Software Developer Lead

How to Apply

A cover letter and resume are important submissions for the hiring team to get a sense of your experience. In the cover letter, in two pages or less, please let us know how this role aligns with your career aspirations and skill set. Submit both a cover letter and resume as one file (because of system limitations).

What You'll Do

In this position, you will be empowered in a highly autonomous role to provide technical and product leadership for the innovative software platforms created by the Center for Academic Innovation. You will be empowered to establish and implement technical vision over product direction and application architecture across a range of impactful projects and technologies.

The individual selected for this role will serve as part of the Educational Technology Leadership Team to advise on organizational priorities and direction. This role will serve as a team leader, providing technical guidance and supervision to the highly skilled and creative software developers within the Center for Academic Innovation.

Mission Statement

Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

The Center for Academic Innovation (CAI) is committed to inclusion in our organizational work, culture, climate, and the products we create. We strive to recruit, develop, and retain a diverse team as a reflection of our commitment to our work designing equitable and inclusive learning and work environments that are necessary for the university community to make progress on solving societal challenges. CAI draws on each of our team member's unique backgrounds and experiences to guide our everyday work in the center, and our team collaborates with students, staff, and faculty on projects that center our commitment to DEI work. All interested applicants, including those from groups historically marginalized by educational privilege, are encouraged to apply.

Organizational Statement on Harassment

We believe all individuals deserve to be treated with respect and dignity and have the right to work in a professional atmosphere that promotes mutual respect and a safe space for collaboration. Any concerns shared with Individuals with Reporting Obligations in the Center for Academic Innovation will be reported to the Equity, Civil Rights, & Title IX Office to be reviewed and addressed, and the Center for Academic Innovation encourages reporting of any forms of harassment including sexual and gender-based harassment.

Who We Are

About the Center for Academic Innovation

Through curricular innovation, tools for student success and equity, and educational research and analytics, the University of Michigan Center for Academic Innovation is building the future of education. Our vision is a future in which education connects and empowers learners everywhere to reach their full potential throughout their lives. To realize our vision, we make it our mission to collaborate across campus and around the world to create equitable, lifelong educational opportunities for learners everywhere.

About the Educational Technology Team

The Education Technology includes Software Developers, UX Designers, QA Analysts, DevOps Engineers, Data Scientists and Behavioral Scientists. We work collaboratively to apply our expertise to create innovative solutions, tools and technologies to the big challenges in education, enabling innovative learning and personalization at scale across the U-M community and beyond.

For more information, please visit our website: Academic Innovation.

Responsibilities*

Application Architecture & Development

• Leads project development for high priority applications
• Lead software development projects in line with requirements and project timelines
• Design and evolve application architecture & data models for production applications
• Work with User Experience Designers to help build interfaces using JS/HTML/CSS and accompanying libraries and client side frameworks
• Configure interoperable solutions with campus and partner infrastructure using protocols such as SAML/OIDC Single Sign On (SSO), LTI, and OAUTH2
• Maintain technical familiarity and expertise with the evolution of mainstream and emerging technologies
• Develop, deploy and configure applications for scale using cloud and container solutions
• Oversee access and security protocols and implementations for production applications, databases and user data
• Conduct performance profiling, load assessment and security evaluations

Team Leadership & Strategy

• Provide organizational leadership and supervision for a team of Software Developers and DevOps Engineers
• Represent the organization in strategic decision making with partner information technology units
• Provide technical guidance for the Software Development Team on complex implementation and infrastructure projects
• Works closely with faculty partners and coordinates day-to-day operations for employees
• Determine organizational technical infrastructure strategy and product mix by evaluating industry and technology trends
• Works closely with the domain leaders to formulate, implement and interpret policies relevant to the domain and that may impact the Center more broadly.
• Ability to think strategically about succession planning by creating, assessing, and optimizing key processes and individual roles within the domain.
• Seeks appropriate leadership training and participates in University wide initiatives that are offered for leadership teams related to organizational climate and human resource policies that ensure an equitable and respectful environment for team members.

Skills You Have

You are a self-driven technical expert who enjoys conceiving and implementing solutions to complex real world problems. You think in terms of abstraction, modularity and reuse. You architect your projects to address the situation in front of you and optimize for future flexibility. You know how to work backward to address a problem rather than accept a solution.

You are known for your forward-looking mindset, anticipating needs and opportunities before they emerge. You believe in iteration and think in terms of efficiency and sustainability, pursuing automation and reducing points of failure. You take pride in the work you deliver and are known for the quality of your releases. You set ambitious goals and realistic milestones.

You are an effective leader, able to communicate vision and translate goals into action. You are a skilled listener and problem solver, able to align the goals of projects and team members. You are empathetic and motivating and recognize the deep value of coaching and feedback. You lead by example through the values of productivity and positivity

You are valued as a team member and thought partner. You are comfortable presenting your ideas to your team and stakeholders. You are a skilled and enthusiastic collaborator who works well in team settings, knowing where to listen to the expertise of others and when to lead with your own.

You think from the user perspective and challenge yourself and your collaborators to think about impact and design solutions to identifiable challenges. You care about usability, functionality and presentation of the applications you design. You have experience creating something new and helping projects realize their potential.

Required Qualifications*

• At least 5 years of professional software development experience
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, a related field or an equivalent combination of education and relevant experience
• Enterprise development and production experience working with Python or Ruby and the Django or Rails framework
• Strong project and team leadership experience
• Experience mentoring junior colleagues and technical personnel
• Production experience working with relational database platforms (e.g.: MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, Oracle)
• Experience designing application architecture & data models for deployed production applications
• Production experience developing and deploying applications at scale
• Experience working with the modern JavaScript frameworks VueJS or React
• Production experience converting designs to HTML5/CSS
• Hold strong attention to detail and concern for information accuracy
• Strong analytical and problem solving skills
• Ability to work well in a multicultural and collaborative environment

Modes of Work

Positions that are eligible for hybrid or mobile/remote work mode are at the discretion of the hiring department. Work agreements are reviewed annually at a minimum and are subject to change at any time, and for any reason, throughout the course of employment. Learn more about the work modes.

Additional Information

Salary Information

The general salary range for this position is $100,000 - $115,000. Candidates can expect to be paid a competitive and equitable salary. Factors used to determine salary include education level, experience, knowledge and skills for the position and internal equity within the unit. All candidates are encouraged to discuss salary questions to honor alignment and transparency throughout the recruiting process.

This position will report to the Director of Software Development & Application Architecture at the Center for Academic Innovation.

The mode of work for this position is Hybrid. The work requirements for this position allow both onsite and offsite work and you will have an expected regular and recurring onsite presence. On occasion, you may be required and must be available to work onsite more frequently if necessitated by our center?s policy and domain leadership or by your job requirements.

Excellent benefits are available, for details, see http://benefits.umich.edu/

Background Screening

The University of Michigan conducts background checks on all job candidates upon acceptance of a contingent offer and may use a third party administrator to conduct background checks.

Background checks will be performed in compliance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

Application Deadline

Job openings are posted for a minimum of seven calendar days. This job may be removed from posting boards and filled anytime after the minimum posting period has ended.

Decision Making Process

Applications will be reviewed as received throughout the posting period and continue until the position is filled.

U-M EEO/AA Statement

The University of Michigan is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer.