Software Engineer, Ethiopia 109 views

Vital Strategies is a US-based international public health organization working in more than 70 countries to strengthen public health systems and address leading causes of morbidity and mortality.

Resolve to Save Lives is an initiative of Vital Strategies with a mission to prevent 100 million deaths from heart disease and to make the world safer from epidemics. Since September 2017, the Resolve to Save Lives Cardiovascular Health and Prevent Epidemics teams have been working closely with governments, the World Health Organization, the World Bank, academic and other partners in a number of low- and middle-income countries to strengthen national capacity to prevent, detect and respond to epidemic threats and improve cardiovascular health. For more information about us, visit: https://www.resolvetosavelives.org/ and https://linkscommunity.org/.

In Ethiopia, the Resolve to Save Lives cardiovascular health team recently started a phased implementation of a hypertension control project that, once scaled, will comprise 62 health centers and 10 primary hospitals across seven regions. This project collaborates with the World Health Organization Country Office and the Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH). In the interest of improving data quality and enhancing program monitoring, Resolve to Save Lives is planning deployment of Simple, a mobile smartphone application by which health workers can quickly and easily register and manage hypertension patients. Simple also includes a web-based dashboard for officials and health system managers to monitor hypertension control across facilities and regions.

Overall role:

The software engineer will be responsible for providing technical support to the new initiative of Simple app implementation and interoperability with the DHIS2 programs. She/he will be seconded to the Federal Ministry of Health to support the effective implementation of Simple App in all Resolve to Save Lives catchment areas and the design of the interoperability of DHIS2. This role is a 12-month consultancy.

Key Duties and Responsibilities:

• Provide Server-side Technical configurations regarding Simple App
• Monitor the system availability and take appropriate backups
• Manage Simple App users’ roles and privileges
• Provide technical support on Simple App administration
• Provide technical support for DHIS2 operation and usage
• Working on Simple app and DHIS2 interoperability
• Improve system quality by identifying issues and common patterns, and developing standard operating procedures
• Enhance applications by identifying opportunities for improvement, making recommendations, and designing and implementing systems
• Investigate technical bugs in the field and helping file bug reports with the engineering and design teams
• Liaise remotely with colleagues to upgrade and debug Simple and DHIS2
• Provide expert advice to the project team to execute user requirements from standpoint of complying with project plans and industry standards
• Provide timely reports to the supervisor on activity status and issues
• Provide Technical reports periodically and report to respective higher level officials
• Perform other duties as assigned

Required Experience and Skills:

• Demonstrated experience in collaborating with a range of partners
• Clear communication of ideas and technical documentation
• Modern web application and API development (Ruby on Rails, Django, PHP, Node, etc.)
• Installing, updating, and maintaining Ubuntu Linux servers
• Network configuration (e.g., firewalls and proxies)
• Command line administration using SSH and shell commands
• Application performance monitoring (e.g., cloud APM services, Prometheus, Graphana)
• Operation and deployment of web applications (e.g., Ansible and Capistrano)
• Version control with Git and GitHub
• Relational database management (with PostgreSQL and MySQL)
• Configuration of web servers and SSL using nginx

Educational qualification and experience:

• Bachelor’s/ Master’s degree in (software engineering, Computer Science or Information Science and related) with at least 5 years of relevant work experience