IT Developer

The European Science Foundation (ESF) provides administrative and scientific management for COST, COST’s Domain Committees and Actions through the COST Office in Brussels, as well as corporate support services in Strasbourg. This is achieved through a support grant provided to ESF by the European Commission. COST is an intergovernmental system supporting European research networking.

The ESF seeks an IT Developer for its Brussels office whose mission is to develop, maintain, and implement the evolution of the COST application suite in order to ensure optimal performance.

This is to be achieved through values of excellence, openness, and responsiveness, coupled with a pan-European approach and a commitment to ethical awareness and human values.

Under the guidance of the IS Manager, the principal success factors of this position are to demonstrate the ability to maintain existing IT systems in an optimal way, to analyse new requirements, and to suggest and develop appropriate solutions and testing procedures to ensure user requests are met with high quality products.

This position will involve:

• Developing new applications and maintaining/modifying existing ones, using standard tools and programming environments, in particular PHP, SQL, HTML and JavaScript (Ajax);
• Contributing to the continuous enhancement of IT services through the customisation and interfacing of existing software packages (Wiki, Web-Portals, BI Tools, COST application suite);
• Creating test specifications and carrying out testing;
• Continuous documentation of any changes made in development;
• Providing support to the IT Assistants through bug analysis and the release of fixes;
• Contributing to the training of COST users;
• Undertaking other duties as necessary and at the request of the COST Direction, and communicated by the IS Manager.

The successful candidate should demonstrate the following competencies:

Specific competencies:

• Bachelor’s or Master’s Degree in Computer Science or Electrical Engineering or equivalent practical experience;
• Applied professional experience from 2 to 5 years;
• Fluent spoken and written English;
• Web application knowledge: PHP, Apache, HTML, Java Script, XML; knowledge of Java and Web Services is an asset;
• Experience of relational database programming (SQL Server, MySQL) is an asset;
• Object oriented programming;
• Strong analytical skills;
• Knowledge of Smarty is an asset;
• Good knowledge of UML; knowledge of BPM and SOA is an asset;
• Security/Privacy awareness: Web and Data protection, Filters, etc;
• Practical experience of client/server environments: Windows Authentication and File/Print shares, Linux/ Samba, Active Directory, basic knowledge of network technology (TCP/IP, DHCP/DNS);
• Practical knowledge of office applications: MS Office, Adobe Acrobat;
• Hardware awareness: backup systems, LAN, etc.

Interpersonal competencies:

• Service oriented attitude and ability to work to planned deadlines;
• Strong troubleshooting skills and quick learner;
• Excellent communication skills and ability to easily integrate into an international team;
• Autonomy, creativity, pro-activity and availability;
• Discretion and confidentiality;
• Positive and constructive attitude.

Employment conditions:

• An international working environment located in Brussels at 1050, avenue Louise 149;
• Full-time contract of 12 months duration, with an initial probationary period of 4 months;
• Competitive salary;
• Luncheon vouchers and complementary insurance package;
• Candidates should be eligible to work in Belgium and should have a Work Permit unless nationals of the ‘EU and EEE’.

Electronic applications (motivation letter + CV) should be addressed to the COST Office Director and sent to job@cost.eu
Reference code: ITD2011

Invitations for interview will be sent on March 17th 2011 and interviews will take place on March 24th 2011. The selected person should ideally be available as soon as possible.

For general information about COST, please visit http://www.cost.eu

Closing date: March 11th 2011