Spektrum supports apex purchasers (NATO, UN, EU and National Government and Defence) and their Tier 1 supplier ecosystem with a wide range of specialist services. We provide our clients with professional services, specialised aerospace and defence sales, delivery, and operational subject matter expertise. We are looking for personnel to join our team and support key client projects.
Who we are supporting
Allied Command Transformation (ACT) is NATO's leading agent for change: driving, facilitating, and advocating the continuous improvement of Alliance capabilities to maintain and enhance the military relevance and effectiveness of the Alliance. The main objectives of ACT are: providing appropriate support to NATO missions and operations; leading NATO military transformation; and improving relationships, interaction and practical cooperation with partners, nations and international organisations. ACT therefore leads Alliance concept development, capability development, training and lessons-learned initiatives and provides unfettered military support to policy development within NATO.
The program
Capability Development & Management Support (CDMS)
DCOS Capability Development (CAPDEV) acts as the Supreme Allied Commander Transformation's Director for guidance, direction and coordination of the activities and resources of the Capability Development Directorate.
The Requirements Division will execute all tasks and activities needed to support requirements management for NATO capabilities.
The Capability Requirements (CR) Branch will develop the Capability Requirements Brief and recommended courses of action to resolve issues through the life cycle management of requirements using matrixed, cross-functional project-specific Requirements Management teams.
The Requirements Forward Branch (Mons) is responsible for conducting requirements development and management representation and engagement-related functions in Europe.
The Capability Division coordinates the development of capabilities from capability planning through acceptance and then disposal with management entities, NATO Headquarters staff and the NATO Governance Structure.
The Capability Forward Branch (Mons) coordinates with ACO, NCIA, NSPA, NATO HQ, territorial Host Nations, and NATO Centres of Excellence (COEs) to support the development of capabilities.
Strategic Plans and Policy (SPP) supports Allied Command Transformation in formalizing military advice to shape future military strategy, political guidance, and other policy documents supporting NATO's strategic objectives.
Role ID: ACT-CDMS-27-01-A-LC08
Role Background
Provide hands-on digital workflow prototyping and citizen-development support to digitize CAPDEV work and information flows using approved platforms and development tools outside the Microsoft Power Platform environment. They are expected to work directly with operational users to identify workflow problems and opportunities, rapidly design and personally build proof-of-concept and pilot solutions, test those solutions in operational use, iterate based on evidence and user feedback, and prepare successful solutions for transition to enterprise development, DevSecOps, platform, or scaling organizations. This is a hands-on rapid delivery role. The requirement is not primarily for enterprise architecture, strategic advisory, product management, programme management, software development team leadership, or supervision of development performed by others. The objective is to allow CAPDEV to test digitally transformed workflows quickly and at relatively low cost before committing resources to enduring implementation, while ensuring successful prototypes generate sufficient operational, technical, and requirements evidence to support responsible scaling.
Roles Duties and Responsibilities
•Support CAPDEV organizations through hands-on rapid development of digital workflow proofs of concept, prototypes, and operational pilots using approved non-Microsoft low-code, no-code, configurable-application, workflow, lightweight development, or comparable platforms and tools.
•Work directly with process owners, operational users, analysts, managers, and information stakeholders to understand existing work and information flows, decisions, handoffs, data requirements, pain points, and opportunities for digital transformation.
•Document current and desired workflows at sufficient detail to identify user roles, workflow states, decision points, information exchanges, business rules, data requirements, and minimum functionality needed to test a redesigned process.
•Translate operational needs into minimum viable prototype or pilot requirements that can be rapidly developed, demonstrated, tested, and iterated with users.
•Design, configure, develop, test, and improve digital applications and workflows that replace or materially reduce manual, spreadsheet-intensive, email-driven, form-based, document-centric, or otherwise fragmented CAPDEV processes.
•Configure structured data capture, user roles, workflow states, business rules, validations, routing, approvals, notifications, status tracking, role-based views, and other functionality required to operationally test redesigned workflows.
•Integrate prototype and pilot solutions with approved data sources or services using APIs, databases, web services, webhooks, structured file exchange, or other authorized mechanisms appropriate to the technical environment.
•Develop lightweight scripts, components, application logic, or integrations when configurable or low-code functionality alone is insufficient to test the operational requirement.
•Use approved AI-assisted development capabilities, where available and appropriate, to accelerate prototyping, code development, configuration, testing, documentation, or iterative solution improvement while maintaining appropriate human review and technical accountability.
•Conduct user testing and operational pilots with representative CAPDEV users and iteratively improve solutions based on observed use, stakeholder feedback, technical findings, and changes to the operational requirement.
