UN Women will lead and coordinate United Nations System efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. It will provide strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.

UN WOMEN has around 1000 staff members and consultants. Its headquarters is based in NY, USA and it has a presence in around 80 countries world-wide through its 15 Sub-regional Offices, country programmes and liaison offices.

This position reports to the Manager, Information Systems and Telecommunications (IST) office and the incumbent is responsible for the architecture, design and implementation of activities related to systems development including integration and maintenance of the UN Women Knowledge Management Portal, web sites and the database applications.

Duties and Responsibilities

1. Systems analysis and design:

Elicit, analyze, specify and validate business requirements.
Develop software and hardware specifications of UN Women business application and knowledge management systems.
Develop and translate business requirements into application functionality, specifications, and test plans.
Monitoring infrastructural components of UN Women information systems and suggest options to improve designs.
Liaising with staff in business units, external IT specialists, UN Women governing bodies and provide specialized advice to users.
Develop business systems documentation.
Maintain effective communications with end users.
Apply rapid development and iterative prototyping to complex software problems.

2. System development and maintenance:

Develop and maintain UN Women business applications using the .NET technologies, SharePoint and SQL/ Server.
Develop web pages and make configuration as needed to enhance Knowledge Management Portal and web sites.
Perform impact analysis and change control and manages implementation of the changes in liaison with internal and external stakeholders.
Develop and maintain interface modules between different UN Women business applications.
Coordinate with outsourced company developers about the requirements to the system changes/ development, discussing technical issues and getting the solution as per agreed contracts.

3. Standard and Quality Assurance/ ICT Service Management:

Develop, implement and monitor information standards and guidelines.
Ensure that software code adhere to the standards including the applications security aspects.
Provide advise on use of new techniques, monitoring transactions between the systems to measure performance and continued effectiveness.
Ensuring data security and access controls considering both local and wide area issues.
Coordinating with the ICT Infrastructure Team on the appropriate hardware/software platform in order to improve the performance and stability of UN Women’s systems.
Researching and analyzing new technologies and making suggestions for their deployment.
Participate in elaboration of internal procedures, mechanisms and controls to ensure stability, improved quality, security and performance of systems.
Monitor responsiveness and robustness of usage and maintenance procedures.
Coordinating efforts to develop and maintain the library of system documentation and internal user manuals, training materials, and guidelines and making recommendations on improvements.
Maintaining and updating the Helpdesk knowledge base to support internal and external users.
Liaise with users on information technology and systems issues by representing the IST Section in committees, task forces and steering groups and by regularly meeting with peers.
Conduct ICT Change Management, Incident Management, Capacity Management, Configuration Management and Risk Management.

Competencies

Job Knowledge/Technical Expertise:

Demonstrated proficiency to have analytical ability and thorough understanding of software development life cycle processes.
Knowledge of information technology platforms for web based database systems.
Actively seeks to apply current expertise and new ideas on how to optimize use of technology to streamline workloads.

Client Orientation:

Able to identify and analyze clients' needs and develop appropriate technology solutions to meet business requirements; desire to organize and improve processes.

Planning and Organization:

Ability to establish priorities and to plan, coordinate and monitor own work plan.
Proven ability to work under pressure and produce output that is accurate, timely and of high quality
Ability to manage conflicting priorities.

Communications:

Able to speak and write clearly and effectively, including to: advise and train users on the use of complex systems/applications and related matters.
Prepare specifications and other written reports/documentation in a clear and concise style.

Teamwork:

Good interpersonal skills; ability to establish and maintain effective partnerships and working relations with people in a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic environment with sensitivity and respect for diversity.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

Advanced university degree (Master's degree or equivalent) in Computer or Information Systems or related area.
Additional certification related to Software development and project management is desirable.

Experience:

Minimum 5 years of relevant experience in information and communication technology, particularly in systems analysis, database design, programming, application integration and data manipulation.
Experience in developing applications using .NET technologies including C#, ASP.NET, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, IIS.
Experience in configuring and customizing SharePoint based applications and portals.
Experience with database design and modeling, stored procedures, with a SQL Server background.
Experience in XML, Web Services and related technologies.
Proven experience with software development projects, with proven ability to manage medium to large technical projects involving internal and external (outsourced) teams.
Experience with Java and Oracle RDBMS will be a plus.

Language:

Fluency in English (oral and written).
Knowledge of another UN language is an asset.

Note:

In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. The creation of UN Women came about as part of the UN reform agenda, bringing together resources and mandates for greater impact. It merges and builds on the important work of four previously distinct parts of the UN system (DAW, OSAGI, INSTRAW and UNIFEM), which focused exclusively on gender equality and women's empowerment.

All applications must include (as an attachment) the completed UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment

Kindly note that the system will only allow one attachment. Applications without the completed UN Women P-11 form will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered for further assessment.