TECHNICAL SPECIALIST

Location: Columbus, Ohio

Position Type: Contract – Local Candidates ONLY

Position Term: 3+ Months with possible extension

The Client calculates and processes approximately $8 billion of school funding annually. The data processing systems used are a mix of COBOL and SAS programs; running on an OpenVMS mainframe; reading from Oracle databases, SAS datasets, and flat files; and writing to SAS datasets and flat files.

The Client seeks to modernize this data processing environment by reworking the system to utilize modern technologies, specifically replacing COBOL and SAS on OpenVMS with Python on Windows and SQL server databases.

To this end, the Client seeks a senior programmer/system architect with significant Python 3 expertise, in order to:

• Design a new data processing system and architecture to perform multiple recurring, time sensitive, and mission critical funding processes, each involving multiple programs, calculation steps, and/or data sources. Goals to improve over the legacy system include, but are not limited to:


• Replace all COBOL and SAS code with Python 3 code, potentially augmented with ODE owned reporting tools (e.g. SoS HTML template and JSON data, JavaScript (and HandleBar templating), Django Template Language, PowerBI).


• Make most data calculations reusable across multiple payment processes (e.g. as a Python package)


• Make the processes configurable so that simple changes (such as constants or multiplication factors that may change each budget biennium) can be changed at run time without requiring code changes and a formal software release.


• Make the processes configurable so that different calculation modules and data sources are leveraged depending upon run time parameters such as state fiscal year and payment number.


• Producing run time logs for tracing batch file execution


• Produce business and operational reports, such as payment change tolerances and exception handling.


• Identify, recommend, and assist with implementing a Python 3 distribution (CPython, Pandas, etc.) appropriate for Client’s needs.


• Work with Client personnel to review existing legacy COBOL and SAS code to document business rules, system process flow and identify process re-engineering opportunities.

Mandatory Skills:

• 7+ years of Python programming experience, at least 4 of which Python 3 must have been the primary programming language used.


• At least one project migrating a substantial legacy code base to Python.


• At least one project designing and implementing a software architecture for batch script execution.

Preferred qualifications:

• Experience with Python in Microsoft Visual Studio


• Experience with Microsoft Team Foundation Services (TFS) for source code control, work item management, release management, and/or build processes


• Experience with SQL server databases


• Experience with JavaScript Object Notation (JSON)


• Experience with Pandas for Python