Full-Stack Software Engineer At CORUS International

About Us

CGA Technologies is an international consultancy firm, registered in the UK, with associated companies in South Sudan, Kenya, Sierra Leone, and Malawi; and also staff based in Somalia, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia.

Since 2011, we have worked to deliver national-scale, sustainable change in the fragile and/or poor countries where we operate; we specialize in doing that by increasing participation and achievement in education, through at-scale cash support to citizens, and by leveraging each to make the other more effective.

In projects in challenging contexts, our consultants provide or support strategy development, policy design and guidance, information systems and bespoke technology, and on-ground implementation and operationalization. Our work allows funds and assurance to flow sustainably. We enhance basic service sectors to play their role in the fight against extreme poverty, in particular through effective use of data systems.

We applied this work in South Sudan where we created the South Sudan School Attendance Monitoring System (sssams.org) which supported an increase of enrolment of school children from 0.9m to 2.7m between 2013 and 2021. This system monitors pupil and teacher attendance, and allows payment and salary incentives to flow to them and their schools. In Sierra Leone, we designed and developed the Human Resources for Health in Sierra Leone system (hrhsl.org) which ensures health worker attendance and delivery of services.

In October 2019, Charlie Goldsmith Associates (CGA) became part of the Corus International multi-sector family, led by Lutheran World Relief-IMA World Health, and we later rebranded as CGA Technologies.

Approach to technology

• We have a coding team of nine, based in the UK and across Africa
• We have an extensive library of tools and code, enabling us to respond rapidly and cost-effectively to client and context requirements
• We specialise in bandwidth-frugal solutions for complex contexts: user-friendly data management platforms and websites; lightweight Android apps with extensive offline/online capability; and synchronisation that prioritises to make the best use of available bandwidth. In such contexts, we also link our systems to existing ones to ensure the right data is collected and used
• Our code is recipient-owned (BSD-3 licence), with no seat licences, and fully open source where possible/relevant
• We are signatories to the Principles for Digital Development.

Other examples of our work include: https://sleams.org; https://mtukula.com/; https://rtdm.education.gov.mw/menu/

Person Specification

We are looking for an experienced full-stack web & Android developer to serve as a core member of our in-house Technology Team, based either from their home base or working within one of our country offices.

Core responsibilities

These include applying your high level of expertise and technical skills alongside our project implementation teams and fellow tech team members to design, develop and support the rollout of systems to clients and populations. These typically include cloud-based MIS and associated context-appropriate Android applications or SMS reporting systems.

Essential requirements

• A strong technical & coding background with experience in:
  • Web application development using PHP, Javascript, MySQL, CSS and similar web languages
  • Android development using Java (Kotlin may also be acceptable)
• Strength in systems architecture (macroscopic code design)
• Experience in full-stack development using frameworks such as Laravel, Bootstrap, JQuery
• Strong UI/UX skills
• Ability to redesign and re-engineer aspects of a codebase
• Strong coding practices (writing clean, logical and well-documented code)
• Ability to identify issues within code and to identify creative solutions
• Good English skills, verbal and written
• Ability to work from home or one of our existing offices, supporting projects around the world
• Ability to work and conduct tasks independently while working well as part of a team, coordinating with and communicating progress to others
• The desire to help improve the lives of others, particularly the poorest and most marginalised.

Desirable qualifications

• Experience of implementing DevOps best-practice
• Cybersecurity/ GDPR/ Safeguarding awareness
• Availability to travel to some fragile/ remote areas
• Understanding of the international development sector, government structures and/or basic service delivery (e.g. health, education, social protection)
• French/other language