HURIDOC’s capacity building program in the former Soviet Union aims to help local NGOs improve their information management systems through short-term, hands-on technical interventions lasting anywhere from 3 to 6 months. We take the time to listen to the NGOs needs and concerns and explore the most ideal, innovative solutions to meet them. We prefer to work with open source technologies and tools such as WordPress and Drupal, but if needed, we also develop high-end custom solutions using technologies like ExtJS, PHP/Mysql and SOLR. We take a very practical approach to technical capacity building with NGOs and emphasize that information management systems depend on much more than intelligently designed systems. These types of interventions also require attention to the organizational culture of the NGO and its own capacity.
HURIDOCS is seeking a Technical Project Manager to manage and oversee technical aspects of its capacity building projects in the former Soviet Union. Capacity building projects including developing complex database systems, advocacy websites, litigation management systems, document repositories and coaching on basic organizational issues that affect information management systems like IT procedures, webmail security, etc.
Technical Project Manager will have the opportunity to travel to project countries to help local NGOs improve their technical capacities. This is a unique opportunity to make a lasting difference on the impact of human rights work in these countries. Projects for 2011 are planned in Armenia, Georgia and Mongolia.
Technical Project Manager’s job consists of meeting with our project partners and determining their needs for the intervention, designing solutions for them that may be completed within the time-frame of a short-term project (3-6 months) and drafting a project proposal complete with goals, impact indicators, time-frame and budget. The Technical Project Manager will then be responsible for putting together a local development team to develop the solutions. After the project begins, he or she will monitor the solutions implementation and the team’s work, occasionally stepping in when necessary to correct or improve it. The Technical Project Manager must maintain a close relationship with project partners to ensure client satisfaction and quality results. He or she must also provide the donor with on-going project reporting as well as mid-term and final narrative and financial evaluations.
The post’s activities include:
• On-site visits with project partners
• Conducting needs assessments
• Research, designing and drafting solutions
• Recruiting a team of local technical partners
• Directing and supervising team on the completion of the solutions
• Quality control
• Hands-on development work, if necessary
• Coaching project partners basic information management skills
• Project reporting and evaluation
• Maintaining regular contact with project partners with frequent on-site visits
• Maintaining relationships with donors
Ideal candidates should be energetic and creative with good listening skills. He or she should be able to listen to our partners and be able to identify their needs, even when they cannot do this on their own, and develop simple, practical solutions that really work. He or she should have impressive first-hand experience as a developer, but also excellent leadership skills and enjoy working in a team.
HURIDOCS is looking for someone who aims for perfection in his work, always looking to out-do him or herself. The Technical Project Manager should be someone who enjoys tracking new technologies and is eager to learn and experiment with them.
Requirements:
• Knowledge of modern web technologies:
languages: PHP, JavaScript, JAVA
clientside frameworks: ExtJS, jQuery
serverside frameworks: ZendRDBMS: MySql
web formats: HTML, JSON, CSS, XML, XSLT
• Familiarity with information systems like:
- complex search engines (SOLR),
- directories,
- content management systems (WordPress, Drupal)
- document repositories
- data mining/processing
- secure messaging systems
• Experience working through the entire solutions development cycle:
- System analysis,
- Requirements gathering,
- Specification writing,
- Information architecture: navigation, faceting, search, thesauri, user interface,
- Software architecture,
- Technical consulting,
- Application deployment,
- Tuning and optimization,
- Security audit
• Excellent communication skills and outgoing personality
• Experience drafting proposals, reporting on projects and maintaining relationships with donors
• Experience working in the field of human rights or the non-profit sector
• Enjoys hands-on work and has the patience to build capacity with our partners on all levels
• Fluency in English and Russian highly desirable (Armenian and Georgian are also preferred)
Candidate must be willing to travel and work on a project to project basis, with the eventual possibility of being added to the permanent team. No relocation to Geneva is necessary.
If interested in applying for this post, please send a CV, cover letter and portfolio of development work to katherin.machalek@huridocs.org
Deadline for applications is March 31, 2011
