UX Engineer - IDEALS

General summary/purpose:
The Institute for Innovation in Development, Engagement, and Learning Systems (IDEALS) at Johns Hopkins University School of Education seeks a UX Engineer. The IDEALS Institute is focused on promoting high-quality early learning, developmentally appropriate care across the life-span, and impactful educational practices. The UX Engineer will provide vision, hands-on design, operational expertise, and technical development capabilities with deep knowledge and expertise in the software development process across web, custom, and enterprise applications. A critical aspect of this position will be to lead and manage various application building initiatives implementing designs and development that meet accessibility best practices and standards according to W3.org following WCAG 2.0 and greater. The applicant must be well versed in not only building/ programming accessibility into their own front-end components, but also coordinating with fellow development/ engineer colleagues to ensure that accessibility is considered across all aspects of the application design from an architectural and front-end design perspective. The position will be a member of the organization’s technical solution development team, while serving as an embedded liaison across internal teams from Marketing and Communications, Workforce Development, etc. Examples of sites under the purview of this position include www.marylandexcels.org, www.marylandchild.org, with several new sites coming online soon. We are looking for a qualified UX Engineer to turn our software into cutting edge digital experiences which are easy-to-use products and can articulate the story of our clients' work in an immersive and engaging approach.

If you are interested in building applications across systems, web, and mobile devices and have the expertise in incorporating innovative designs, following best practices for coding and ensuring compliance and accessibility is incorporated throughout the process, this is the position for you. We are looking for a unique individual who will also supervise the process of ensuring compliance from an accessibility perspective. This will involve creating, leading, training, and managing processes across technical and functional teams. You will be the Subject Matter Expert (SME) for the Institute on accessibility.

We are looking for a person who has expertise in programming across an array of languages (ex. PHP, Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, .Net, .Net Core, Java, etc.), solid understanding of integration using methods such as application programming interface (api’s), secure file transfer protocol (sftp), batch file process, etc. Experience with deploying code on the cloud using a service such as AWS, Google Cloud, or Microsoft Azure, etc. is needed. One must also have the ability to take the programming skills to produce front-end design that is reflective of digital, innovation, and accessible. In this role, the UX Engineer will be someone who can program and provide logic with a keen ability to incorporate design. If you appreciate logic and have creative experience, expertise in design for digital applications, systems, and mobile, you are the right person for this position. We are looking for someone who can align the development with design for engaging, interactive, user experiences.

Do you consider yourself a leader? In this role, you will be leading processes and guidance across accessibility, developing code that produces innovative and engaging designs that enhance but not reduce coding standards and best practices.

Specific duties & responsibilities:

