Careers at Co-operative Bank of Kenya

Job reference number UXD/IID/2024

The successful jobholder will be expected to:

• Acts as a lead on all projects tasked with making complex user experience decisions and assist in the definition and translation of business/functional requirements into user flows and wireframes.
• Facilitate user experience design thinking sessions to identify business and technical requirements for technology, research and business initiatives to ensure that designs are successfully created and implemented to achieve the user goals.
• Develop overall user experience, interaction design and information architecture for technology and business initiatives at the level of detail and rigor needed by those who must base their work on the design.
• Use a variety of analytical techniques to gather and analyze design requirements (e.g. interviews, facilitated workshops, surveys, site visits, use cases, workflow analysis, observations, etc.)  This includes creating site maps, flows, wireframes, prototypes and design specifications; analyzing usability test results; and developing user experience design briefs.
• Evaluate information gathered from multiple sources with the aim of resolving conflicts and providing information to support interaction design prioritization and tradeoff decisions.
• Define process improvements for the user experience team and works with the leadership team to communicate and uphold user experience standards.
• Work with creative & visual leads and technical leads to understand technical systems and constraints so that design solutions are technically feasible and optimal and to co-evolve experience solutions through an iterative design process.
• Develop expert level knowledge of competitive and complementary design strategies to ensure a “best approach” design with every project
• Define and prioritize design schedules, milestones and deliverables on multiple project initiatives in addition to building/advocating the development of UI guidelines, standards and requirements that serve as the foundation for designing cohesive experiences.
• Act as an internal consultant and subject matter expert by staying on top of changing UX design technologies, as well as corporate, organization, and industry standards to ensure leading-edge interpretation and execution of design applications and to provide business and technical guidance where appropriate.

Qualifications, Skills & Attributes

The successful jobholder will be required to possess the following qualifications: –

• A Bachelor’s degree in an IT related field or Business related field with relevant IT Professional qualifications. Graphic or Visual Design,
• Digital Media Design, other visual specialty or any other related qualifications will be an added advantage.
• At least 3 years’ relevant work experience in a role directly related to web design, UX Design / Front-end mobile-web development experience, product design, product management, production management, marketing.
• Strong technical proficiency with UX tools such as Axure, Balsamiq, Sketch, and Adobe Creative Suite.
• Creative problem solver with experience leading projects and building consensus with multiple stakeholders and cross-functional teams.
• Demonstrated ability to scope and estimate efforts accurately, prioritize tasks and goals independently and rapidly produce deliverables in a fast-paced iterative environment.

Job reference number SA/IID/2024 

The role

The successful jobholder will be expected to:

• Use appropriate tools, including logical models of components and interfaces, to contribute to the development of systems architectures in specific business or functional areas.
• Produce detailed component specifications and designs for implementation using selected products.
• Assess current systems architecture in place and recommend the best solutions for improvement.
• Resolving technical problems as they arise and assess the business impact that certain technical choices have.
• Evaluate and undertake impact analysis on major design options, assess and manage associated risks and ensure that the system design balances functional, service quality and systems management requirements.
• Test and provide guidance to teams on integrations and software components in accordance with the design.
• Continually research current and emerging technologies and propose changes where needed.
• Inform various stakeholders on problems with the current technical solutions being implemented.
• Provide advice on technical aspects of system development and integration (including requests for changes, deviations from specifications, etc.) and ensure that relevant technical strategies, policies, standards and practices are applied correctly. Provide input to the strategic direction of technology investments to assist in the development of the enterprise architecture to maximize the return on technology investment, participate in governance/stewardship of ESB/SOA, MSA artifacts definitions, including enterprise services, data, business events/topics, contracts and associated publish/subscribe participants.
• Specify and design large or complex systems, select appropriate design standards, methods and tools, consistent with agreed enterprise and solution architectures and ensures they are applied effectively.
• Peer review system designs, ensure selection of appropriate technology and multiple technology integrations
• Evaluate and undertake impact analysis on major design options and assess and manage associated risks and ensure that the system design balances functional, service quality and systems management requirements.
• Monitor the market to gain knowledge and understanding of currently emerging technologies, identify new and emerging hardware and software technologies and products and potential value to the organization.
• Document policies, procedures and reference architectures on Intranet and communicate updates to appropriate staff. Provide best practice recommendations for design and project implementation
• Attend code reviews to ensure that platform-specific standards and best practices are followed.
• Provide team support in project delivery; systems development, solution architecture Design, architecture reviews, architecture assessment, component development, ICT tools evaluation, vendor review,
• Ensures that the solution architectures align with the roadmaps established by enterprise architecture, and that they adhere to the enterprise architecture principles.

