Developer

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Universities face a huge challenge managing research programmes worth billions to the UK economy. Software in this area is in its infancy with many aspects of research administration still being undertaken using spreadsheets and manual processes. Research administration ranges from helping researchers with funding applications, tracking research income, ensuring research projects undergo proper ethical consideration to protect universities and researchers, and managing the publication of research outputs in open access repositories to comply with funder requirements and make research widely available for the benefit of the public and other researchers.
The Haplo Research Manager suite manages the entire research lifecycle at universities, from project inception, applying for grants, ethical approval, PhD programme administration, and publication of information about researchers and their research on the web. Our products streamline processes and save time - enabling researchers to focus on research rather than administration. They help to protect universities by ensuring good research governance, and enable all institutions to compete more effectively for research funding from commercial partners and during the UK REF research assessment exercise.
Whilst we've made a great start - building products which make a huge difference to institutions and building relationships with great clients - there is a lot of work still to be done. By joining us now, you'll play a critical role in influencing the design of our products whilst benefitting from the work we've already completed. At Haplo, we believe the best results come from team members who have the responsibility and freedom to direct their own work and readily influence how the team works.
Our work is especially appealing to universities because it's highly customised to the institution, provides all research management functions in a single integrated system, and has an excellent user experience. Delivering this level of customisation and integration in "out of the box" software is an interesting technical challenge, and in response we've developed an innovative and highly effective product architecture.
As part of our development team, you get to think about the nuts and bolts of how web applications are developed. You’ll be building APIs, creating reusable components, and working with your colleagues to make iterative improvements.
Our open source web application framework for developing information rich applications extends from a low level search engine up to high level UI components, along with everything in the middle. One day you could be using the latest front end technology, the next delving into the guts of a non-relational object store.
Our work is a bit different. We went to the effort of developing our own platform because nothing else could do what we needed. Before it was fashionable, we moved away from the relational model and built server side JavaScript APIs. Our platform is mature and incredibly effective at building applications to manage semi-structured information — and easy to extend and evolve to handle new requirements.
We care about quality and doing things right. We know that doing things well means we can move faster, and so have minimal technical debt and legacy code. You’ll be making improvements and driving us forward, supported by a leadership team who will reduce scope, not quality.
It’s an exciting time to join. We’re market leaders in our niche, and expanding into related products. You’ll have the excitement of building new things, within the stability of a company with a proven business and enviable reputation.

About you

You’ll have experience working as a professional software developer. (If you don't have experience yet, we're also recruiting for entry-level positions for early stage developers and placement students.)

You enjoy writing user-centred software that makes a positive difference to your users. Some experience writing web applications would be useful. This role will be particularly appealing to you if you're interested in API design, developing "building blocks" of components that can be reused across our applications.

Whilst we’re very open minded about your experience, you’ll definitiely meet these requirements:

Proven programming ability with some experience using JavaScript. We primarily use server-side JavaScript, with underlying layers written in JRuby and Java, but we don't mind if you haven't used these languages before.
A good degree in any subject (our clients are universities, so our team need to understand what they’re like).
Excellent communication skills, including written English.

You’ll be working in a spacious, light-filled office in a new business development in Brockley, south east London. We believe in good coffee, sensible working hours, and valuing the contribution of every member of the team. We offer a training and development budget, and actively support your professional development.

Read more about our working environment and how we work together.

Read more about our technology stack, and of course, the Haplo code is on GitHub.

Haplo is an equal opportunities employer, and welcomes applications from developers from all backgrounds.

You must have a right to work in the UK.

To apply, or if you have any questions, email jobs@haplo.com.

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