Sr. Full Stack .NET Developer- Grant Management with ArcGIS, Blazor

Position: Senior Full Stack .NET Developer- Grant Management with ArcGIS

Duration: 2 Years

Location: Minnesota (100% Remote)

Description:

The Minnesota Department of Information Technology Services (MNIT), partnering with the Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources (BWSR), is seeking a vendor to provide resource(s) to perform ongoing maintenance, support, and enhancements for eLINK, BWSR's primary grant management and conservation tracking system. The selected vendor will be responsible for sustaining the system's operational integrity, improving performance, and ensuring the platform evolves in alignment with BWSR's program and strategic goals.

Minimum Qualifications:

Each resource that the winning vendor provides to perform the work must individually meet the following minimum qualifications. The resource(s) will not be evaluated as part of the contracting process, but the State reserves the right to review the winning vendor's resource(s) qualifications prior to work starting on the project. The State reserves the right to reject any resource(s) that do not meet these minimum qualifications, and to require that different resource(s) be brought in that do meet the minimum qualifications.

• 3 years of experience with ArcGIS
• 5 years of development experience using Blazor
• 5 years of experience working with both .NET technologies and Oracle Database
• 3 years of experience integrating solutions with DocuSign

Desired Qualifications:

• Experience developing web applications using Blazor, including:
• Experience with Blazor Web Assembly and/or Blazor Server
• Experience in C#, Razor syntax, and .NET Core/.NET 6+
• Experience with component-based architecture and state management in Blazor
• Experience with HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript
• Experience with APIs and HTTP Client in Blazor
• Experience with Entity Framework Core or other ORMs (Object Relational Mapping)
• Experience with Git, version control, and branching strategies

Experience working with Esri ArcGIS software and/or related geospatial technologies, including:

Development and deployment of GIS solutions using ArcGIS Desktop and ArcGIS Server

Data integration, spatial analysis, and map visualization within the ArcGIS platform

Experience with Geodatabases, GIS data standards, and geoprocessing tools

Experience integrating with DocuSign, including:

• Use of DocuSign eSignature API
• Configuration of workflows for electronic signature collection
• Secure transmission and storage of signed documents
• Compliance with relevant authentication and legal standards for digital signatures

Experience working with local government agencies or water planning entities in the context of developing and supporting water plans, including:

• Experience with regional and local water resource management concerns, including regulatory compliance, sustainability, conservation, and stakeholder engagement
• Experience with the planning processes, reporting requirements, and operational challenges faced by local water agencies or regional planning groups
• Experience with data-driven water planning efforts, ensuring alignment with state and local policies
• Experience collaborating with public sector stakeholders to incorporate local priorities into technical solutions

Background:

eLINK has been the grant management and conservation tracking system for BWSR since 2013. In 2023, eLINK was replaced by the current eLINK Next Gen to reflect updated business requirements and compliance with the latest State security and accessibility standards. BWSR uses eLINK to distribute grant agreements, capture applications and funding requests, and track grant progress. eLINK supports eligibility verification, compliance monitoring, program performance reporting, and the integration of complex relational data. It is a critical system for administering high-priority BWSR programs such as One Watershed, One Plan (1W1P), and Watershed-Based Funding (WBF). The platform facilitates collaboration among multiple organizational partners throughout the grant process supporting activities such as funding requests, work planning, and reporting.

eLINK serves four keys areas of BWSR business:

Grant Management - The system is used to collect, process, and manage data from the beginning to the end of a grants lifecycle. As part of grant reporting, the system collects narrative project results, expenditure data, geospatial data with pollution reduction estimate attributes, grant monitoring correspondences, and grant amendments and extensions. This information can then be queried and reported. Grant monitoring requires tracking of grantee compliance or eligibility factors for organizations, including compliance for individual grants (e.g. on-time reporting) and having an approved local water plan. The system workflow needs to validate against these compliance factors at key stages, such as prior to grant agreement execution, in order to meet BWSR business needs for accountability and transparency.

Grant Agreement management includes signing which is managed through DocuSign eSignature API. Integration of DocuSign in eLINK workflow allows new grant agreements and amendments to be generated, edited as needed, and routed for signature. Through ArcGIS, eLINK allows users to export shapefiles and geodatabase files directly from the UI.

eLINK also interfaces with SWIFT, the State of Minnesota's financial system, to facilitate transactions involving Purchase Order (PO) numbers for grant agreements. A nightly service is run to match those PO numbers with appropriation details and payments, and to transfer that information back into eLINK.

Contact Management - eLINK is BWSR's primary contact management system and includes a robust user management system. The system requires up-to-date contact and organization information from local government staff. In collaboration with BWSR staff, users can make edits to their own organization's contact information, and BWSR can generate contact lists (directories). Membership of a contact or user in an organization also impacts permissions within the system.

Technical Training - eLINK is also BWSR's centralized repository of data pertaining to technical credentials of our local and federal government partners. Because of the overlap with contact and organization management, and because of BWSR's need to create a platform to track technical credentials, training needs, and BWSR-led trainings, eLINK includes a technical training module. The Technical Training module is available to Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD), Technical Service Area (TSA), and Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) users (staff and managers) to view official credentials and update their desired credentials/training needs, and for BWSR technical training staff to track participation in BWSR-led trainings.

Water Plan Tracking - eLINK is used to document and track water plan dates (local adoption date, BWSR Board approval, expiration, etc). Water planning efforts outside of the Twin Cities metro area are in a transition period from local plans based on county boundaries to watershed-based plans. The watershed-based model encompasses complex database relationships, as one organization may be involved in multiple plans, and each plan is adopted by multiple organizations. The system allows these dates to be easily queried and exported.

Requirement:

eLINK is currently in its maintenance phase. The current eLINK maintenance, support, and development contract will reach its 5 year statutory limit in October 2025 and must be succeeded with a new contract thereafter to avoid service disruptions and ensure continued support. Moving forward, eLINK will retain its core workflow functionality while continuing to evolve based on emerging business needs. The selected vendor for this engagement will provide services that include:

• Performing routine maintenance to ensure overall system stability and reliability
• Managing and resolving support tickets and user-reported issues in a timely manner, including troubleshooting and resolution of technical issues, bug identification and fixes, and break/fix support
• Adhering to established development and maintenance cycles (typically every 4-6 weeks)
• Implementing planned enhancements and addressing emergent issues as they arise
• Streamlining and optimizing existing features to enhance usability and performance
• Conducting code reviews and performance optimization
• Executing testing and deployment processes
• Maintaining and updating technical documentation
• Ensuring compliance with all relevant State of Minnesota policies, including security, accessibility, and data privacy standards

Providing functional support for a variety of users and contexts, including:

• Grants Managers
• Program Managers
• Compliance Managers
• Contracts and Contacts Managers
• Individual Grant Managers
• Internal and External Stakeholders

The selected vendor will work closely with MNIT/BWSR staff to complete the work for this engagement, including regular communication and collaboration through e-mail and virtual Microsoft Teams meetings. It is possible that the selected vendor will prepare outlines or rough drafts of certain products, which will be completed by MNIT/BWSR staff.

The ongoing success of eLINK depends on uninterrupted development continuity, consistent performance optimization, and adaptability to the evolving requirements of both BWSR and its stakeholders.