2024-0025 REACT and FFT Senior Software Developer (NS) - WED 21 Feb

Deadline Date: Wednesday 21 February 2024

Requirement: REACT and FFT Senior Software Developer

Location**:** OFF-SITE

Note: Please refer to your Subcontract Agreement, article 6.4.1.a, which states “Off-Site Discount: 5% (this discount is applicable to all requirements, and applies when the assigned personnel are permitted to work Off-Site, such as at- home)". Please be sure to price this discount in your overall price proposal when submitting bids against off-site RFQs

Required Start Date: 21 March 2024

End Contract Date: 31 December 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 light of these, the C2 Service Centre is looking for experienced senior software developers.

Friendly Force Tracking (FFT) provides NATO and NATO Nations the capability to reduce the risk of friendly fire. In NATO this capability is supported from the FFT services that are part of NIRIS. Maintaining and extending such services is vital for NATO to offer FFT support to the NATO nations in operations and for the exercises.

REACT, the Radar Electronic warfare And Communication Coverage Tool, was developed to predict the coverage displayed on a geographical map of radar and communication systems, as well as the effects of Electronic Warfare. Operationalised in 2022 supporting navigation warfare, the development is now focused on the modelling of communication systems and space-based sensors.

2 OBJECTIVES

The main objective of this statement of work is the development and maintenance of the FFT and REACT software modules.

3 SCOPE OF WORK

Under the direction / guidance of the NCIA Point of Contacts or delegated staff, the software developer will develop and update the REACT and FFT software modules and provide support to other developers. 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

The following deliverables are expected from the work in this statement of work:

Deliverable 01: 05 sprints of software development (FFT)

Payment Milestones: Upon completion of each fourth sprint and at the end of the work.

Deliverable 02: 06 sprints of software development (REACT)

Payment Milestones: Upon completion of each fourth sprint and at the end of the work.

Deliverable 03: Optional additional 6 sprints of software development

Payment Milestones: Upon completion of each fourth sprint and at the end of the work.

The sprints are composed of 5 working days not necessarily consecutive. The Sprints will be exercised in 2024 and the time plan will be decided during the planning meetings.

The NCIA team reserves the right to exercise an optional number of additional sprints, based on the same scrum deliverable timeframe and cost, at a later time, depending on the priorities and requirements emanating from the projects.

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, first verbally during the retrospective meeting and then in written within three (3) days after the sprint’s end date. The format of this report shall be a short email to the NCIA Point of Contact mentioning briefly the work held and the development achievements during the sprint.

6 SCHEDULE

This task order will be active immediately after signing of the contract by both parties and will 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.

Part of the work may involve handling classified networks, therefore, a security clearance at the appropriate level is required for the contractor(s) undertaking this project.

8 SECURITY

The security classification of the service will be up to NATO SECRET.

The contractor is required to hold a valid NATO SECRET security clearance

9 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 Points 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 arrangements will be the responsibility of the contractor and the expenses will be reimbursed in accordance with Article 5.5 of AAS Framework Contract and within the limits of the NCIA Travel Directive.

This work must be accomplished by ONE contractor.

Requirements

• The contractor is required to hold a valid NATO SECRET security clearance

10 QUALIFICATIONS

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

1. The candidate has relevant and recent experience in software development using Java, including Java Swing.

2. The candidate has relevant and recent experience in GUI software development using Angular.

3. The candidate has relevant and recent experience on the FFT tool set and on the FRATE service.

4. The candidate has relevant and recent expertise focused on the development of SAML/OIDC authentication which will be integrated into the REACT Server and Web client components and shall integrate with the NATO SOA&IDM platform.

5. The candidate has relevant and recent expertise in the validation of data centric security and metadata labelling strategies for the Alliance Federation, and supporting the progress of the NATO Core Metadata Specification (NCMS), including the following:

a. C3B Line of Development. Metadata harmonization.

b. C3B Line of Development. Production of regulatory documentation and standards.

c. Knowledge and expertise in Metadata Labelling, Binding, Binding Profiles, Label to Marking mapping, and label interoperability.

d. Expert knowledge of NATO Confidentiality Label Syntax specifications, profiles and emerging standards (STANAG 4774 and 4778);

e. Expert knowledge of NATO Metadata Binding Mechanism specifications, profiles and emerging standards;

f. Expert knowledge of NATO Core Metadata Specification, profiles and emerging standards;

g. Development knowledge of the NATO Metadata Binding Service and NATO End Point Labelling demonstrators;

h. Detailed knowledge of Industry and NATO standards in the area of labelling, binding and marking;

i. Detailed knowledge of the NATO Bi-SC AIS domain and information exchange requirements;

j. Detailed knowledge of FMN concepts, evolutionary strategy and the NFIP;

k. Detailed knowledge of methods and mechanisms to resolve security label translation/mapping between NATO and NATO national systems;

l. Expertise in commercial security labelling products and object level protection solutions;

6. The candidate must be ready to quickly integrate with the current team and take up duties and development tasks, including the following:

a. Testing of the new software code, specifically in providing expertise to review the technical design and test cases of the proposed solution and implementation.

b. Ability to independently produce and edit technical documentation and scientific reports in English;

c. Good understanding of the project management methodologies, including PRINCE 2 and Agile/Scrum

d. Excellent communications skills;

7. The candidate is well able to produce efficient, clear, readable, maintainable and high quality code.

8. The candidate has relevant and recent development experience with FFT and related technologies, including but not limited to FFT protocols, ADatP-3, APP-11, NFFI.

9. The candidate has relevant and recent NATO standard authoring experience.

10. The candidate has recent experience in programming at the computer network level.

11. The candidate has recent experience working in Scrum team and in leading Scrum teams.

12. The candidate has a strong track record in software development and has strong problem solving skills.

13. The candidate has relevant and recent experience in continuous software integration and automated testing, including knowledge of test automation frameworks.

14. The candidate is well able to communicate with external users / customers and translate their requirements in development tasks for the team.

15. The candidate has relevant and recent experience in using development tools, e.g. Maven, Jira, GitLab, Zephyr.

16. The candidate is able to speak and write fluent English since the work is conducted in English

17. The candidate must have the nationality of one of the NATO nations.