Software Engineer

Candidates MUST be WI residents.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission is charged under Wisconsin Statutes to administer and enforce Wisconsin’s elections laws. A core mission of the Commission is to ensure ongoing and quality education, training, outreach, technical assistance, and advice to municipal clerks, county clerks, and local election inspectors (poll workers) that conduct elections as well as to ensure adherence to, and compliance with Wisconsin election laws and required procedures. Another core function of the Commission is to provide current and accurate information to the public as well as various governmental and other organizations about the State's electoral processes, voting statistics, and trends.

Under the supervision of the IT Project Manager and IT Director, this position functions as part of the Information Technology team and is a resource for developers and elections specialists. This position will develop a high-level working knowledge of federal and state election laws, administrative rules, and business processes in order to effectively interpret and apply these requirements to all types of elections technology used throughout the state. 

This position’s primary role will be to develop and maintain Wisconsin’s electronic poll book software, also referred to as Badger Book. The Badger Book application is developed in-house on a .NET web application applied to devices with limited local area network connectivity. Maintenance of the Badger Book Windows operating system is done offline so advanced knowledge of the .NET framework and SQL Server is required. Additionally, interaction with Badger Books is done primarily by non-technical end users so familiarity with scripting languages is helpful in creating simple deployment packages.

As time allows, this position will work with our main application, WisVote, which is a database of voter and election information as well as a primary tool for administration of elections in the state and help in developing and maintaining our other applications including the voter website MyVote, Wisconsin’s data request site Badger Voters, Wisconsin’s election results reporting module Canvass, and other Wisconsin election technology. This position requires compliance with the agency’s timekeeping system to ensure that tasks performed qualify under federal funding guidelines or that work representing State initiatives is tracked contemporaneously and is properly accounted for using State funds.

Duties and Responsibilities:

1. Serve as a member of the agency's information technology team and ensure quality and consistency of the software architecture across the system.
2. Develop and maintain a high-level working knowledge of all elections laws governing responsibilities of state and local election officials and voters, as it relates to information technology systems. 
3. Gather information from other developers, the project manager, the IT Director, and subject matter experts to provide architectural and big picture oversight for development of Badger Book application
4. Stay up to date on business initiatives and objectives, particularly as these relate to infrastructure and development issues.
5. Research and implement best practices frameworks/capability models that will control costs, provide higher quality, and/or increase predictability of service delivery.
6. Analyze and design of systems and maintenance or enhancements to existing systems.
7. Develop computer programs and maintenance to existing programs or technical procedures.
8. Assume responsibility for accurate, effective, and efficient performance of assigned applications including evaluation and implementation of requested changes and recommendations for improvements.
9. Evaluate and implement requested enhancements and changes, as assigned.
10. Prepare tests and test data to test and debug programs and/or procedures to assure compliance with specifications.
11. Participate in system testing to assure computer programs/procedures within a system will function together correctly.
12. Code or modify medium-complexity computer programs with Microsoft Desktop applications development software, tools, and environment such as C#.Net Core, WPF, and Visual Studio using components such as Microsoft Azure DevOps and Telerik controls and interfacing with SQL Server using Entity Framework to comply with program specifications and WEC standards. Additional experience with ASP.NET and Microsoft Dynamics 365 would be nice to have as well.

Top Required Skills & At Least 8 Years' Experience:

• WPF Windows Presentation Foundation
• C#.NET Core
• SQL Server

Nice to Have Skills:

• Telerik
• Basic Networking Experience
• File encryption/decryption.
• CRM Exposure
• Application Security training
• Desktop Support Experience