We’re seeking an additional colleague for our R&D team: Development and Testing Outreach Coordinator! Come be our advocate for the users of our DH projects, working on documentation, design, development, and project management approaches to champion user needs. Apply now (or search UVA Jobs for posting #0624083), or read on for more info.

We welcome applications from women, people of color, LGBTQ, and others who are traditionally underrepresented in technical roles. In particular, we invite you to apply even if you do not currently consider yourself to be a tech person or programmer. We seek someone with the ability to collaborate and to expand their technical skill set in creative ways; we’re happy to discuss whether you’ve got the skills we need for this role.

Summary

Job title: Developer Outreach & Testing Coordinator (“User Advocate” for short)
Job type: Full-time (40 hours/week) with benefits; not a permanent position (contract length of 18 months, with possibility of additional 6 months)
Salary: $60,000/year
Location: Scholars’ Lab, Alderman Library, University of Virginia (Charlottesville, VA)
Start date: Any time between now and January 1, 2019
Benefits: include health/dental/vision insurance, conference travel funding, 20% self-initiated R&D time

Job description

This is a non-permanent Developer Outreach & Testing Coordinator role located in the University of Virginia Library‘s Scholars’ Lab. The primary purpose of this role is to apply working knowledge of design, development, and project management to advocate on the behalf of our various DH project user communities. You’ll do this through:

creating technical documentation for both developers and non-technical users
leading workshops or teaching modules on our projects
refining existing documentation through user testing and community feedback
responding to requests for technical support related to the grant projects via email, the project’s forum, and in-person consultation
other support for our staff doing design and development work, such as organizing and commenting on existing code, designing and coding proofs of concept, and participating in code and design reviews

Education requirements: Either a bachelor’s degree plus one year of work experience, or at least five years of work experience. We prefer (but do not require) a bachelor’s degree with relevance to the humanities, or graduate coursework with relevance to the humanities—but we’re truly open to considering other experiences as comparable to these.

Knowledge & skills: You do not need to possess all of these, as we’ll consider strength in some of these as compensating for lack of experience with other skills on the list. We’re seeking:

Empathy and understanding for the technical needs of both developers and non-developers
Experience instructing, mentoring, or otherwise assisting other people in learning to use technology
Passion for interactive experiences across a variety of media (web, mobile) with a strong desire for innovation
Comfort with complexity and ambiguity, and readiness to take on the challenges of the humanities and social sciences
Understanding of user interface client-side technologies such as Javascript, HTML, and CSS; and PHP
Experience running user testing and conducting accessibility testing
Experience creating standard user experience deliverables, including site maps, personas and use cases, and wireframes and interactive prototypes
Solid presentation and communication skills, especially around the ability to communicate the connections between technical and cultural scholarship, and the importance of design for building relationships and supporting communities

About us

The Scholars’ Lab is the UVA Library’s lab for experimental and digital research, teaching, and other forms of scholarship, open to all disciplines and anyone curious about getting their hands dirty. We’re proud to be part of the Library’s mission to provide equitable access to learning for everyone. We frequently collaborate with students, staff, and faculty on campus, as well as community members, and hold an international profile as a digital humanities and digital scholarship research center.

The Scholars’ Lab currently consists of 14 staffers, plus an amazing cohort of student fellows, interns, and makerspace technicians. As our colleague, you’ll have exposure to a wide range of projects, tools, and topics, including spatial humanities, interface design, innovative pedagogy, data visualization, text analysis, digital archiving, 3D modeling, virtual reality and gaming, and other experimental humanities and library approaches.

The Library and the Scholars’ Lab are committed to diversity, inclusion, and safe/brave spaces, and we have focused recent speaker series and practice on accessibility and social justice (check out our team-authored charter for more on our values). We welcome curious, critical, and compassionate professionals who are keenly interested in the overlaps between technology and the humanities (literature, history, art, cultural heritage, and related fields).

Interested? Contact us or apply!

Apply here (or search UVA Jobs for posting #0624083).

Please feel free to reach out with any questions—for yourself or a friend—by emailing [log in to unmask] or tweeting @scholarslab. In particular, we’re very happy to talk with anyone who’s interested, but not sure whether they have the required technical background or how this non-permanent role might fit into their career plans or personal life.

All job discussions and the search process will be treated as confidential to the search committee. We understand that there are many reasons for not wanting other folks (including your references) to know you’re curious about other jobs, and we will ask your permission before contacting any references.


----
Brought to you by code4lib jobs: https://jobs.code4lib.org/jobs/31252-development-and-testing-outreach-coordinator