Developer (Senior) at Discovery Limited

Key Purpose

The role has multiple facets, the first being to become completely familiar with existing software models in order to be able to maintain and enhance them. Equally important is the development of  new models and functionality for the team. Many of these programs are quite complex in nature.

A less challenging but equally important role is running the programs on a daily and monthly basis – these are called production runs. The programs that need to be run include in-house developed software as well as third party software. For all these, the  input files need to be created, usually by means of C/C++ programs, SQL and shell scripting. Some of these input files themselves can be complex in nature, being created of data from multiple sources.

Running these production runs can involve working outside of office hours, for which time off is granted in lieu of overtime pay. Finally a requirement is to develop ad-hoc programs and front-ends for the team to be able to run various programs themselves – usually through a web page.

Areas of responsibility include but may not be limited to:

• Maintaining and enhancing existing software
• Developing new software
• Creating input files
• Collating output from the various programs for loading into a database
• Running or assisting with production runs
• Developing simple front ends (usually web-pages) to enable the team to run the programs themselves on a single record basis
• Keeping third party software up to date by updating license keys etc.
• Developing adhoc programs and scripts as required by the team
• Investigating new technologies and methodologies to keep the software current.

Personal Attributes and Skills - high proficiency required

• High proficiency in C/C++
• A good knowledge of SQL and relational databases
• Proficiency in Unix shell scripting.
• Good knowledge of Unix (mainly Solaris, and some Linux)
• Technical computer knowledge – e.g. using shared memory, binary files etc.
• Must be able to work unsupervised (mentorship is provided)
• Enthusiasm and willingness to learn

Personal Attributes and Skills – proficiency required

• Unix command-line experience
• Working knowledge of Microsoft Office products; MS-Word, MS-Excel
• Working with a source-level debugger (for C)
• ProC (Oracle’s SQL interface for C)
• XML / XSLT
• HTML / CSS
• PHP
• Java/Javascript
• Any other web technologies such as APIs

Education and Experience – minimum

• Computer-related tertiary qualification – or minimum 10 years’ experience working in a highly technical environment
• Minimum 5 years’ solid C or C++ programming experience
• Minimum 5 years’ experience software development in a Unix environment.
• Minimum 3 years’ SQL experience, preferably with Oracle and/or Netezza
• 2 years shell scripting (knowledge of awk or perl advantageous)
• 1-year HTML programming exposure
• 1-year XML/XSLT programming exposure
• 6 months PHP programming
• 2 years working with MS-Excel, MS-Word etc.