3x Senior Software Developers

Description

Summary of the work • provide experienced GCP resources with expertise in software engineering, full stack web development, cloud technologies, Agile, DevOps and CICD to supplement the existing team. • Support the team in working within a software development lifecycle and applying good development practice within GCP environment using appropriate tools and documenting outputs Expected Contract Length 6 months from 3rd Sept for 8 weeks Alpha/transition into Beta through to Live. (Port Freight) Latest start date Monday 3 September 2018 Budget Range £750 max day rate (average price in spreadsheet) Why the Work is Being Done DfT’s Digital Service is a new, strategically important team. There are currently 3 products in development with committed deadlines; 1) Performance Management tool to implement new department wide policy 2) Checkout; online procurement forms to increase operational efficiency 3) Port Freight; statistics collection re handling of freight traffic at UK sea ports. The data collection process is currently contracted out as a fully managed service. The website solution was developed over 10 years ago and only runs on limited web browsers. The current contract runs out in March 2019, and a replacement system is required by March 2019. Problem to Be Solved The development team consists of 3 senior developers, 2 developers, 5 apprentices, a UX designer and a DBA. There are 4 vacancies for senior developers. We need additional experienced senior developers to increase capacity to deliver the live project and embed best practice. A new cloud platform has been introduced, along with Agile ways of working, new roles and these changes are not yet embedded. Most of the more experienced members of the team worked in the former internal Application Development and Support Team and have limited experience of cloud development and working in Agile teams. Who Are the Users Checkout - Internal staff across DfTc Port Freight – There are around 400 different data suppliers (both major/minor ports and shipping agents), with the existing website being the main method for data submission. The business requirement stems from the Maritime Statistics team which has four key stakeholders involved in the programme of work. PMR2 – 17000 users across DfT family Early Market Engagement N/A Work Already Done N/A Existing Team Performance Management Tool - In house team: 1x Delivery Manager, 1x Product Manager, 1x User Researcher, 1x User Experience (UX), 1x Digital Architect and 1x Senior Developer, 2x Apprentice Developers. Checkout - In house team: 1x Delivery Manager, 1x Product Manager, 1x User Researcher, 1x User Experience (UX), 1x Business Analyst, 1x Digital Architect and 1x Developer and 3x Apprentice Developers. Port Freight - In house team: 1x Delivery Manager, 1x Product Manager, 1x User Researcher, 1x User Experience (UX), 1x Business Analyst, 1x Digital Architect and 2x Senior Developers. Current Phase Not applicable Skills & Experience • ● Experience in full stack web development in Google Cloud Platform • ● Experience in DevOps, CICD in Google Cloud Platform • ● Knowledge of Agile and Scrum methodology • ● Embedding Agile techniques and best practice approach to software development within a software development lifecycle framework • ● Understand service-led or micro-service led architecture and delivery of repeatable, scalable services within development • ● Product delivery focused • ● Cloud technologies App Engine Flex(.Net core) with Cloud SQL (Maritime • ● PHP Object Oriented project experience (Checkout) • ● Used PHP frameworks (Laravel) (Checkout) • ● Test Driven Development (TDD) approach (PHPUnit (Checkout) and TBD (Maritime) • ● Acceptance tests (Behat) (Checkout) • ● Has participated and organised pair + mob programming sessions; code reviews. Both as a team member and team lead • ● Substantial experience in the full development lifecycle including testing and deployment • ● Experience in providing coaching or mentoring to junior developers and how to embed best practices within a team. Nice to Haves • ● Experience working on government digital projects • ● Able to start immediately, to provide capacity to the development team to start delivering the plan to establish and embed a framework for a professional function. • ● understand serverless development and experience working within that environment Work Location Windsor House, 50 Victoria St, Westminster, London, SW1H 0TL And Ashdown House, Sedlescombe Road North, St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, TN37 7GA Working Arrangments Developers will be co-located with the Digital Team in London/Hastings, Monday-Friday, 37 hours (10-4 core). The project will follow the GDS Digital Service Standard and technology Code of Practice using Agile methodology: daily stand-ups, sprint planning, sprints, demos, retrospectives, show and tells. The GCP developers will need to take the lead by being a role model in Agile development and ways of working (pair programming, Scrum methodology, Test Driven Development), and invest time in knowledge sharing and coaching to increase the capability of the digital team. Architecture’s preference is App Engine with the option of container-based solution as alternative Security Clearance SC. Will consider BPSS initially if SC can be provided later. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 10 Proposal Criteria • • Have evidence of experience defining and implementing new services in a cloud environment • ● Approach and methodology with particular attention to agile and collaborative delivery • ● Value for money in comparison to technical competence Cultural Fit Criteria • ● Collaboratively work as a team within our organisation and with our suppliers • ● Transparent and open when making decisions • ● Have a no-blame culture and encourage people to learn from their mistakes • ● Share knowledge and experience with other team members Payment Approach Capped time and materials Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 40% Cultural fit 20% Price 40% Questions from Suppliers 1. Please advise: By the max day rate it mentions an average price in spreadsheet? Where would this be found please? Sorry- there is no spreadsheet; this is an error. It should just read £750 per day max 2. Can I please ask if this requirement would be better suited to be published on DOS Specialists rather than outcomes? This requirement is output based and we are looking for a supplier with the capability to deliver the outputs of this requirement . 