Cobol Team Request

Project overview

Required: Experienced Cobol Team

The team is responsible for refining features, elaborating user stories, programming the stories, test automation, and going through all necessary test variants (e.g., unit tests, integration tests, etc.).

The team will be asked, in close collaboration with 2 existing COA-s teams (and with a number of other (existing) teams that will drive the modernization further, to further expand the COA-s with new functionality. Important in this context (and therefore also for the team to be offered):

Background of the assignment

The Collection and Payment Traffic department handles collection, recovery, and payment traffic for almost all tax resources and allowances in the Netherlands. The department is modernizing its (outdated) IT landscape. The first phase of this is almost complete. Now for the continuation. This will be a multi-year project. Extensive consideration has been given to how this project should be shaped. Essential within this is the strategic choice to shape part of the mass processes in Cobol. The COA-s application, for which a solid foundation has already been laid in the first phase of modernization.

The strategic choice for Cobol also means that the Cobol pipeline will be further modernized, and that we want to onboard new people where possible. The work on COA-s is on the critical path of modernization in the coming years.

Required profiles

Below you will find the profiles. The most important aspect of these profiles is that they have extensive experience in complex COBOL environments and can work in a scrum/agile organization. Therefore, they must all be seniors. You need time to get acquainted, and to keep this time realistic, you must be experienced and senior. We understand if there is a medior, but that can only be the case for the testers; preferably, we want seniors again. We only have a few years to realize this plan, which is why we want to keep the onboarding period as short as possible.

Designer (1 FTE)

You ensure good and intensive coordination with Business, developers, product owner, business analyst, architect, and users. You build new functionality, resolve incidents and problems with existing functionality, and contribute ideas and advice on the design and architecture of the application. You monitor the realization of the service-oriented architecture together with the solution architect. You support testers where necessary with executing tests and maintaining and expanding testware.

In sprints of 2 weeks, we work closely with the product owner on new functionality that we then bring to production.

• 1 Designer
• 1 Scrum Master
• 3 Developers
• 3 Testers
• (1. Product Owner – comes from own organization)
• COA-s strives for a high degree of test automation; significant progress has already been made in this area.
• Within COA-s, we explicitly want to incorporate AI into our development process. A few people within COA-s have licenses for an advanced coding assistant with which rudimentary agents have been built. And the modernization project has been prioritized within the Tax Administration for the further rollout of AI.
• The COA-s people are in the office an average of 2 days per week (Monday and Thursday).

Requirements

Competencies

Scrum Master (1 FTE)

In your role as Scrum Master, you are involved in the entire development process of our services. You connect the different disciplines in the team by promoting agile principles and applying scrum in daily practice. For your team, you are an easily approachable sounding board, and you facilitate effective communication between the team and stakeholders. You work with two other Scrum Masters who both guide a service team.

When does this job suit you?

Your competencies

You are a reliable and sensitive point of contact.

You are happy to help your colleagues develop themselves and achieve team goals.

You recognize bottlenecks, both in terms of content and personal matters, and are able to resolve them in a pleasant and positive manner.

Senior Developer (3 FTE)

You work in a scrum team that builds and renews services. You develop in COBOL and work according to established guidelines. You investigate complex issues and translate them into clear solutions. You work together with your colleagues in the scrum team. You help renew a large and important system that processes more than 1 billion euros daily.

You are a senior developer because you will be dealing with a complex environment. Your experience and knowledge will help you gain knowledge of this complex environment in a short time.

Senior Tester (3 FTE)

You work in a scrum team that builds and renews services. You test in COBOL and work according to established guidelines. You investigate complex issues and translate them into clear solutions. You work together with your colleagues in the scrum team. You help renew a large and important system that processes more than 1 billion euros daily.

You are a senior tester because you will be dealing with a complex environment. Your experience and knowledge will help you gain knowledge of this complex environment in a short time.

Other requirements

The IT organization of the Tax Administration is responsible for and provides ICT services. The majority of the applications are currently developed, maintained, and managed in-house by the IT organization in its own data center. In addition to ensuring continuity in the mass taxation and collection processes that take place within a solid, stable environment, there is also a lot of work being done on modernizing the IT landscape. This is done partly internally by using the expertise available internally, but also by attracting (ready-made) solutions and expertise from the market.

• Elaborating Features and user stories
• Coordination with architects, stakeholders, and interfaces
• Updating documentation and use cases
• Translating business needs into concrete functionality
• Supporting developers and testers during realization
• Planning and organizing
• Organizational sensitivity
• Collaboration
• Analyzing
• You have a professional bachelor's (HBO) work and thinking level.
• You have at least 5 years of work experience in a similar role.
• You have experience with coaching and with agile, scrum, and SAFe.
• Results-oriented
• Environmental awareness
• You have experience with agile, scrum, and SAFe.
• This assignment is not suitable for freelancers.
• The offer is aimed at hiring a scrum team, preferably already familiar with each other and working well together.
• The entire team is Dutch-speaking.
• Intake interviews will take place in week 50/51.

Project details

• Start: flexible
• Duration: 12 months
• Location: Apeldoorn, NL
• Languages: Dutch