Background
Established in 2016, the Global Programs for Research and Training, based in Kampala and Nairobi, is a Non-Governmental Organization to represent the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) East Africa projects. UCSF’s Global Strategic Information (GSI) has worked closely with CDC/PEPFAR for over 8 years with a focus on strategic information (SI) and development of associated Health Information Systems (HIS). Additionally, GSI has more than 10 years’ experience working on HIS in over 15 countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, and eastern Europe, providing high-level strategic thinking, technical assistance (TA) in the development of all levels of HIS systems, data presentation and interpretation, and local capacity building. UCSF works closely with multiple stakeholders including MOHs, various funders, institutions of higher education, and implementing partners (IP).
Currently, UCSF is a partner for CDC-funded development and implementation of an OpenMRS HIV Reference Implementation (OHRI). The program seeks to create a system of global support with buy-in from six selected countries (Uganda, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Haiti and Rwanda) for OHRI and has a focus on driving data exchange and interoperability across the HIS systems to improve efficiencies for providing patient care, improving program monitoring and leveraging analytics for data driven decision making. We will be working with University of Nairobi and Makerere University to help manage developers, collaborate in a community of practice, and ultimately build capacity in more junior developers.
The Junior OpenMRS Developer shall integrate into a team of developers, project managers, and business analysts in designing, developing, implementing, maintaining, auditing and improving new and existing health information systems and project software. He/she shall be responsible for architecting and leading the technical approach for developing and eventually implementing OHRI. To ensure bi-directional data exchange between electronic medical records systems and aggregate systems and patient’s tracker systems. The developer shall also ensure that the different software developed conforms to UCSF and country software development standards by overseeing a business analyst team conducting rigorous diagnosis, tests, code debugging, and technical documentation through reference manuals.
Under the direction of the HISTAC Lead Developer, UCSF the Junior OPENMRS Developer will:
Roles and Responsibilities:
- Work with HIS business analysts and developers to design software solutions by studying information needs; systems flow, data usage, and work processes while adhering to the software development lifecycle
- Managing and juggling multiple deadlines and priorities, while also successfully setting scopes of work and tasks for main development teams
- Liaising with high level leadership from CDC/PEPFAR/MOH/NGOs to set priorities, agendas, and scopes of work
- Support the development of an integrations and interoperability between OHRI and other systems such as LIS and CBS
- Work with HIS business analysts, developers, and IT support staff to support the piloting, rollout and maintenance of HIS systems in public health facilities.
- Work with HIS business analysts and developers to investigate, analyze and make recommendations to management regarding technology improvements, upgrades and modifications
- Work with HIS business analysts and project managers to analyze user needs and software requirements to determine feasibility of design within time and cost constraints.
- Develop and direct software system testing and validation procedures, programming and documentation
- Work with HIS business analysts and developers to prepare reference materials for end and technical users by writing operating instructions, flowcharts, layouts, diagrams, charts, code comments and clear code
- Undertake such other tasks within the scope of the role as directed by leadership from time to time.
- Develop OHRI program workflows from data collection forms, clinical dashboards with decision support summaries, monitoring and clinical reports
Required knowledge, skills and abilities:
- A minimum of 3 years of experience as a software developer or engineer; with 2 years of OpenMRS development experience.
- Ability to meet deadlines against multiple priorities and schedules, as well as the ability to manage scope creep and immediately alert leadership of issues with budgeting or timelines
- Advanced experience in developing data-driven applications utilizing significant relational database engines as part of the overall application architecture (experience with any or all of the following highly desirable: PostgreSQL, MySQL, Oracle, MS SQL Server, H2 SQL)
- Working experience using Spring, Hibernate, JQuery, Subversion, Liquibase, Git, Restful web services, Agile methodology, Maven, React
- Advanced knowledge and demonstrable skill with popular open-source programming languages (must include JAVA and JavaScript)
- Proficiency developing and troubleshooting complex software systems that run in mixed environments including Linux, Unix and/or Windows on desktop, server, tablet, and mobile systems
- Experience with React and Micro-frontends-based architectures is a plus
Education and Experience:
- A bachelor’s degree in computer science and software engineering and Information systems with a minimum of ten years’ experience in software development or working with health information systems.
How to apply
Qualified Kenya nationals are encouraged to apply.
Applicants must address each selection criterion detailed in the minimum requirements above with specific and comprehensive information supporting each item.
Applications must include a
- Cover letter
- Current CV with names and contact details of three referees
Applications should be sent by email to HR.Kenya@ucglobalprograms.orgwith the email subject, Junior OPENMRS Developer by Friday, February 24, 2023
Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.
