Call for expression of interest for the Roster of National Consultants for digital governance tools development with expertise in: software development; software testing; product management; knowledge management; DevOps engineering; IT architecture..

Vacancy Number: Pr22/02554

Location:Chisinau, Moldova
Application Deadline: 31 Oct 2022, 16:00 (GMT+2:00)
Starting date: 01 Nov 2022
Reference to the project: Accelerating Digital Transformation in Public Sector in the Republic of Moldova
Expected Duration of Assignment:undefined, throughout October 2022 – December 2023
Submission Instructions:

Expression of interest should be submitted online, by pressing the "Apply Online" button, no later than 31.10.2022.

Requests for clarification only must be sent by standard electronic communication to the following e-mail:serghei.botezatu@undp.org

UNDP will respond by standard electronic mail and will send written copies of the response, including an explanation of the query without identifying the source of inquiry, to all applicants.

Supporting Documents:
Terms of Reference - National consultants for digital governance tools development
Expression of interest - Roster of National Consultants for digital governance tools development
OFFEROR’S LETTER TO UNDP CONFIRMING INTEREST AND AVAILABILITY FOR THE INDIVIDUAL CONTRACTOR (IC) ASSIGNMENT
UNDP General Conditions of Individual Contract

Contacts:

Mr. Serghei Botezatu.

serghei.botezatu@undp.org


Background

The digital transformation is already a reality in Moldova, as the country has begun to transfer public, legal, social and civil service delivery online. Accelerated digitalization can be expected to create new business models and opportunities for digital leapfrogging in traditional industries and governance.

 

The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the need for significant support and investments on digital transformation and effective digital governance, particularly to ensure the continuity and delivery of core government functions.

The pandemic has revealed the lack of preparedness of the public sector to quickly adapt policies and tools due to lack and low quality of data; to work remotely and online, including in delivery of social services in education, health, mobility and other sectors for specific population groups; and to adapt the performances of services for the economic sectors to the conditions induced by the crisis. 

In the past months, business continuity was severely hampered, and many government officials and staff had to continue working in their physical offices not only due to infrastructure issues, but also most importantly due to the presence and location of data and information in offline data files and paper-based systems.

While there has been much emphasis on digital tools and technologies in Moldova, digital transformation areas like policy, institutional coordination and trainings, as well as, leadership remains a significant challenge and continue to constrain effective digital transformation and economic growth. One of the underlying causes is the low digitalization of the public sector and its offer.

With Accelerating Digital Transformation in Public Sector Project (Digital Transformation Project or Project), UNDP Moldova aims to improve access to and quality of public services and business conditions through accelerated digital transformation of government processes and business model(s) and promote innovation, as well as collaborative experimentation within the Government, in the private sector, internally in UNDP Moldova, and in collaboration with external partners.

UNDP Moldova, through this Project is strategically positioned as an integrator of programmatic solutions with innovative mindset, including bringing forward digital components in supporting accelerated delivery of the SDGs.

 

The Project has the following objectives:

  • Support transformative changes in the organizational and innovation culture in the public and private sectors and align all participants for the accelerated achievement of the Sustainable Development Agenda and national targets;
  • Contribute towards streamlining innovation through engaging with the ongoing and prospective projects and seeking ways to maximize and to measure their social impact.

Support the Digitalization of Moldova that will contribute to improved governance by increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of government processes, increasing transparency and public access to governmental information – and therefore promoting accountability and public participation, and improving an innovative delivery of public services, as well as impact evaluation and strategic support to scaling-up of the successful solutions.

A key actor in this regard is the Electronic Governance Agency (EGA). EGA has the mission to bring leading technologies into the Government, rethink processes, improve public services and make them work for the benefit of the citizens. Using its unique positioning, EGA develop services that work for the user, facilitating the process of obtaining representative powers, exclude paper, reduce costs and cases of forgery or interpretation of documents which in essence make citizens lives easier. Services and platforms developed by EGA are used by millions of citizens and private and public institutions. Some of the services and platforms are:

MCloud – private government cloud computing platform

MConnect – data exchange platform

MPass – government electronic identity service

MSign – government digital signature service

MPay – government payment service

MNotify – government notification service

MPower – government authorization service

MLog – government journaling service

Public Service Portal – government portal for public services for citizens and business

Scope of work

UNDP Moldova in partnership with EGA is interested to explore the available expertise on the domestic market and establish a pool of qualified experts who have niche-expertise across a specific range of work areas and thus can support UNDP’s and EGA development efforts of digital governance tools, as per positions defined in the Terms of Reference.