Qualifications, Skills & Attributes

The successful jobholder will be required to possess the following qualifications: –

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, IT, Statistics, Actuarial Science and/or related fields
• 4 years’ professional experience in IT solution architecture, development of APIs on Enterprise service Bus (ESB) Service Oriented
• Architecture (SOA) or Microservice Architecture (MSA) experience is desirable.
• Solid grasp of design patterns and principles, particularly Object-Oriented Design (OOD), SOA, MSA, and Event-Driven Architecture (EDA).
• Microservice Architecture (MSA), Docker Kubernetes knowledge is desirable.
• Excellent software development skills – Java, Spring framework, JBoss, Websphere, C#, Oracle databases, SQL server, DevOps, Docker and
• Kubernetes, Cloud based solutions, Android, REST, XML/RPC, MQ, and Kennel.
• Experience with systems like Mobile money transfer, USSD/SMS, Internet Banking, Omni Channel, Open Banking architecture, core banking systems and other systems in a financial services ecosystem.
• Ability to analyze, simulate/prototype, design, document and develop APIs or product components with.
• Experience in Agile, DevOps, Automation of testing, deployments, monitoring is desirable.
• Familiarity with Unified Modeling Language (UML) and possesses knowledge of ancillary technologies in use at, such as Java, MS SQL server, Eclipse, Oracle, or an ability to quickly learn any of these if needed.
• Possesses a strong customer service attitude, excellent communication skills, exhibits a passion for learning and continuous improvement.
• Takes responsibility for acquiring new skills and broadening knowledge
• Exhibits a commitment to the utilization of defined standards and processes and strong business acumen.
• High level of mathematical aptitude and strong problem-solving skills, logical, analytical and investigative mind.
• Ability to handle complex information with accuracy and attention to detail with creative abilities,

Job reference number FSD/IID/2024 

The Role

Specifically, the successful jobholder will be required to:

• Shape and implement technology / business solutions to contribute to the organization’s competitive differentiation.
• Use Agile engineering practices and various software development technologies to rapidly develop creative and efficient solutions that enhance the organization’s technology stack.
• Collaborate with other team members to implement user stories, write tests, and continuously deliver new / improved product functionality.
• Communicate with internal IT teams to resolve technical dependencies during implementation.
• Develop all front-end and backend and/or server-side logic, ensuring high performance and responsiveness to requests from the front-end according to user’s specification.
• Building reusable code and libraries for future use.
• Assist in preparing system specification by the users highlighting technical requirements.
• Carryout analysis of the requirements and recommend solutions to address user requirements.
• Carryout system testing.
• Develop and maintain documentation/manuals on system configuration or setup.
• Carry out technical user training in respect to these systems so that the business can utilize them.
• Provide solutions for SIT/UAT and ensure that functions/features are ready before being put on the live system.
• Secure systems by putting adequate controls and restrict access to programs by users in accordance to the requirements of the bank.
• Attend to systems failures and resolve or coordinate the resolution of the problem.
• Adhere to change control procedures in implementing solutions.
• Build the organization’s brand in the technology community.

Skills, Competencies and Experience

The successful candidate will be required to have the following skills and competencies:

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Electronics Engineering, IT or related field from a recognized university.
• Minimum of 3 years’ experience in software development is, with proficiency in server-side technologies including Springboot, Apache
• Camel, NestJS, SpringMVC, ExpressJS, Node.js, Java, PHP, C#, ASP.NET, XML, as well as client-side languages such as HTML/CSS, Javascript.
• Knowledge of designing RESTful APIs, SOAP Services, SSO/OAuth, LDAP and Search Technologies.
• Experience with a least one JS framework/Libraries – Angular, Cordova, Ionic, ReactJS, VueJS, Ember, jQuery, JQWidgets, Bootstrap.
• Very good knowledge of Windows Operating Systems and an understanding of Unix and Linux.
• Excellent understanding of SQL database fundamentals (for MSSQL, Oracle etc.).
• Knowledge of Agile software development practices with experience working in an agile environment with DevOps processes, workflows, and tools like TFS, GIT, Jenkins or Docker will be a plus.
• Knowledge of Agile software development practices and experience in an Agile environment are required. Familiarity with DevOps processes, workflows, and tools such as TFS, GIT, Github Actions, Jenkins, CircleCI, Team City, Docker and Kubernetes will be considered a plus.
• Very strong analytical, presentation & problem-solving skills with the ability to work confidently on high priority problems and present technical ideas in a user-friendly language.
• Positive attitude and willingness to learn new things

Job reference number FED/IID/2024

The Role
The successful jobholder will be expected to:

• Develop new and/or improve existing user facing features to enhance the user experience for both mobile and web applications.
• Deliver responsive and cross-browser compatible applications.
• Use Agile engineering practices and various software development technologies to rapidly develop creative, efficient, and re-usable solutions that enhance the organization’s technology stack.
• Prototype or test the technical feasibility of the UI/UX designs and maintain brand consistency.
• Optimize applications for size, speed, performance, and scalability.
• Consume APIs developed by the back-end developers to display data on the application, get and validate input from the application and post data to the API.
• Secure applications across all channels by putting adequate application security controls.
• Implement UI/UX analytics to analyze our applications and generate insights to help improve our applications and better understand our customers.
• Liaise with software vendors to resolve application issues or escalation by collecting, collating information and clearly documenting issues to enable efficient support from the software vendors/partners.
• Adhere to change control procedures in implementing solutions and seeing through a project from conception to completion.
• Work collaboratively with the UI/UX design team during the development and improvement of the user experiences.
• Act as a user-advocate during the development process by offering and implementing suggestions from a user centered design perspective.
• Act as a “go to” with in depth knowledge of user interface development best practices and standards.
• Provide support to fellow front-end developers by engaging in peer code reviews.
• Continuously research on better ways of achieving joyful user experiences and applications optimization.
• Actively contribute to the front-end development of web based and mobile applications in the bank.
  Use of DevOps and CI/CD tools to deliver new features and projects faster.

