“If you are a ‘natural’, junior techie looking to grow into a rounded, professional software engineer working on highly advanced projects then this is an outstanding opportunity to join a team where your skills will be tested and developed at pace.“

JIK Software operates the leading, independent jobs boards in the South East: JobsInKent.com, JobsInEssex.com, JobsInSurrey.com and JonsInSussex.com. Every month, hundreds of thousands of people visit our websites, submitting tens of thousands of applications to the thousands of jobs advertised on our sites.

Over the next 12 months, we will be evolving and extending our services to drive growth. We will be implementing highly advanced technologies to deliver cutting edge services to clients and job seekers, while also launching into new geographical areas: we have grown every year for the last 15 years and that growth is continuing.

As a result, we need to grow our small engineering team and we are now recruiting motivated and talented Developers who can take our software engineering forward, building pools of expertise across UX and Personalisation, Search and Analytics/Big Data. The projects and technologies we are now working on are at the cutting edge.

As a Junior Developer, you will work independently to complete small, discrete coding jobs, helping to build out our core platform while at the same time learning about our business (you will sometimes work directly with sales or marketing teams to build a specific feature) and generally growing your skills and expertise.

You will be paired with a senior developer who will review your code with you and help you to develop your skills and expertise. After one month training and evaluation, you will then have an opportunity to start to focus on either UI and UX or Data Science and Algorithm Design, working in a range of languages, on a range of platforms.

You will work from our office in central Maidstone. Once you are settled in, home working will be considered but you should expect to generally be office based and should be comfortable working in a busy office (albeit with your headphones on!).

== Core skills and experience required

This is a junior role and we do not therefore expect you to have in-depth skills in any particular technology set. Neither do we need you to have experience, providing you can demonstrate the two core skills and characteristics we are looking for, which are:

+ Natural Engineering or Data abilities.
You must be able to demonstrate a natural ability, interest and some success in developing either complex software or ‘engaging’ User Interfaces.

+ Comfortable with ‘Pair-Working’ and Work Environments.
You must also be able to demonstrate an ability to work closely with at least one other person on a project and you must be able to evidence that you are comfortable with the day-to-day pressure of work and office environments.

Providing you can demonstrate that have these two essential characteristics, we will provide any training required (both on-the-job and via courses – you will be encouraged to take up to four paid days a year for training. We also expect you to spend 1 paid day a month working on R&D projects of your choice, presenting findings back to the team).

== Application Process and Start Date

We are looking for the successful applicant to start on October 1st 2017.

First round assessments will be completed in August. Closing date for applications is August 18th and first round assessments will be completed by August 25th. Applicants invited for interview will be notified by September 1st, with the successful applicant confirmed by September 15th.

If you would like to be considered, please apply using a CV which includes, as a minimum:

1. A personal statement. Maximum 1 page / 300 words. Please give us a feel for your career objectives or general ambitions

2. Evidence or links to evidence of your engineering or data abilities. This will typically involve showing us or describing work or projects that you have completed, whether that be independently/as a hobby or on an employed basis. We are looking for hard evidence of an ability to either build engaging User Interfaces or work with data in an unusual way.

3. A brief example or pair or team working in a commercial, office environment. We are looking for reasonably solid evidence of your ability to build and maintain productive working relationships. This may well be included in your personal statement and, if so, please highlight.

== Salary and benefits

We offer a salary of £18,000 and 4 weeks annual leave. Your salary will be reviewed annually, as part of a formal annual review process.

Other Benefits include one paid day per month for R&D on a topic of your choosing, plus 4 paid days a year for courses, classes or lectures.