Graduate Developer

Help shape the future of intellectual property

Marks & Clerk LLP is the leading and largest firm of Patent and Trade Mark attorneys in the UK with over 60 Partners and 500 employees.  Our attorneys are highly skilled in all technical fields.  We have 9 offices in the UK: London, Oxford, Cambridge, Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen.

Role purpose

Working as a member of a team supporting one of our most business critical systems, this is a business development role with a particular focus on maintaining templates and the systems used to generate business correspondence (i.e. letters and other documents).

Principal responsibilities

1st line responsibilities: 

• Liaise with a variety of stakeholders (including Developers, Business Architects and Testers) to agree detailed development requirements
• Create and amend MS/Word and Acrobat templates. This correspondence is sent directly to clients, and given the complex nature of the business, considerable time is needed to ensure they are accurate, well laid out and clearly written
• Conduct own unit and integration testing. This involves devising and creating test cases, covering key business scenarios
• Liaise and coordinate with the User Acceptance Testing (UAT) team to deliver templates (and other systems components) for UAT
• Release tested components to the live/production environment and investigate potential issues. 

Technical knowledge, professional qualifications and experience

The successful candidate will have:

• A degree in an IT related subject; other mainstream specific scientific subjects will also be considered as long as they include an element of programming.
• Knowledge of systems development life cycle and roles/responsibilities within it.
• Knowledge of MS/Word, Visual Basic for Applications (VBA)
• Knowledge and use of XML, XSL and XML Schema
• Understanding of the principles of databases including Schema
• Experience within a systems development team in a business environment (this could be part of a placement) (desirable)
• Knowledge of T-SQL and Microsoft SQL Server (desirable)
• Experience in developing client facing systems (desirable)
• Understanding of the principles of version control and experience in Apache Subversion or other source control systems (desirable)
• Exposure to Adobe Acrobat Forms (desirable)
• C# and .NET (advantageous)

In addition, the successful candidate will be able to demonstrate:

• Excellent communication skills (written and verbal)
• Strong analytical mind-set, with proven ability to model and express complex business
• Excellent attention to detail and a methodical approach to working
• The ability to work effectively both independently and as part of a team
• Excellent organisation and prioritisation skills
• Motivated to explore new methodologies and alternatives to existing architecture
• Interest in programming outside of workplace

Remuneration and benefits

• Competitive salary dependent on qualification and experience
• 26 days’ annual holiday, plus statutory holidays
• Hybrid working
• Contributory pension scheme
• Life assurance
• Private medical insurance (after 12 months)
• Permanent health insurance (after 12 months)
• Reimbursement of membership fees to professional bodies required for the role