Digital Humanities / Social Science Developer

Description

Description

The Center for Interdisciplinary Research (CIDR), a unit of Stanford University Libraries (SUL), provides subject and technology expertise, software development, digital resources, and research services to students, faculty, and staff in support of the University’s academic mission. Due to the growing demand by Stanford faculty for software development and integration in the humanities and social sciences, SUL is seeking an experienced and innovative developer for CIDR.

CIDR combines decades of Library experience, expertise, and activity in support of computational social science, digital humanities, and related research and teaching in the Stanford community. CIDR collaborates with individual faculty and centers/departments like the Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis (CESTA), the Stanford Humanities Center, the Center for Computational Social Science, and the Institute for Research in the Social Sciences (IRiSS), where digital research is actively underway. CIDR is also a hub for collaboration and communication amongst digital humanist and social science scholars, library curators and professional developers, promoting a sense of shared purpose in the Stanford environment.

We are seeking a leader and innovator in the development of world-class technologies in support of interdisciplinary digital research. The successful candidate must have a deep understanding of scholarship in the humanities and/or social sciences. S/he will consult with faculty on scholarly projects to identify technical approaches, processes and tools; evaluate and integrate existing software tools for use in the humanities and social sciences; as well as design and implement new solutions.  The candidate should have both a broad and deep understanding of current the state of the art in digital humanities and/or computational social science, such as historical GIS, text analysis, natural language processing event modeling, large dataset management and transformation, spatial analysis, high performance computing concepts, or network analysis.

The CIDR Developer will join a distinguished and widely-recognized team of software developers and academic technologists with expertise in the digital humanities and computational social sciences.  In addition to working directly with faculty, s/he will collaborate closely with library staff and other library technology organizations to build innovative, sophisticated, sustainable, and generalizable tools and infrastructure to support path-breaking digital research at Stanford and beyond.

Responsibilities

●     Consult with and advise faculty to provide project definition and analysis, including defining project scope, requirements and specifications, and project design. Recommend and assist with the integration and use of technology in the projects.

●     Provide strong technical leadership and project management for CIDR software projects. Coordinate development resources to support new and existing projects in a sustainable fashion. Coordinate functional specifications and programming efforts, including code specification and review, dependencies and adherence to standards.

●     Design and develop state-of-the-art and reusable code, infrastructure, methods and processes for the support of computational social science and digital humanities.

●     Provide ongoing technology leadership and support for humanities and social science digital research projects. Support may include the evaluation and integration of existing tools, as well as the development of new applications. These applications may address needs related to digital content creation, content storage, content discovery, text analysis, data visualization, and the manipulation and analysis of data and other digital media.

●     Promote and represent CIDR, improving the visibility of its program, its standing, and its reputation across campus and beyond. Liaise with peers at other academic institutions and in industry, seek and develop funding opportunities, publish and present at professional conferences.  Review professional literature; participate in conferences, discussion groups, and other forums to stay abreast of new methodologies and practices relevant to the digital humanities and computational social sciences.

Qualifications

●     Master's degree in a humanities or social science discipline, computer science, or the equivalent in professional experience, plus a minimum of five years’ experience using technology in humanities and/or social science scholarship. A Ph.D. degree in a humanities or social science discipline highly desirable.

●     Demonstrated experience leading software development projects to successful completion, from conception through implementation and deployment.

●     Demonstrated expertise in one or more of the following areas: natural language processing, text analysis, data-mining, machine learning, spatial analysis, network analysis, data modeling, and information visualization.

●     A proven record of developing robust and sustainable software applications both independently and as part of a team, from conception through implementation, including the architectural planning, design, coding, testing, debugging, and documentation phases of a software development project.

●     Experience with relational databases (e.g., PostgreSQL/PostGIS, Oracle, MySQL, MS-SQL), and software languages (e.g., Javascript, PHP, Python, Ruby/Rails, Perl). Experience with Linked Data technologies a plus.

●     Experience developing dynamic and interactive media, preferably with experience developing applications for a touch-environment.

●     Experience developing and integrating tools in an open source environment.

●     Experience with the integration of digital media into web applications and/or collaboration systems (e.g., Drupal, Sakai, Canvas, etc.)

●     Experience working closely with faculty in an academic setting to create products that are acknowledged successes.

●     Familiarity with human/computer interface principles, and experience applying those principles in programming.

●     Familiarity with agile software development practices.

●     Excellent verbal and written communication skills.