Application Developer

Description

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is looking for an innovative and passionate individual to join our team and inspire citizens and leaders worldwide to confront hatred, prevent genocide, and promote human dignity. With the primary mission of Rescuing the Evidence, the Office of Collections is currently seeking a skilled Application Developer to enhance accessibility and management of our digitized historical collection.

This position is located in the Digital Collections Division of the Office of Collections. The growing digital collection comprises tens of millions of image files, tens of thousands of hours of video and audio media, hundreds of thousands of descriptions of items in our Collection, and several sources of metadata. The Digital Collections Division endeavors to provide better user interfaces to support those using the Collection via the web and by internal staff. The public face of the work can be seen at Collections Search at http://collections.ushmm.org

This is a full-time donated position (non-Federal) paid with the Museum’s private funds with a two year work assignment. Salary is commensurate with experience.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Design, develop, and implement tools and systems that relate to processing, identification, and access to the digitized historical assets and databases held by or overseen by the Office of Collections.

Develop software systems to enhance access to Collections materials including digitized archival materials, photographs, and oral histories, historical film, Museum objects, and various databases and sources of metadata. The work consists of software and user interface design for new projects as well as maintenance, modification, and refactoring of existing systems.

Use systems, tools, and approaches such as modern programming tools (e.g. Java, Python, PHP); contemporary MVC (model-view-controller) frameworks as embodied in systems such as Ruby on Rails; JQuery/JavaScript; Linux shell scripting; TDD/BDD (test-driven development, behavior-driven development) and code reviews; and source-code control (e.g. git, svn).

Plan and develop methods of operation to effectively work with metadata and use metadata transformation, search, discovery, and user interfaces for Collections cataloging materials.
Modify, customize, and deploy open source and commercial software systems such as Blacklight (the Ruby on Rails application) and ResourceSpace (an open source PHP-based digital asset management system), and other systems. Populate and query Apache Solr, an open source search engine. Use and develop APIs.

Improve maintainability, performance, security, using refactor and update systems, and maintain conformance with the community of users of each system.

Test and monitor systems for proper operation.

Implement test-driven development and/or behavior-driven development systems to ensure proper operation.

Perform other duties as assigned.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

Experience with at least one MVC-oriented development framework such as Ruby on Rails, Laravel, Django, Symfony, or similar.

Experience developing and deploying applications using at least two contemporary programming and web development languages such as Ruby, PHP, Python, and/or server-side and/or client-side JavaScript. Experience developing and modifying web applications and command-line shell programs.

Understanding of good software development practices. Experience with refactoring existing installed systems in order to enhance feature sets or upgrade to newer versions.

Experience with theory and practice of relational databases such as MySQL and/or SQL Server.

Familiarity with the Linux command line and shells (e.g. bash). Experience developing and deploying production systems in a Linux environment.

Familiarity with source code control and collaborative development systems (e.g. git, svn).

Ability to learn and use metadata standards of representation and exchange that relate to library or collections systems, such as MARC, EAD, METS, MODS, TEI and other XML and JSON standards or guidelines.

Experience writing code for production-quality, complex systems.

HOW TO APPLY

Interested applicants should send their resume and cover letter to careers@ushmm.org. Please include both your resume and cover letter in a single PDF or Word document titled “First Name Last Name”. Salary history may be required during the interview process.

For more information about the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, please visit www.ushmm.org. The US Holocaust Memorial Museum is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer. This position is open to all qualified individuals.  If you are not a US citizen, you must possess sufficient legal documentation and permission to work in the United States (and provide if requested).