Senior Consultant

Department: Professional Services

Reports to: Project Manager

Location: West London and on customer sites as required.

IVIS Group empowers customer-facing organisations to satisfy the needs of their customers, employees and partners across every channel. Our mission is to be the recognised expert in delivering multi-channel business strategies and solutions.

Our Professional Services Division has won a number of globally recognised awards for the design and implementation of innovative enterprise e-business systems (including the world's largest online grocery site). We launched one of the earliest commercial implementations of the Web Services paradigm in 1999 even before the official release of Web Services and SOA.

In addition to the Professional Services arm, the company's flagship Information Management solution, Sonetto, provides e-business tools to manage highly complex content and product information using rules defined directly by business users. Sonetto is one of the first commercial implementations of the "Semantic Web", one of the fundamental building blocks of Web 2.0. Sonetto is currently used today by the third largest retailer in the world.

IVIS Group's success is underpinned by an environment that values integrity, innovation and a passion for technology. Our people relish the chance to successfully deliver solutions that bridge the gap between business and IT whilst maintaining a focus on the empowerment of our clients.

We are currently looking for a Senior Consultant to join the Professional Services practice working with an exceptionally strong team. A pragmatic approach coupled with the ability to see the 'big picture' is a must for this role.

Responsibilities

• Assist project stakeholders in the definition of requirements by maintaining a big picture approach and offering technical guidance


• Plan and organise own work , identify process issues that may affect project efficiency


• Work closely with the Project Manager to identify dependencies of tasks to be included in the project plan


• Interact with other senior consultants to ensure design decisions for individual work fit within the physical and application architecture


• Identify and document architecture interdependencies across multiple projects


• Identify potential security threats during the analysis and design process


• Carryout capacity planning with performance, scalability and resilience in mind, specify system hardware, network connectivity etc.


• Establish process for the deployment and maintenance of applications with quality and repeatability in mind


• Recognise potential for code and design reuse (design patterns).
  
• Mentor and share knowledge with colleagues


• Support Sales efforts by identifying opportunities and communicating them to the sales team


• Carry out Pre-sales activities and provide input on proposals and presentations

Required skills and experience

• Experience of analysis, design, development and implementation of e-business architectures based on the Microsoft .NET platform


• Strong development experience with OO languages (including C#)


• Technical development skills to include Solid Middle tier development experience including; ASP.NET, XML (XSL, XSD), Strong SQL Server


• Experience of formal development/design methodologies i.e. UML, RUP or similar


• Good understanding of issues and standards surrounding Web Services,
• Accessibility and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)


• Understanding of application deployment technology and management/operational processes

Characteristics

• A "can-do" attitude with a passion and general curiosity for technology


• Ability to communicate business values and benefits


• Methodical with good attention to detail


• Able and keen to use initiative to identify and take ownership for additional tasks that add value to the customer or team


• Able to work in a team or independently and manage own time


• Strong communicator with the ability to interact with customers at all levels


• Willingness to travel is essential

Desirable skills

• Experience of BizTalk, HTML and VB/Javascript, ASP, CSS, Visual C++, IIS, Commerce Server, RUP/XP, SourceSafe, MSMQ messaging


• Infrastructure configuration experience (e.g. SQL Server database clusters, F5/Alteon/Cisco hardware load balancers, Cisco routers, Checkpoint firewalls, etc.)


• Management/operations experience


• Windows server platform configuration experience and scripting including IIS and SMTP configuration


• Knowledge of key Internet technologies and protocols such as TCP/IP, IPv4 routing, HTTP/S, TCP/IP, DNS, FTP, SSH etc.


• Firewall policy design knowledge based on industry-standard Checkpoint FW-1 or Cisco PIX