Qualifications, Skills & Attributes

The successful jobholder will be required to possess the following qualifications: –

• A Bachelor’s degree in computer science & IT related fields with a focus on software development.
• At least 3 years’ relevant work experience in Front-end mobile-web development.
• Experience in responsive and adaptive web development, along with proficiency in Android and iOS development.
• Proficient understanding of web markup languages and cascading stylesheets, such as HTML and CSS3.
• Proficiency in CSS, Bootstrap, LESS and SASS.
• Proficient understanding of client-side scripting frameworks such as JavaScript, ReactJS, Angular, Vue.js and jQuery.
• Good understanding of server-side technologies such as Node.js and PHP.
• Good understanding of asynchronous request handling, partial page updates, and AJAX.
• Proficient understanding of cross-browser compatibility issues and ways to work around them.
• Proficient understanding of code versioning tools such as Git / Mercurial / SVN.
• Good understanding of SEO principles and ensuring that applications will adhere to them.
• Knowledge in working with RESTful APIs.
• Knowledge in working with Hybrid Mobile Applications such as Cordova, Ionic, Capacitor and Flutter.
• Excellent knowledge of web analytics tools such as Google Analytics, Firebase, Mixpanel etc.
• Strong problem-solving skills, logical thinking, an analytical and investigative mind, and creativity.
• Proficiency in native android development using Jetpack compose or XML and/or knowledge of Swift UI or UI Kit will be an added advantage

Job reference number SM/IID/2024

The Role

The successful jobholder will be expected to:

• Facilitate the team for better creativity and works to improve the efficiency of the Agile team.
• Be responsible for managing the scrum process with the coordination of the scrum team for Agile delivery.
• Guide the team on self-organizing to fill in the intentional gaps left in the Agile frameworks.
• Assess the scrum maturity of the team and organization and coaching the team to higher levels of maturity at a sustainable pace.
• Build a trusting and safe environment for the teams to express themselves.
• Plan Scrum implementations within the organization by helping teams and stakeholders understand and enact scrum and empirical product development.
• Promote and advocate for the adoption of Agile methodologies across the organization, emphasizing its benefits in the banking industry’s digital and innovation context.
• Provide training, mentoring, and coaching to teams and individuals on Agile principles, practices, and techniques.
• Facilitates the team by removing the impediments for the scrum team
• Establishes team performance rhythms e.g. daily stand-up meetings, facilitates and schedules meetings, demos and decision-making
• processes in order to ensure quick inspection and proper use of adaptation process.
• Lead and champion execution excellence.
• Work with product owners on the product backlog by organizing product grooming and make ready for the next sprint.
• Act as a safeguard for the team and provide role modelling and authentic leadership.
• Run with a cross functional team from business, technology, and other support functions to deliver first product to the customer.
• Ensure the product is deployed by the technology team and first transaction performed successfully as the definition of done
• Receive and plan for technical debt and continuous feedback.
• Prepare regular updates and status reports to the executive on team performance.
• Lead the User experience team in design and Ideation and incubation of MVPs.
• Be the custodian of the agile evangelism
• Administer the digital research lab for the bank
• Live agile values and principles by following the set process, practices and governance around resource management, ensuring products are developed on time.

Qualifications, Skills & Attributes

The successful jobholder will be required to possess the following qualifications: –

• An IT related Bachelor’s degree or Business related degree with relevant IT professional qualifications with good project management, designing and testing background.
• Must have 2-3 years serving as an active Scrum Master in a busy software development team.
• Certified Scrum Master with relevant practical experience as a Scrum Master or experience working in a Scrum Framework is preferred.
• Experienced with Lean/Agile principles with knowledge of agile methodology and approaches like scrum, Kanban, Extreme Programing (XP), Crystal, Feature Driven Development (FDD) etc.
• Basic knowledge of software development processes and procedures with an understanding of team needs, basic fundamentals of iterative and incremental development as well as service-oriented environments and Agile practices.
• Coaching capability on agile scrum with a continuous improvement mindset to continually be growing one’s expertise, learning new tools and techniques to manage self and the team. Must be able to lead and demonstrate value-add principles to a team.
• High level of mathematical aptitude and strong problem-solving skills, logical, analytical mindset with an investigative creative mind and ability to handle complex information with accuracy and attention to detail. Knows and appreciates the value of metrics and incremental delivery.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills when working with both internal business and technical people with external customers, ability to solidify vague requests, explain issues, and guide to solutions.