A Career With ODI

Discover ODI

Why Start A Career with Ecologi

Company vision and mission

The ODI’s mission is to work with companies and governments to build an open, trustworthy data ecosystem.

People, economies and societies are not getting the best value from data.

Business and funding models can restrict the social and economic benefits we receive from data and expose us to privacy and security risks. Data monopolies can increase inequality in how information is accessed and used. Startups, researchers and communities can miss out if they can’t afford the fees or access is delayed.

At the ODI, we advocate for and support an open culture: a data infrastructure that is as open as possible; data literacy and capability for all; and open innovation. At the same time, fears arising from legitimate concerns – such as who has access to data and how it might be used – can prevent us from realising data’s full benefits. Some people withdraw their consent for organisations to use data about them, leading to data that’s biased and misleading. Restrictive laws governing how data is collected and used lead to missed opportunities.

At the ODI, we advocate for and support practices that increase trust and trustworthiness: building ethical considerations into how data is collected, managed and used; ensuring equity around who accesses, uses and benefits from data; engaging widely with affected people and organisations. We cannot tackle these issues on our own. We work with others with the same or similar goals. We focus our efforts on one part of the challenge: helping companies and governments to build an open and trustworthy data ecosystem. These organisations have particular opportunities and responsibilities as data’s main collectors and users. In building this ecosystem, they can become more efficient, make their business and funding models more sustainable, and benefit society.

A career at ODI looks like

Expert

We are good at what we do. We use our expertise to achieve our mission. We are open and generous with our expertise and experience, and share it outside and inside ODI.

We can get better at what we do. We recognise the limits of our expertise and respect that of others. We are open to and seek advice, opinions and support to develop our expertise, within and outside ODI. We reflect on what works and what doesn’t to consciously learn, improve and grow.

Enabling

We succeed when others flourish. We support and challenge others to do their best work. We open up opportunities for other people and organisations, and empower them to take them. We are as open as possible about what we are doing and what we have learnt. We encourage others to refine and build on our work.

We empathise with others so we can help them. We find out what people and organisations really need. We have empathy with their motivations and the constraints they operate under. We communicate in terms they understand.

Fearless

We are trusted because we are honest and responsible. We are open with our opinion, open to hearing what others say, open to being wrong and open to changing our mind. We are not afraid to speak our mind when it is useful or important, and take responsibility for the results of doing so. We actively and curiously listen to others, and take responsibility for our responses to them.

We can do more than we might think. We are bold, creative and open to failure. We know what we do won’t be perfect at first but that doesn’t stop us. We start small and quickly, and iterate to improve.

Diversity in inclusion strategy 

The ODI welcomes and encourages job applications from a diverse range of backgrounds to promote an inclusive culture and a diverse working environment.

 

Find below a career opportunity for you

Application Developer

Location: King’s Cross, London
Salary: £41,998 per annum

 

About us

Excellent benefits including 38 days annual leave (8 days bank holiday), investment in your development and hybrid / flexible working.

Co-founded by the inventor of the web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee and renowned AI professor, Sir Nigel Shadbolt. The ODI mission is to work with companies and governments to build an open, trustworthy data ecosystem, where people can make better decisions using data and manage any harmful impacts. This is a great opportunity to be part of something special!

This collaborative project with OpenActive is an important community initiative to tackle inactivity in England, by making it as easy to book a badminton court online as it is to book a hotel room. This exciting programme brings together a growing community of activity providers, technology suppliers and data users and we need an outstanding application developer to make it happen.

 

About the role

Working closely with, and reporting to, the OpenActive Tech Lead, the Application Developer will lower barriers to implementing OpenActive standards by improving our tooling, writing documentation, and consulting with partner organisations to support integration of OpenActive technologies with their own tech stacks. These technologies are diverse, and match the diversity of our partners: you can expect to meet languages ranging from PHP to Python to C#, datastores from relational databases to Elasticsearch, frameworks from Ruby on Rails to React.js, and code from the back- to the frontend in the course of routine work. The important point is that these technologies are all orientated toward a clear goal: the creation and fostering of an open data ecosystem, developed using open source methodologies.

Because we work across so many stacks and organisations to help get our standards implemented, flexibility and curiosity are more important for the role than deep immersion in a single language or development approach: the successful Application Developer will need to be able quickly to assess novel codebases, design patterns, or APIs, formulate relevant questions about these, and start working toward solutions in collaboration with external partners. Very often an ability to empathise, communicate, and grasp broad technical architecture will be more relevant than mastery of syntactic details (though the successful candidate will not be intimidated by these, either). While the role is predominantly technical, then, it will particularly suit candidates interested in developing their skills in developer relations. In addition, you’ll be working alongside the ODI’s small but dedicated and experienced tech team – and thus be well-placed to develop and explore your interests in the diverse areas we work in, from anonymisation and privacy to standardisation and synthetic data.

 

Impact you’ll own

  • Design, development, and maintenance of tooling across a range of languages to support OpenActive standards and implementations
  • Documentation of new and existing tooling and standards for technical audiences
  • Collaboration with partner organisations for standards support and integration
  • Improvement of the OpenActive developer experience by revitalising and expanding our developer website (https://developer.openactive.io)
  • Collection of technical feedback from OpenActive implementers to improve our tooling,
    documentation, and standards

 

What you bring

  • Experience of software development, ideally but not necessarily in the area of booking platforms
  • Experience working with and developing SDKs and REST APIs.
  • Experience of at least two of the following languages: PHP, Ruby, Javascript, C#, and Python
  • Experience with versioning systems such as e.g. Git
  • Experience working with a variety of third party APIs and SDKs
  • Fluent written and spoken English
  • Relevant degree level qualification in Computer Science or related programme
  • Experience in the areas of technical writing and/or developer relations
  • Experience with at least one Javascript framework (e.g. Angular, React, Node)
  • A familiarity and understanding of open data and licensing

 

What you will get

  • 30 days annual holiday plus bank holidays
  • Life Assurance cover
  • Long-term disability cover
  • Critical illness cover
  • Flexible working
  • Coaching and mentoring for skills and personal development
  • £750 annual training budget toward your own professional development

 

For further details and to apply please click here
Closing date: N/A
Contact query: jobs@theodi.org