East Lansing, Michigan, United States

Al Dean Administration 40000794

Area of Interest: Information Technology

Full Time/Part Time: Full Time (90-100%)

Group: Administrative Professionals- AP
Support Staff

Opening on: Apr 16 2025

Closing at: Apr 22 2025 - 23:55 EDT

14

Salary Commensurate with Experience

College Of Arts And Letters

1033363

POSITION SUMMARY

The College of Arts & Letters (CAL) and the MSU Libraries seek an Information Technologist to fill the Technical Lead role supporting the development of Knowledge Commons, a nonprofit academic professional network serving scholars worldwide.
The successful candidate will be a leader in academic web development, committed to building and maintaining a large-scale scholar-focused network. The candidate will also have outstanding organizational and interpersonal skills, deep intellectual curiosity, and the ability to work both independently and collaboratively on a distributed team.
This position will focus on prototyping and developing Knowledge Commons platform features and maintaining the integrity and security of a large-scale multi-network WP/BP-based scholarly communication platform. The developer will be part of a team committed to best practices in open-source software development and will ensure thorough testing, code review, and clear documentation. The successful candidate will also be responsible for tracking and resolving user and administrator issues and ensuring that the application is usable by a diverse audience by adhering to the best accessible web standards.

Specific areas of responsibility for this position include:

• Prototyping and developing new platform integrations and features
• Tracking and resolving bug reports and other user feedback
• Designing and implementing a federated, scalable architecture for network growth
• Ensuring full adherence with network accessibility standards and consistently improving platform user experience
• Creating full documentation both for code developed and for network deployment processes
• Working with the Commons team to shape the project’s roadmap, prioritize development goals, and deliver on those goals.

The Technical Lead will report to the Director of Knowledge Commons. Knowledge Commons is a trusted nonprofit network that allows scholars and practitioners to create professional profiles, discuss common interests, develop new publications, and share their work. The Commons comprises a core platform and multiple nodes supporting scholarly organizations and institutions. Commons accounts are free and open to anyone regardless of credentials or institutional affiliation. Learn more about Knowledge Commons at

MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS

Knowledge equivalent to that which normally would be acquired by completing a four-year college degree program in Computer Science, Information Systems, Business or related information technology field, with coursework in web development and scholarly communications platforms; and five to eight years of related and progressively more responsible or expansive work experience in web development and scholarly communications platforms, including experience overseeing large, complex or critical information technology projects; or an equivalent combination of education and experience.

DESIRED QUALIFICATIONS

Further experience in the following is highly desirable:

• Developing containerized applications with Docker or other frameworks
• Working with Fedora and/or other open-source digital object repository platforms
• Working with identity management solutions including Shibboleth, SimpleSAML, LDAP, and COmanage
• Web presentation layer development
• User experience design, testing, and evaluation
• Mobile first application development
• Development in a test-driven environment

DESCRIPTION OF END DATE

This is an off-dated position funded for one year from date of hire, with possible extension contingent upon funding renewal.

Please refer the Job description for details