Job Opening for XBlock developer
Chris Teplovs
Job Summary
The University of Michigan is seeking a qualified Software Developer to play an active role in the software development team in the Digital Innovation Greenhouse, a strategic team within the Office of Academic Innovation (AI). The Digital Innovation Greenhouse applies software development expertise in support of digital education tools and technologies to find pathways to enable personalization at scale across the U-M community and beyond.
Academic Innovation is a strategic priority for the University of Michigan. Through curricular innovation, leadership in learning analytics, and digital infrastructure at scale, AI aims to transform the way we educate and engage our residential students. The University of Michigan has been a pioneer in delivering massive open online courses (MOOCs) to learners around the world through multiple platforms such as Coursera and EdX.
This new position is an exciting new role, working within a fast paced environment to design and develop MOOCs, blended learning, and other digital education web applications that are aimed at unlocking new educational opportunities and enabling personalized, engaged, and lifelong learning for the U-M community and learners around the world. As such, the Learning Experience Application Developer will develop applications that can scale to potentially tens of thousands of users through the use of cloud computing platforms and well-established standards and frameworks such as Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI).
The developer employed in this position will work with the developers, designers, and researchers in the Office of Academic Innovation and will collaborate closely with world-class faculty as well as other academic, technology, and administrative staff at the University.
Responsibilities
Integrate and build software experiences for partner MOOC platforms (e.g. edX, Coursera) to enhance learning experiences.
Collaborate closely with software developers, instructional designers, faculty, researchers, and students, at the University of Michigan and our external partners, to define, prioritize, and create innovative functionalities optimized for scaled learning platforms
Engage in software development in line with requirements and project timelines
Maintain and debug production applications and resolve application bottlenecks and inefficiencies
Employ a pragmatic approach by understanding the trade-offs between a perfect solution and a working solution
Work closely with a team to solve problems, transfer knowledge, and develop software architecture and designs
- Mentor, manage, and collaborate with student designers and developers (e.g. interns) as appropriate.
Required Qualifications
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or related field or equivalent combination of education and relevant experience
Experience developing full-stack web applications using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Python, Django
Experience with Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)
Experience working with Git
Hold strong attention to detail and concern for information accuracy
Strong analytic and problem solving skills with special emphasis on experimental design and hypothesis testing
Ability to work well in a multicultural and collaborative environment
- Passionate about changing teaching and learning through technology at the University of Michigan and across the world
Desired Qualifications
Two years of software development experience
Experience developing XBlocks (extensions to the edX MOOC platform) and/or Learning Tools Interoperability applications
Experience working with relational database platforms (e.g. MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, Oracle) and emerging NoSQL platforms (e.g. MongoDB, CouchDB, Redis)
- Experience with test-driven development and testing frameworks (e.g. Testing JS, Jasmine, Mocha, Handlebars, Nose)
