Job Description

Job Description:

• Lead the development of the Districtr app, an open source tool to promote public and collaborative participation in political districting efforts. This includes updating and modernizing the application using a modern fullstack Javascript web framework, implementing Typescript, developing highly interactive geospatial and data visualization oriented interfaces/components, and centralizing and streamlining cloud infrastructure.
• Contribute to Open Spatial Lab and core facility projects in a variety of topic domains focused on geospatial data science and interactive cartography, including public health and demography, food insecurity, urban ecology, and climate justice.
• Participate as a member of the core facility, a group of engineers and data scientists working with diverse projects across the university in a range of topic areas and domains.
• Develop, deploy and manage full stack applications with a range of backend database, middleware/API, and frontend needs utilizing industry standard tools for highly usable and legible codebases.
• Contribute to faculty projects from a range of topic domains with diverse technical needs.
• Consult on engagements to clarify goals, identify collaboration opportunities and support data collection, modeling and publishing results. Review and evaluate potential projects for technical merit and feasibility.
• Support the ongoing education, training and consulting programs at UChicagoâ™s Data Institute.
• Develop workshops and training programs to advance research and practice of data science.
• Engage with other research initiatives at the UChicago Data Science Institute including establishing external collaborations.
• Conduct an independent research program as well as disseminate and publish these results.
• Grant writing activities to support ongoing initiatives in data science.
• Contribute to the life of the UChicago Data Science Institute environment through service and participation in UChicago Data Science Institute activities, including public lectures, blog posts, contributing to open source technologies, etc.
• Develop materials communicating significant results, best practices and case studies with specific technologies, and documentation for significant software.
• Engage in data science efforts and educational programs when relevant. Mentor and support graduate and undergraduate students in the UChicago Data Science Institute clinic.
• Leads in the development of new systems, features, and tools. Solves complex problems and identifies opportunities for technical improvement and performance optimization. Reviews and tests code to ensure appropriate standards are met.
• Acts as a technical consultant and resource for faculty research, teaching, and/or administrative projects.
• Performs other related work as needed.

Preferred Qualifications

Education:

• Bachelorâ™s Degree, preferably in computer science, data science, statistics, mathematics, engineering or related computational field.

Experience:

• Excellent full stack development skills, strong frontend user interface and user interaction sensibilities, experience integrating data workflows across client, serverless, database, and CMS environments.
• Frameworks: Experience with at least one modern javascript framework/library (eg. React, Vue, Svelte), Experience with at least one full stack framework (eg. Next, Nuxt, Sveltekit, Remix, SolidStart).
• Cloud Services: Experience with user management such as Auth0 and general authentication workflows (OAuth), at least one headless content management system (CMS) such as Strapi, Sanity, Contentful, or headless wordpress.
• DevOps: Experience with virtualization, containerization and automation tools including Docker, Docker Compose, version control systems such as git, CI/CD Systems and IAC (Pulumi, Terraform).
• Stats and domain area: Experience in basic descriptive statistics.
• Maintainability: Solid track record of clear documentation and well-tested code.

Technical Skills and Knowledge:

• Languages: Typescript, SQL, CSS, HTML, Javascript, Node.js, Python.
• Frameworks: Familiarity with Python web frameworks (Django, Flask), Vanilla JS and class syntax.
• Libraries: Mapping Library such as Mapbox, Deck.gl , Leaflet, or OpenLayers, UI Kits (Material UI, Chakra UI, Bootstrap etc.)
• Databases: SQLite and familiarity with KV Stores (eg. Redis).
• Libraries: Data Visualization libraries such as D3, Vega, Visx, or ObesrvablePlot, State management library such as Redux, Mobx, ORM such as Mongoose, Prisma.
• Databases: MongoDB, Postgresql (and common extensions, like PostGIS).
• Cloud architectures: Fullstack development, serverless applications.
• Code architectures: Reusable component-based development, generally common software design patterns and paradigms.

â‹ Preferred Competencies

• Cloud architectures: Familiarity with API design and development. Significant experience with at least one of the major cloud providers (AWS, GCP or Azure), JAM-Stack style application hosting services (Netlify, Vercel, etc.), Object storage (S3), and Serverless function configuration (Lambda).
• Code architectures: familiarity with plugin systems and extensible code.
• Stats and domain area: Demography, Socoieconomic data wrangling, spatial data management and formats, data science experience.

Application Documents

• Resume (required)
• Cover Letter (preferred)
• References (preferred)

The University of Chicago is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity/Disabled/Veterans Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national or ethnic origin, age, status as an individual with a disability, protected veteran status, genetic information, or other protected classes under the law. For additional information please see the University's Notice of Nondiscrimination.

Staff Job seekers in need of a reasonable accommodation to complete the application process should call 773-702-5800 or submit a request via the Applicant Inquiry Form.

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About University of Chicago (UC)

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