•Establish appropriate baselines and assess prototype or pilot effects on factors such as cycle time, manual processing effort, data completeness, information availability, workflow visibility, traceability, usability, and user adoption.
•Identify security, data-management, information-management, architecture, integration, licensing, hosting, scalability, and sustainment constraints sufficiently early to inform whether and how a prototype should progress toward enduring implementation.
•Design prototypes to use authoritative information sources where practical and avoid unnecessary creation of duplicate, unsupported, or orphaned data stores.
•Apply proportionate development and lifecycle practices appropriate to rapid prototyping, including version or configuration control, documentation of business rules and dependencies, testing, management of development artifacts, and separation of prototype and operational environments where supported.
•Document process requirements, workflow logic, data structures, integrations, user roles, business rules, configuration, code or scripts, assumptions, known limitations, test findings, and operational lessons sufficiently to support reuse, assessment, and transition.
•Prepare transition packages for successful prototypes and pilots, including requirements, process design, user stories or equivalent functional descriptions, data structures, integrations, business rules, test results, known limitations, technical dependencies, and recommendations for enduring implementation.
•Collaborate with enterprise developers, DevSecOps teams, platform owners, system integrators, data teams, cybersecurity personnel, and other scaling organizations to support transition from CAPDEV prototype or pilot to enduring implementation.
•Maintain visibility of active prototypes and pilots, including purpose, users, status, dependencies, risks, technical debt, evidence of operational value, and recommended disposition such as continue testing, revise, transition for scaling, sustain locally, or retire.
•Present prototype and pilot findings, user feedback, technical constraints, trade-offs, implementation risks, and scaling recommendations to CAPDEV leaders and stakeholders.
•Perform additional tasks as required by the COTR that are directly related to this labor category and do not constitute a materially different labor requirement.
Essential Skills & Qualifications
•Recent End-to-End Hands-On Digital Solution Delivery: Demonstrated recent experience personally developing digital applications, workflows, prototypes, or pilots from identification of a user or business-process requirement through configuration or development, testing, user feedback, and operational use or pilot activity. Must demonstrate at least twelve calendar months within the last twenty-four months during which hands-on digital application, workflow, or prototype development constituted a substantial and recurring portion of assigned duties, and at least one personally developed digital solution used by an identified user group as part of an active business process or operational pilot within the last eighteen months. Must identify month and year of qualifying experience, approximate proportion of assigned duties devoted to hands-on development, business process addressed, personal technical contribution, technologies or platforms used, and user group. Experience limited to directing, supervising, managing, advising, governing, architecting, technical leadership, product ownership, programme management, coordinating, or overseeing development performed by others does not satisfy this requirement. Multiple components developed for the same user group to address the same business-process requirement shall be considered one example.
•Non-Microsoft Low-Code, No-Code, or Configurable Application Development: Minimum of two years within the last five years, including hands-on development within the last twenty-four months, personally designing, configuring, building, testing, and deploying applications or workflows using non-Microsoft low-code, no-code, configurable-application, workflow, or comparable rapid-development platforms. Must demonstrate at least two personally developed applications or workflow solutions, including at least one used by an identified user group as part of an active business process or operational pilot within the last twenty-four months and a second qualifying example within the last three years. Must demonstrate hands-on development using at least two distinct non-Microsoft rapid-development platforms, frameworks, or application development technologies. At least one qualifying solution shall demonstrate three or more of the following characteristics, with at least one drawn from items 3, 5, or 7: multiple workflow states, screens, forms, or user roles; conditional or role-based behaviour; structured data model or relationships between data entities; custom validation, business rules, or workflow logic; integration with more than one data source, service, or application; automated routing, approvals, notifications, or task coordination; or reusable components, scripts, extensions, or comparable application logic. Applications or workflows configured or developed primarily by others, basic forms or templates, or demonstration-only builds do not satisfy this requirement.
•Rapid Prototyping and Minimum Viable Solution Delivery: Demonstrated hands-on experience within the last five years, including at least one example within the last twenty-four months, rapidly translating an identified operational or business-process requirement into a testable digital proof of concept, prototype, minimum viable solution, or pilot. Must identify at least two examples personally contributing to requirements discovery and personally developing the resulting prototype or pilot. At least one qualifying example shall have progressed from initial requirement or process discovery to a testable solution available to representative users within ninety calendar days or less. At least one example shall demonstrate at least two of the qualifying solution characteristics from the prior qualification, including at least one from items 3, 5, or 7. Experience involving only development against fully predetermined specifications without rapid iteration with users does not satisfy this requirement.