 

Areas of work to express interest (one expert can express interest for more than one thematic area) are:

  • Architects;
  • DevOps engineers;
  • Knowledge management managers;
  • Product managers;
  • QA software testers;
  • Software developers.

For detailed information, please refer to Terms of Reference.

Requirements for experience

Architect

 

Minimum qualification criteria:

-      University degree in computer sciences, engineering, telecommunications, or related fields;

-      Minimum 7 years of experience in Information Technology.

Qualifications and Experience:

-      Hands-on solution-design experience in enterprise application/systems architecture;

-      Experience in component design, configuration, security design etc.;

-      Experience in cloud-based component design, configuration, security design, Design of Role Based Access Controls will be required;

-      Experience with all phases of SDLC methodologies, business process reengineering and functional analysis for complex technology applications for large scale systems;

-      Good knowledge of SOA principles and technologies (SOAP and REST), Event-Driven Architecture and other integration methodologies;

-      Good knowledge of UML and a CASE tool.

Knowledge of:

-      Business analysis and technical implementation of IT solutions;

-      Architecture frameworks such as Zachman / TOGAF with proven track record of implementing and actively managing fundamental architectural frameworks, methodologies, and architectures;

-      Cloud-native computing principles and technologies (Kubernetes);

-     Business process management, workflow and data mediation technologies.

DevOps engineers

Minimum qualification criteria:

-      University degree, including MA, in areas such as computer sciences, engineering, telecommunications or related;

-      Minimum 5 years of experience in IT area and/or 3 years of DevOps and/or System/Network Administration experience.

Qualifications and Experience:

-      Experience with cloud-native system design;

-      Experience working with source control systems, CI/CD, unit test and code coverage tools, containers and container orchestration (Kubernetes);

-      Knowledge of logging, tracing, monitoring and alerting tools;

-      Knowledge of network protocols and administration;

-      Knowledge of database administration (MSSQL, PostgreSQL, Elasticsearch);

-      Experience with Azure DevOps or .NET technologies is an advantage;

-      Experience with automated security tools is an advantage;

-      Ability to effectively communicate and write in English and Romanian. Communication in Russian is an advantage;

-      Certifications in DevOps, virtualization and container technologies, network administration, Linux and Windows system administration, will be considered a plus for this recruitment.

Knowledge of:

-  CSS, Twitter Bootstrap and jQuery, Angular and / or React frameworks;

-  UML / CASE tools;

-  ASP.NET MVC Core;

-  Implementing standard-based web-services using WS- * standards and / or REST style using WCF and / or Web API;

-  Secure development practices, including usage of PKI-based certificates;

-  Networking, virtualization and web application hosting related tools and technologies.

Knowledge Management Manager

Minimum qualification criteria:

-  University degree in computer science, information technology, or library sciences and at least five years of relevant experience in knowledge management with demonstrated track record of increased responsibility; or master’s degree in related field and at least three years of relevant experience;

-  Minimum 5 years of general management experience. Management experience in e-government, information technology, product development and administration (including non-IT) and / or business lines will be an advantage.

Qualifications and Experience:

-  Excellent technical support skills;

-  Excellent organizational skills and attention to detail;

-  Strong system thinking, analytical and problem-solving skills;

-  Excellent computer skills; 

-  Experience using knowledge management systems;

-  Ability to evaluate and administer, as appropriate, knowledge management technologies;

-  Demonstrated ability to develop/design new systems and/or approaches in the knowledge management space.

