Emerging Tech Developer

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Compensation Range

The Compensation Range is the span between the minimum and maximum base salary for a position. The midpoint of the range is approximately halfway between the minimum and the maximum and represents an employee that possesses full job knowledge, qualifications and experience for the position. In the normal course, employees will be hired, transferred or promoted between the minimum and midpoint of the salary range for a job.

Posting End Date

Note: Applications will be accepted until 11:59 PM on the Posting End Date.

Job End Date

At UBC, we believe that attracting and sustaining a diverse workforce is key to the successful pursuit of excellence in research, innovation, and learning for all faculty, staff and students. Our commitment to employment equity helps achieve inclusion and fairness, brings rich diversity to UBC as a workplace, and creates the necessary conditions for a rewarding career.

Job Summary
The position collaborates with faculty, staff and students on design and development of emerging media and technology tools and techniques including, but not limited to, virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), This position requires knowledge of emerging technologies, the software development lifecycle, project management, and organizational skills. The successful candidate will have demonstrated the ability to deliver software solutions and collaborate constructively in an environment with diverse stakeholders.

Organizational Status
The Emerging Media Lab is an experimental space where faculty, students, and staff from all disciplines collaborate with industry and community on innovative solutions. Its mission is to evolve teaching, learning and research by creating tools and techniques using emerging technologies and immersive media. The position will work in collaboration with multiple stakeholders, academic departments, and units across the University. The position requires extensive contact with faculty, students, and staff.

Work Performed
The Software Developer will develop educational tools and techniques. The successful applicant will lead the project; build, test and integrate systems; make design and maintenance recommendations and see them through; coordinate and collaborate with other technical staff from UBC IT to ensure usability with existing networks, servers and firewalls and contribute to technical documentation to allow for ongoing support of the system(s).

• Collaborates with a team of academics, software developers, artists, designers, and QA to deliver exciting new software tools and outstanding user experiences;

• Develops in an agile environment with other team members;

• Consults with users to determine programming or requirements of final solution;

• Designs logic, selects program language, defines test schedules and documents procedures;

• Collaborates with related UBC departments, faculty members, students, and staff to contribute expertise to EML projects;

• Works with artists, designers, and developers to create mock-ups and prototypes to meet a variety of business requirements;

• Improves the organization's standards and collaborates with other team members and the EML Supervisor to ensure best practices are followed;

• Interfaces with operating staff and client departments to ensure a thorough understanding of operating systems and procedural requirements;

• Compiles costing statistics for evaluation;

• Makes recommendations on the purchase of hardware, software and network equipment;

• Installs and manages servers and networks

• Delivers presentations and workshops, and creates learning materials and guides for users to facilitate the creation of a variety of emerging media tools including VR, AR, etc.

• Provides consultation, support, and training to users on new tools, techniques, and methods;

• Contributes to and maintains technical documentation in accordance with prescribed standards;

• Builds and maintains positive working relationships with EML stakeholders;

• Supports software development lifecycle and follows appropriate programming/development methodologies and best practices;

• Ensures appropriate security is maintained across technologies and services;

• Provides input to strategies for ongoing support and upgrade of information technology systems.

• Performs other related duties as required.

Consequence of Error/Judgement
The primary focus of this unit is to provide an experimental and exploration space for faculty, staff, and students. This position develops software tools that will be used in academic settings. Errors in judgment, poor planning, or failure to act decisively could have a detrimental effect on the delivery and use of EML resources by its users. Inappropriate judgment could potentially damage the reputation of EML, and could possibly have a negative impact on future partnerships.

Supervision Received
The Software Developer will report to the Executive Producer, UBC Studios and EML.

Supervision Given

There are no positions that report into the Software Developer for Academic Innovation, but this position may manage less experienced staff and students and be responsible for hiring and evaluation.

Minimum Qualifications
Undergraduate degree in a relevant discipline. Minimum of three years of related experience, or the equivalent combination of education and experience.

- Willingness to respect diverse perspectives, including perspectives in conflict with one's own
- Demonstrates a commitment to enhancing one's own awareness, knowledge, and skills related to equity, diversity, and inclusion

Preferred Qualifications

The ideal candidate has relevant experience in both software development and project management. The ideal candidate also has demonstrated experience in working with a diverse set of stakeholders in an environment with limited supervision. The ideal candidate has also demonstrated an ability to grasp and work with new software technologies.

Specific technical qualifications include:

• BS in computer science, computer engineering or a related technical field;

• Minimum 1 year professional experience with Unity in a software development, game design, experience design or related field;

• Experience with C# or C++;

• Experience using version control tools such as Git and online repository hosting services like Github.

• Experience with the Windows/UNIX command line.

• Must be a motivated self-starter with the ability to solve problems, both individually and as a part of a team. Comfortable working in a deadline-driven production environment in which schedule and deliverables may shift rapidly;

The ideal candidate will also have:

• Experience using project management software such as Trello, Asana, or Jira

• Experience or interest in contributing to open-source projects

• Familiarity with rapid prototyping;