•Business Process Discovery and Workflow Redesign: Minimum of two years within the last five years, including at least one qualifying example within the last three years, working directly with operational users, process owners, managers, or information stakeholders to understand existing business processes and design digitally enabled future workflows. Must demonstrate at least two examples personally analyzing an existing manual, spreadsheet-based, email-driven, document-centric, or otherwise fragmented process and identifying user roles, process steps, handoffs, decisions, information requirements, pain points, and opportunities for redesign prior to development. Experience limited to receiving predetermined requirements without direct engagement with users or process owners does not satisfy this requirement.
•Data Integration and Lightweight Technical Development: Demonstrated hands-on experience within the last five years, including at least one example within the last twenty-four months, personally extending, integrating, or supporting digital applications or workflows using technical methods beyond basic platform configuration. Experience shall include at least two of: REST or other APIs; relational databases or SQL; webhooks or web services; structured data exchange between applications; Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, Java, C#, or another general-purpose programming or scripting language; custom scripts, functions, extensions, or components within a configurable platform; or another identified enterprise application or data-integration mechanism. At least one of the two minimum claimed technical areas must be drawn from items 1 through 5, the second from items 1 through 6. At least one qualifying example shall use or integrate with an existing enterprise, authoritative, or system-of-record data source or service owned and maintained by another organization or system. Experience limited solely to manually importing or exporting files, configuring basic forms, or using preconfigured platform connectors without additional integration or technical logic does not satisfy this requirement.
•Operational Pilot, User Testing, and Iterative Improvement: Demonstrated hands-on experience within the last five years, including at least one example within the last twenty-four months, conducting user testing or operational pilot activity for a personally developed digital application, workflow, or prototype. Must demonstrate at least two examples in which representative users tested or used the candidate's solution and the candidate personally collected or observed feedback, defects, usability issues, process effects, or changing requirements and subsequently modified the solution. Experience limited to demonstrations without representative user interaction or development without subsequent iteration does not satisfy this requirement.
•Lifecycle Discipline and Delivery within Constrained Environments: Demonstrated hands-on experience within the last five years, including at least one example within the last twenty-four months, personally applying lifecycle, configuration, testing, security, or sustainment practices to rapidly developed digital applications, workflows, prototypes, or pilots. Must demonstrate practical experience in at least three of: source, version, or configuration control; separation of development, test, pilot, or operational environments; controlled deployment or promotion between environments; management of application configuration, credentials, secrets, or service accounts; dependency or integration documentation; structured testing, defect tracking, or documented issue-and-resolution management; application monitoring or logging; or administrator or sustainment documentation. Must include item 6 and at least one of items 1, 2, or 3. Must also identify at least one example within the last twenty-four months in which technical constraints (security restrictions, platform limitations, licensing, network constraints, administrative permissions, hosting limitations, unavailable services, etc.) required modifying the design or implementation of a digital solution. General familiarity without evidence of personal application does not satisfy this requirement.
•Transition to Enterprise Development or Scaling: Demonstrated experience within the last five years, including at least one qualifying example within the last three years, preparing a personally developed prototype, pilot, application, or workflow for continued development, production implementation, enterprise scaling, or sustainment by another developer, DevSecOps team, platform owner, system integrator, or operational support organization. The transition material shall have included at least three of: functional requirements, user stories, or equivalent; process or workflow design; data model or data structures; business rules or application logic; integration or interface requirements; configuration, source code, scripts, or technical implementation material; test results or known defects; known limitations, risks, or technical debt; or deployment, hosting, security, or sustainment considerations. Formal transfer between organizations is not required; internal handover to another appropriately qualified development or support team satisfies this requirement.
•Prototype Assessment and Decision Communication: Demonstrated experience within the last five years, including at least one example within the last three years, evaluating and communicating the results of a digital prototype, pilot, application, or workflow to managers, process owners, product owners, or other decision makers. Must identify at least two examples personally communicating findings concerning user feedback, operational value, technical feasibility, limitations, risks, implementation considerations, or recommended next steps.
Education and Experience
•A University/Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Software Engineering, Engineering, Human-Centered Design, Business Process Management, Business Information Technology, or a closely related field; or a minimum of five years of directly relevant professional experience in lieu of the degree. Directly relevant professional experience shall include work in at least two of the following areas: low code/no-code or configurable-application development; workflow automation; software or web application development; business-process digitization; rapid prototyping or minimum-viable-product development. Either the degree or experience-in-lieu route fully satisfies this qualification.
Language Proficiency
•Business English
Working Location
•Norfolk, VA
Working Policy
•On-Site
Contract Duration
•January 2027 – December 2031
Security Clearance
•Valid National or NATO Secret personal security clearance
