2024-0015 JChat Software Developer (6) (NS) - MON 11 Dec

Deadline Date:  Monday 11December 2023

Requirement Title:      JChat Software Developer (6)

Location:           Off-site

Full time on-site:           No

Required Start Date:  02 JAN 2024

End Contract Date: 31 Dec 2024

Required Security Clearance:  NATO Secret

1 INTRODUCTION

The NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCI Agency) located in The Hague, The Netherlands, is currently involved in the development of new capabilities for NATO as well as in the support of existing capabilities. In the light of these activities, the C2 Service Centre is looking for experienced software developers.

JChat has been developed by the NCI Agency to provide operators with a text-based asynchronous chat capability. Chat communications is used daily by the operators to pass information, coordinate operations, and support collaborative decision-making. JChat is providing one-to-one chat, group (multi-user) chat and multi-user conferencing (moderated chat) and is based on Instant Messaging (IM) technology.

2 OBJECTIVES

The selected contractor will support the JChat team’s software development activities, such as designing, programming, testing and documenting

3 SCOPE OF WORK

Under the direction / guidance of the NCIA Point of Contact or delegated staff, the software developer will develop and update JChat software modules. This includes the following activities:

·        Develop / update Java software modules

·        Develop / conduct unit and automated testing of software components

·        Attend virtual and in-person meetings

The contractor will be part of a team and will work using an Agile and iterative approach during multiple sprints. Each sprint is planned for a duration of 1 week. The content and scope of each sprint will be agreed during the sprint-planning meeting

4 DELIVERABLES AND PAYMENT MILESTONES

Deliverable 01: Sprints of Software Development

Quantity: 10

Payment Milestones: After Each Sprint Completion

5 COORDINATION AND REPORTING

The contractor shall participate in daily status update meetings, sprint planning, sprint retrospectives and other meetings, physically in the office, or in person via electronic means using Conference Call capabilities, according to project manager’s instructions.

For each sprint to be considered as complete and payable, the contractor must report the outcome of his/her work during the sprint.

6 SCHEDULE

This task order will be active immediately after signing of the contract by both parties and performance will start not sooner than 02Jan 2024 and end no later than 31 December 2024.

7 CONSTRAINTS

All the deliverables provided under this statement of work will be based on NCI Agency templates or agreed with the project point of contact. All code, scripts, documentation, etc. will be stored under configuration management and/or in the provided NCI Agency tools.

All the deliverables of this project will be considered NATO UNCLASSIFIED

The contractor shall have a NATO SECRET security clearance.

8 PRACTICAL ARRANGEMENTS

The contractor will be required to work off site. Access to the NCIA code repositories will be provided in coordination with the NCIA Point of Contact or delegated staff.

The contractor may be required to travel to NCI Agency, The Hague, the Netherlands and other sites within NATO for completing these tasks. Travel expenses will be reimbursed under NATO rules.

This work must be accomplished by ONE contractor.

Requirements

9 QUALIFICATIONS

The consultancy support for this work requires a software developer with the following qualifications:

1. A NATO Secret security clearance is required.
2. The candidate has relevant and recent experience in software development using Java, with a strong emphasis on the use of Java Swing.
3. The candidate has relevant and recent development experience with chat related technologies, including but not limited to XMPP, XEPs,, M-LINK Server, Openfire Server and the Openfire plugin framework.
4. The candidate is well able to produce efficient, clear, readable, maintainable and high quality code.
5. The candidate has relevant and recent experience in continuous software integration and automated testing, including knowledge of test automation frameworks.
6. The candidate has relevant and recent experience in using development tools (e.g. Maven, Jira, GitLab, Zephyr) and the Scrum