Discovery Engineer, Digital Library Systems and Services, Stanford University Libraries

Description

Want to work on a great team, building software to improve discovery for Stanford's incredible collections? We also feature Silicon Valley competitive compensation and nearly perfect weather. 

Job Objective:

Stanford University Libraries (SUL) is seeking a talented software engineer to support the discovery and delivery of digital library content. This is a four-year term position with the possibility for renewal.

The Discovery Engineer will primarily develop digital library software to enable management, indexing, and online discovery of digital library materials. This position is part of the Application Development team in the Digital Library Systems and Services (DLSS) unit of SUL.

The Discovery Engineer will be primarily focused on enhancing discoverability of SUL content via SearchWorks (http://searchworks.stanford.edu), specialized collection websites, and on the open web. As a member of the DLSS development team, the Discovery Engineer will also contribute to the overall development of the Stanford Library’s web and digital library infrastructure, and help plan, specify, and build the technologies needed to support the University’s goal of ubiquitous access to scholarly information.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Enhance SearchWorks and other digital content delivery environments (50%). As part of a team of digital library experts, enhance functionality, add data sources, and integrate external services to maximize access to library assets and value to patrons. Participate in the design and development of all levels of the “discovery stack”, including engineering for web, application & data store (solr, et al.), data processing flows, user-centered design and analytics. Understand, apply and assist in the creation of access systems appropriate for different resource types (e.g., catalog records, archives, digital collections, full text, media, web harvests, research data) and different user needs.

• Develop workflows, metadata creation strategies, and presentation strategies for archival materials (e.g., Encoded Archival Description documents; born digital archives; digitized archives) (20%). Provide engineering support for archival processing at Stanford, including implementation / integration of different systems to support processing and access to archival materials, e.g., ArchivesSpace, Online Archives of California, EAC-CPF, Stanford Digital Repository, SearchWorks, etc.)

• Track and apply known and emerging best practices in digital resource access for both human and machine users, such as schema.org, RDF, linked data, and (web) analytics. (20%) Expand DLSS’s current web analytics program and propose new strategies for leveraging analytics data to improve discoverability of SUL content. Contribute to data modeling, transformations and engineering efforts to leverage and bridge both XML- and RDF-based metadata and object representations.

• Contribute to and help drive open source and community efforts that further Stanford’s library services (10%). Represent Stanford and help enhance critical projects, including Hydra (http://projecthydra.org/) and Blacklight (http://projectblacklight.org) and Fedora Commons to serve as a full text, image and media delivery environment.


Required Qualifications and Demonstrated Experience:

• Expertise in Ruby and Ruby on Rails, both for application development and in engineering an enhanced framework, including plug-ins, engines and gems, for developing library and repository applications.
• Demonstrated ability to develop new programming skills quickly, and to grasp unfamiliar architectures and application designs quickly.
• Demonstrated ability to write solid, simple, elegant code both independently and in a team-programming environment and within schedule limitations.
• Demonstrated expertise with XML and related tools and technologies (e.g., XML schema, schema management and databases, XSLT, X-forms).
• Experience with relational database design and management. Experience implementing database applications for SQL Server, Oracle, or MySQL.
• Demonstrated ability to work independently on a project from specification to launch; communicate effectively, orally and in writing; and work with all levels of staff, vendors, and consultants.
• Demonstrated success working in a team environment applying user-centered design and agile development practices.
• Demonstrated proficiency applying best practices to technical projects, especially test-first development and automated testing. Also must make effective use of team collaboration tools, build management, and version control systems.
• Quick and self-bootstrapping learner. Particularly adept at quickly learning new scripting and programming languages.
• Four-year college degree or equivalent with five to seven years demonstrated experience required.
• At the 4P4 level, more than seven years relevant experience and demonstrated expertise in advancing discovery in a complex information environment required.


Desired Knowledge and Skills:

• Advanced degree desired
• Demonstrated knowledge and expertise in the requirements, issues and methods of discovery, search and/or information retrieval, especially in an academic environment and/or web environment.
• Demonstrated success participating in community-based open source projects, specifically those relevant to the Stanford Libraries’ Digital Library architecture, such as Fedora, Blacklight, Solr or Hydra.
• Demonstrated success participating in and contributing to open source software development projects.
• Demonstrated experience with library applications and technology, including experience participating in relevant library open source efforts.
• In-depth knowledge of library policies and practice, metadata standards and the scholarly communication framework
• Familiarity with the process of digitizing images, text, audio and video in cultural heritage institutions.
• Familiarity with RDF, semantic web, and linked data technologies and practices
• Familiarity with XML schemas used to describe digitized cultural heritage materials, such as TEI, MODS, METS, and EAD.
• Familiarity with web technologies, specifically crawlers, search engine optimization and web analytics.
• Prior, successful experience working as a professional in an academic, archival and/or library environment.