Job Summary:

 Reporting to the Head Strategic Information - Software Engineering, the incumbent provides strategic and technical leadership for the design, development, integration, deployment and continuous improvement of software applications. Sets engineering standards, architecture and quality controls, and works with the Ministry of Health, SMART Zambia Institute (SZI), programme teams and technical partners to deliver secure, reliable and interoperable systems.

Main Duties:

1. Provides strategic and technical leadership for software engineering and sets the technical roadmap.
2. Defines and enforces engineering standards, coding standards, architecture principles and development procedures.
3. Oversees the full software development lifecycle, including requirements, design, testing, security review, release and maintenance.
4. Promotes automated testing, peer code review, source control and CI/CD, and ensures defects and technical debt are managed systematically.
5. Provides architectural oversight for new systems, integrations and APIs, ensuring scalability, maintainability and use of recognised interoperability standards.
6. Supervises, mentors and develops the engineering team, sets workplans and monitors performance.
7. Supports budgeting, workforce planning and technical evaluation of vendors, platforms and tools.
8. Advises government counterparts and partners on architecture, development and interoperability, and participates in technical working groups.
9. Ensures code, architecture, APIs and deployment procedures are documented, and supports knowledge transfer and sustainability planning.

Qualifications

10. Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, Computer Engineering or related discipline. A postgraduate degree will be an added advantage.
11. At least seven years of progressively responsible software-development experience, including substantial experience developing enterprise or large-scale web-based systems.
12. At least three years' experience providing technical leadership, team supervision or engineering management.
13. Demonstrated experience in software architecture, application integration, and production application support.
14. Experience developing or supporting electronic health records or other national health-information systems.
15. Professional certification in software architecture, cloud technologies, project management, DevOps, cybersecurity or related discipline.
16. Experience working with Ministry of Health or other government institutions.
17. Experience with health interoperability standards such as HL7 FHIR.

Technical Knowledge and Skills

Software architecture and design; object-oriented and web development (C#, Java, Kotlin, JavaScript/TypeScript, React or similar); REST APIs and distributed systems; SQL and relational databases; Git; automated testing and CI/CD; containerisation; secure development practices; interoperability standards.