Vacancies at Discovery Limited

Key Purpose

To provide support to the business unit by assisting the business unit to define and develop business processes through questioning stated requirements, providing recommendations, and designing process diagrams.

Areas of responsibility may include but not limited to

• Acting as a ‘bridge’ between business needs and the Systems/IT department by translating working with the business to define requirements and thereafter working with the Systems/IT team to translate business requirements into technical specifications. Clarity in communication is an essential component of this function.
• Understand the business strategy and ensure requirements are aligned.
• Critical thinking skills, ability to sort through what information is important and what it is not.
• Analytical skills, ability to analyze the business and how the users need to work. Ability to understand both high level and detailed requirements.
• Written communication skills, ability to write clearly, simplify complex situations and produce documents that are readable and understandable to all stakeholders.
• Work in an Agile environment and be a part of all the agile ceremonies i.e Big room planning, Sprint planning, Sprint retro’s, Daily standup’s etc
• Taking ownership of the development process on behalf of the Business or Product owner by attending meetings with Systems/IT team, liaising with Developers thereby ensuring the development and testing is according to specification.
• Self-sufficient, takes accountability and manages deadlines and deliverables pro-actively with minimal supervision from immediate manager.
• Collaboration: To bring all the aspects and advice together for all parties in order to enable process implementation – automated or otherwise – in a manner that achieves business objectives.
• UML and Requirement Documentation: Ensuring that business needs are clearly documented by mapping changes to existing processes or developing new processes as required. The documentation of these processes in a clear manner using UML and bespoke business templates for consumption by developers, testers and business units.
• Prototyping: Able to wireframe high level concepts for understanding and agreement between developers and business to ensure agreement on flow and usability.
• Business Knowledge: Able to understand and consume business processes as well as document business processes in the flow of standard operating procedures – outside of the concept of functional requirements. The BA needs to ensure they understand the As is process and ability to document what’s required to get to the To be process.
• Development Support: To provide support during the development phase by being available for questions or clarification and providing feedback to Development teams as appropriate. To minimise the number of comebacks or rework required by the Developers through clearly articulating and communicating business specifications, using multiple channels (workshops, email etc) to facilitate understanding.
• Testing Support: Required to conduct own BA testing and ensure the development is aligned to the requirement. To provide support during the testing phase by reviewing and validating test cases.
• Guidance and advice to the business: To provide sound guidance and advice on planned changes to business by striving to clearly understand business needs and making considered recommendations as appropriate. The BA is not a scribe and needs to understand the business and ensure the desired solution is best fit for business.

Personal Attributes and Skills

Behavioral Skills

• Analytical and Conceptual (Advanced)
• Communication (written and verbal) (Advanced)
• Project Management (Basic)
• Multi-tasking (Advanced)
• Relationship Building (Advanced)
• UML (Advanced)
• Prototyping (Advanced)
• Test Management (Advanced)
• Agile Methodology (Intermediate)

Technical Skills

• Systems (Intermediate)
• Development (Intermediate)
• Software development Lifecycle (Advanced)
• Business (Advanced)

Education and Experience

Minimum

• Degree / Diploma in IT (Advantageous)
• Business Analyst course (Essential)
• 3 years Business Analyst experience (Essential)
• 1 year Insurance industry experience (Advantageous)
• 2 years UML experience (Essential)
• 2years Screen Prototyping experience (Essential)
• 1 year JIRA (Essential)
• 1 year Confluence (essential)

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Key Purpose

To fulfil a pivotal role within a software development team that designs, develops and maintains the systems for Discovery’s dynamic Life Insurance business.

Areas of responsibility may include but not limited to

Planning:

• Perform a high-level impact analysis, establish Scope and provide estimates based on technical requirements.
• Proactively liaise with all stakeholders.
• Create required planning tasks in SDLC tool and set due dates according to agreed milestones.

Analysis and Design:

• Actively participate in the collaborative technical design process.
• Research and find effective solutions to technical issues that arise.
• Update development timelines based on final requirements.
• Liaise with the relevant subject matter experts where clarification is required.

Development:

• Translate technical requirements into executable code without errors.
• Ensure optimally performing system code in line with technical specifications, following prescribed process, architecture standards and procedures.
• Ensure delivery within agreed timeframes.
• Conduct unit testing and fix any defects found within the agreed SLA.
• Escalate risks to the project early on.

Quality and Testing:

• Run code through the automated code review tool, review errors with the technical lead and fix before committing to the code base.
• Perform peer code reviews to ensure consistent application of standards, logic and effective use of libraries and reusable aspects of the software.
• Develop and maintain reusable Unit Tests.
• Assist the Test Analyst in ensuring that a comprehensive test pack is produced, which includes all the required scenarios. 
• Verify that the completed software meets the established standards and is fit for purpose.
• Review the risk / impact of defects found in testing, prioritize and ensure that the priority is accurate.

Risk and Release Management:

• Conform to the Build and Release cycles.
• Provide timeous support to the Quality Assurance Team when issues arise during testing.
• Handle all outstanding defects.

Production Support and Root Cause management:

• Ensure that the root cause of system errors are effectively analysed and prioritized for fixing.
• Proactively bring issues and problems to the attention of the team and propose solutions to solve them.
• Assist system users and the infrastructure teams with technical support issues.

Team Collaboration:

• Adhere to the culture of communication and collaboration across all teams. 
• Attend and participate in the regular team / project stand-ups.
• Actively mentor team members where required.
• Provide feedback at the regular 1-on-1’s with your leader.
• Proactively set goals, track them and address any concerns with your leader.
• Participate in Performance reviews with your line manager and project leads.
• Actively participate in internal up-skilling initiatives.
• Transfer knowledge and contribute to building a shared knowledge base

Personal development:

• Keep abreast of current technological trends and how these might be applied in the Discovery environment.
• Constant improvement of knowledge of the various applications, their functions and data models.

General:

• Ability to communicate clearly, constructively and effectively. Able to follow and participate in technical, business process, and other discussions.
• Able to build strong business relationships with other members of the team and the business areas we support.

Personal Attributes and Skills

Intermediate knowledge of:

• Applicable programming disciplines and languages.  Refer to technical competencies list.
• Data modelling and design of database structures
• Unit Testing
• Systems Integration testing
• SDLC methodologies

Behavioural Skills:

• Action orientated go-getter, hungry to learn and add real value.
• Self-motivated.
• Driven by a sense of responsibility and ownership.
• Structured and analytical problem solver: Obsessive about finding solutions to problems.
• Able to plan, organise and prioritize own work.
• Attention to detail.
• Able to multitask.
• Highly adaptive and flexible to a changing environment.
• Able to work independently, but also as an effective member of a Team: reliable, works actively with others towards common goal, communicates constructively, shares information, knowledge and experience, treats others in a respectful and supportive manner.

Education and Experience

Essential:

• 1+ years’ experience in software development
• IT related Degree or Diploma (BSc/BTech or similar).

Advantageous:

• Formal software development qualification(s), such as Object-Oriented Analysis & Design.

Key Technical Competencies

General:

• Version control (git)

Java:

• Java programming language
• Java EE
• JBoss EAP (or similar Application Server)
• Data layer (JPA, Domain Object Model, XML/XSD, JAXB, ORM frameworks, RDBMS and PL/SQL beneficial)
• Business services (EJB)
• Presentation layer technologies (JavaServer Faces, HTML 5, JavaScript,  CSS3)
• Testing methodologies
• SDLC tools (Jira or BitBucket)