3. Could you please clarify / expand on your understanding of “Capped time and materials” You have two locations of work, whilst I appreciate you may accept either, where do you see the majority of the team / work being located. The majority of work should be London, but suppliers will need to visit and work from Hastings as required by project teams. 4. Please can you clarify it is 3 or 4 vacancies? We believe we require 3 software developers 5. I'm assuming it's £750 max budget per developer? Yes - £750 per dev per day max 6. Is the day rate inclusive or exclusive of VAT? The Day rates are exclusive of VAT 7. Could you please clarify / expand on your understanding of “Capped time and materials” The delivery partner agrees to deliver the project in accordance with the normal time and materials contract. However, there are established and agreed limits to the total amount of spend. The risk is minimised for DfT by the application of the capping technique. The risk transfers to the delivery partner when they exceed the capped total. They are paid no more than the cap and the project continues. Our cap will be £270k. 8. How would you like the responses to the essential/nice to have experience to be structured? As you're looking for 3 developers, it's going to be very difficult to detail evidence for all 3 consultants within the 100 word limit. Are you happy for us to provide an overview of evidence of our consultants' experience, without specifically referencing the experience of the individuals? Yes, provided the examples are from resources we may receive. We would expect every consultant to meet the essential criteria and a few examples from different people is fine. Nice to have experience from the consultants is anticipated to be a differentiator between suppliers. 9. When you say BPSS will be considered if SC can be provided later, will the Department for Transport be sponsoring the SC process? No. DfT will not sponsor SC requests. 10. We have 3 developers currently available as a team but SC Cleared developers are in high demand, what would be the scenario if one or two of our developers are taken off the market by another department/project? do you have the capacity to be able to take individual engineers from say three different suppliers to form a team with a max budget of £750 per engineer as the rate although we would suggest this is more than sufficient as a budget. If not then we will try to keep this team together. We are looking for one service provider rather than several service providers or individuals. 11. SC Cleared engineers who are experienced with Laravel, this particular requirement is difficult having delivered a Laravel project for No10 Downing street. With this requirement and the DOS2 Specialist role for a (PS 18/162 Principal Software Engineer) DVLA ITS–Service Creation will the Principle Engineer control, guide and manage these engineers/team? Looking at delivery of around 25/26 weeks 6 months I think the delivery of this project will slip and could need an addition month or two making it financially non viable due to the transfer of risk, do you have available a gap anylasis and project plan we can review? The roadmap as follows:Alpha (sketching/mock-up wireframes/prototypes) between July-SeptemberInternal Alpha Service Assessment - end Sept.Transition to Private Beta (development) - October- JanuaryPublic Beta - February - MarchInternal Beta Service Assessment- end of MarchLive (minimal viable product) - 1st AprilContinuous development - April onwardsThere is no scope to extend the live timeframe, the existing managed service contract finishes March 2019. We have 2 developers on the project at present and can bring in additional internal apprenticeship developers as contingency. This is a possibility for managing risk of on boarding or falling behind development timescales. 12. Can the DfT confirm that they don't intend to follow the Code of Practice at the Security Clearance Forum by refusing to sponsor SC clearance and effectively insisting all three resources have existing Security Clearance? https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/recruiting-for-vacancies-requiring-national-security-vetting-clearance As per the online guidance quoted, ‘It is government policy that individuals should not be expected to hold an existing security clearance in order to apply for posts or contracts that require vetting, except in exceptional circumstances where such posts are short term and need to be filled urgently.’ We are looking to appoint a supplier who will provide suitable individuals to deliver our projects and we need them to be in post quickly (no later than start September 2018) and for a short term (6months). 13. the answer to a previous Question was: he majority of work should be London, but suppliers will need to visit and work from Hastings as required by project teams. Please can you advise it travel would be a claimable expense or do the DfT arrange travel to other sites? DfT can arrange public transportation to Hastings from London but all other expenses or forms of travel as well as travel to London must be covered by the supplier. 14. Further response to Question 8 “Yes, provided the examples are from resources we may receive. We would expect every consultant to meet the essential criteria and a few examples from different people is fine. Nice to have experience from the consultants is anticipated to be a differentiator between suppliers.Further Clarificationto be clear, we are looking for two resources to support the Maritime Stats project and one resource to support project checkout. The supplier (through their whole team) should therefore collectively evidence the essential skills.”