Engineer – Search Practice
Location – US/Canada/UK, remote working
Contract type – Full-time employee
Please send your resume to: [email protected]
About Fireman & Company
Fireman & Company is the leading knowledge management (KM) consultancy in the legal industry. We partner with our clients to make substantial, distinct, and lasting improvements in performance through the effective use of KM resources and disciplines.
Fireman & Company is structured around several practice areas. These practice areas can work independently or together, as required by our clients. Our advisory services deliver trusted advice that helps our clients establish long-term strategies, and execute against near-term priorities. Our design and implementation services allow our clients to deploy practical solutions that lawyers and staff embrace and use. We deliver these services across the full range of KM core competencies including data management, document management, intranets, enterprise search, experience management, artificial intelligence, and additional KM advisory services.
Our values; empathy, humility, creativity, and trust are deeply embedded in the way we work with our clients and internally. Our experts meet thousands of lawyers and staff each year which puts us as trusted advisors to over 50% of AmLaw 100 firms. Expansion plans within new practice areas and geographies demand a greater emphasis on delivering excellence to our clients and this role is core to realizing that vision. Working together with our clients, we craft innovative solutions to their practical business problems and help them achieve their strategic business goals.
About the role
The Enterprise Search practice area delivers a portfolio of client engagements; the Engineer supports the Enterprise Search practice leader in the implementation of Legal Enterprise Search solutions. The Engineer will be required to work with internal and 3rd party providers to provide innovative solutions for our clients.
The role requires delivery of data analysis, front and back end software development, and the opportunity to implement development best practices for future use. Client engagements can be either a traditional waterfall or an agile methodology. The projects are a blend of on-premise and cloud implementations based on client requirements and/or vendor product capability.
Discovery phase – The Engineer will work closely with the client’s application and infrastructure teams and Fireman & Company practice experts to analyze technical and data constraints, and opportunities and turn them into deliverable solutions.
Design phase – The Engineer will consult on and contribute to software requirement specifications (SRS) or similar documentation. The Engineer will work alongside UI designers to create great Search experiences for attorneys.
Delivery phase – The Engineer will carry out the necessary programming, configuration, and indexing to deliver the project to design and client expectations.
QA and go-live phases – The Engineer will carry out and/or manage the testing of data, software, and configurations delivered against the SRS. The Engineer will provide early life support and knowledge transfer to client IT support teams.
Key responsibilities
The Engineer is expected to work on their own initiative, under the direction of senior leadership and practice heads. The Engineer is measured on their ability to demonstrate experience in the following areas.
Data Engineering
- Pull data from SQL, NoSQL and API based data sources using MongoDB or similar.
- Clean and enrich data with SQL and Python scripting.
- Carry out data hygiene activities to shed light on client data (including data cleansing and enrichment) using SQL and Python scripting.
- Create clear recommendations for remediation of data structure and cleanliness, which could impact the overall Enterprise Search experience.
- Work with our data practice in creating a law firm data model that could be used across other practices.
Software Engineering
- Experience building a modern web UI.
- Experience with SOLID Object-Oriented Programming.
- Experience with Functional Programming.
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Building relationships
- Provide direction, motivation, training, and decision support to other Engineers and consultants (internal and client where appropriate).
- Recognize and manage staff diversity, performance, and or personality conflicts to work as part of an effective team(s).
- Develop a position of trust and expertise by delivering and sharing knowledge.
Continuous improvement
- Leverage critical thinking and new tools to enhance project and development quality.
- Propose or refine development standards, processes, and methodologies, focusing on streamlining administrative overhead and adding value to our clients and Fireman & Company.
Attributes for success
The Engineer will be able to demonstrate the following attributes:
- A strong team player, comfortable working collaboratively, virtually, independently, and remotely.
- Excellent communication and networking skills, with the ability to effectively manage and influence a broad range of client and internal stakeholders.
- Ability to work under pressure and to tight deadlines, managing multiple projects/priorities effectively and efficiently.
- Ability to solve complex technical problems that may require significant analysis to identify the root cause.
Experience
The Engineer will be able to demonstrate real-world experience in the following areas:
Essential
- Over 5 years of programming experience.
- Delivering multiple engagements through the full life cycle of a project (discovery, design, build, QA, launch, and support) in a technical capacity.
- Working on multiple projects concurrently within client-facing professional services roles.
- Working as part of a matrixed, remote team.
- Strong SQL Skills.
- Experience with Java or another object-oriented language.
- Experience with Python scripting.
- Experience with Web Programming (HTML/CSS/Javascript).
- Experience with Git-based source control and Github.
Desirable
- Experience with search technologies such as SOLR or Elasticsearch.
- Experience with REACT.
- Previous experience using SharePoint and PowerBI.
- Experience working within the legal sector.
- Experience of developing and/or supporting Enterprise Search within a law firm is highly desirable.
- Experience of implementing legal systems (eg Handshake, Recommind, iManage, NetDocuments, Intapp, BA Insight).