Product Manager

Minimum qualification criteria:

-  University degree in one of the following fields: computer science, engineering, telecommunications, economics, business administration or public administration, at a national or international university;

-  Minimum 5 years of general management experience. Management experience in e-government, information technology, product development and administration (including non-IT) and / or business lines will be an advantage.

Qualifications and Experience:

-  Excellent technical support skills;

-  Excellent organizational skills and attention to detail;

-  Strong system thinking, analytical and problem-solving skills;

-  Excellent computer skills;

-  Experience using products management systems;

-  Ability to evaluate and administer, as appropriate, knowledge management technologies;

-  Demonstrated ability to develop/design new systems and/or approaches in the product management space.

Software Tester

Minimum qualification criteria:

-  University degree in computer sciences, engineering, telecommunications, or related fields;

-  5 years of Information Technology experience.

Qualifications and Experience:

-  Hands-on experience in testing enterprise application/systems architecture;

-  Experience with all phases of SDLC methodologies, business process testing of large-scale systems.

Knowledge of:

-  Test Automation Frameworks, tools, technologies, and Quality Engineering Methodologies;

-  Test Automation of integration and UI end-to-end automated tests;

-  STLC and Testing Concepts;

-  Build pipelines, software development lifecycle, testing methodologies, QA terminology, processes and procedures;

-  Skills in test integrations, defect management and test management.

Software developer

Minimum qualification criteria:

-  Undergraduate studies: in the field of information technologies;

-  Minimum 3 years of general work experience in software development.

Qualifications and Experience:

-  Experience in information systems development using .NET framework, Visual Studio IDE, ASP.NET MVC, .NET Windows Communication Foundation, C #, SQL, Entity Framework and JavaScript, as well as other technologies.

Knowledge of:

-  CSS, Twitter Bootstrap and jQuery, Angular and / or React frameworks;

-  UML / CASE tools;

-  ASP.NET MVC Core;

-  Implementing standard-based web-services using WS- * standards and / or REST style using WCF and / or Web API;

-  Secure development practices, including usage of PKI-based certificates;

-  Networking, virtualization and web application hosting related tools and technologies.

Skills and Competencies:

  • Strategic vision, analytical skills, creative thinking;
  • Spirit of initiative and commitment to the values ​​of the institution;
  • Team spirit, ability to negotiate and identify solutions;
  • High level of responsibility and discipline;
  • Ability to work qualitatively, simultaneously with several tasks;
  • Ability to work effectively under aggressive deadlines and in challenging settings;
  • Experience working in large organizations with cross-departmental teams;
  • Planning and self-organization skills, independent prioritization of tasks and compliance with deadlines;
  • Ability to maintain dialogues at the multicultural level, respecting the basic principles of social inclusion, social equity and diversity based on gender, religion, ethnic group.

Language:

  • Fluency in oral and written English, Romanian and Russian.

Documents to be included

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/ information to demonstrate their qualifications:

  • CV, including expertise areas applied, past experience in assignments similar to the qualification and experience required by the Terms of Reference and contact details for at least 3 referees.

Note: Interested applicants should note that if they are willing to submit their expression of interest for more than one expertise area, they should submit separate applications; each submission should be for one expertise area only. There are no limitations to the number of expertise areas an interested expert can express interest.

Financial proposal

This call is intended for establishing a list of potential national thematic experts who could be considered as potential interested candidates for specific future consultancies launched by UNDP Moldova and EGA during the period of 2022-2023.

There is no guarantee on immediate opportunity for an assignment. The selected consultants will be considered for immediate technical and financial offer request upon defining specific deliverables to be developed under each area of expertise.

Initially, individual consultants will be short-listed based on the above minimum qualification criteria as per each area of expertise. Further, prior to placing candidates to the roster, the following must be met:

  • Candidates must be subject to a screening and evaluation of qualifications by UNDP through an interview process;
  • All candidates shall be subject to verification against the UN/UNDP list of individuals or entities ineligible to obtain contracts;
  • UNDP may also conduct formal and informal reference checking in order to place candidate to the roster.

The selection for open positions will be done based on the further thorough evaluation and assessment of candidates.