• Lead and Manage internal processes, guidelines and frameworks / templates for content creators to adhere to current accessibility standards and best practices
• Monitor and provide feedback to senior leadership regarding the internal processes, guidelines and frameworks/templates created to ensure adherence to current accessibility standards and best practices
• Stay current on accessibility standards and best practices
• Build to current WCAG accessibility standards following W3.org best practices
• Lead/ Build community of practice for AccessibilityTrain institute resources on accessibility according to job duties and functional area
• Gather and evaluate user requirements in collaboration with product managers and engineers
• Give presentations to communicate the design vision and align design principles; demonstrate features and flows through mockups and prototypes
• Conduct user research and usability testing sessions to and ensure findings are incorporated throughout the product developmet lifecycle
• Conduct layout adjustments based on user feedback
• Illustrate design ideas using storyboards, process flows and sitemaps
• Design graphic user interface elements, like menus, tabs and widgets
• Build page navigation buttons and search fields
• Develop UI mockups and prototypes that clearly illustrate how sites function and look like
• Create original graphic designs (e.g. images, sketches and tables)
• Prepare and present rough drafts to internal teams and key stakeholders
• Identify and troubleshoot UX problems (e.g. responsiveness)
• Adhere to style standards on fonts, colors and images
• Ability to design utilizing wireframing (some that generate code) tools such as Axure, Adobe XD, etc. to aide in wireframes, high-fidelity mockups, interaction models, specifications and prototypes that can also produce frontend code base
• Identify and troubleshoot user experience (UX) items such as application responsiveness, performance, and mobile components (integration via api, etc.)
• Collaborate with fellow developers and engineering colleagues to improve usability and ensuring end to end design across architecture, css, html, and programming language in use will support current accessibility standards and best practices
• Design graphic user interface elements, like menus, tabs and widgets, page navigation elements, buttons, search fields and function (incorporating frontend elements to backend database)
• Individual is responsible for understanding the backend integrations and developing independently with-out dependencies to boost the parallel front end and backend end development
• Cooperate with the back-end developer in the process of building the RESTful API
• Leverage the unique insights gained from building prototypes to improve the technical and experiential quality of designs and work directly with fellow programming / engineering team members through software delivery lifecycle of products
• Construct pages in HTML and CSS (with SASS), with coding around templating languages or within CMS systems
• Develop a complete standards-compliant high-performance front-end code for websites, web applications, enterprise systems, and mobile solutions using a JavaScript framework such as Angular, React, or Vue with the ability to extend to additional areas such as programming languages (JavaScript, PHP, Ruby, Java, .Net, .Net Core, etc), Mark-up languages such as HTML, and CSS, etc.
• Write tested, idiomatic, and documented JavaScript, HTML, and CSS
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to analyze, design, and ship new features, ensuring functional requirements are presented / integrated in the overall technical solution produced (this will be full stack) in an Agile Software Development environment
• Conduct Operational Support and Maintenance for existing products
• Ability to conduct performance tuning for applications, systems, & mobile, and develop & design mobile-based solutions
• Attain feedback from, and build solutions for, users and customers
• Write technical requirement documents and guides
• Conduct debugging / troubleshooting across applications and platforms
• Implement and provide reports on web analytics
• Stay up-to-date on emerging technologies and digital design trends

Minimum qualifications (mandatory):

• Bachelor’s degree required
• Three years of related work experience with computer systems and applications
• Additional education may substitute for required experience and additional related experience may substitute for required education, to the extent permitted by the JHU equivalency formula

  • The pre-employment physical for positions in clinical areas, laboratories, working with research subjects, or involving community contact requires documentation of immune status against Rubella (German measles), Rubeola (Measles), Mumps, Varicella (chickenpox), Hepatitis B and documentation of having received the Tdap (Tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis) vaccination. This may include documentation of having two (2) MMR vaccines; two (2) Varicella vaccines; or antibody status to these diseases from laboratory testing. Blood tests for immunities to these diseases are ordinarily included in the pre-employment physical exam except for those employees who provide results of blood tests or immunization documentation from their own health care providers. Any vaccinations required for these diseases will be given at no cost in our Occupational Health office.

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    JH at Columbia Center

    
    The successful candidate(s) for this position will be subject to a pre-employment background check.
    
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    During the Influenza ("the flu") season, as a condition of employment, The Johns Hopkins Institutions require all employees who provide ongoing services to patients or work in patient care or clinical care areas to have an annual influenza vaccination or possess an approved medical or religious exception. Failure to meet this requirement may result in termination of employment.
    
    The pre-employment physical for positions in clinical areas, laboratories, working with research subjects, or involving community contact requires documentation of immune status against Rubella (German measles), Rubeola (Measles), Mumps, Varicella (chickenpox), Hepatitis B and documentation of having received the Tdap (Tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis) vaccination. This may include documentation of having two (2) MMR vaccines; two (2) Varicella vaccines; or antibody status to these diseases from laboratory testing. Blood tests for immunities to these diseases are ordinarily included in the pre-employment physical exam except for those employees who provide results of blood tests or immunization documentation from their own health care providers. Any vaccinations required for these diseases will be given at no cost in our Occupational Health office.
    
    Equal Opportunity Employer
    Note: Job Postings are updated daily and remain online until filled.
    
    EEO is the Law
    Learn more:
    https://www1.eeoc.gov/employers/upload/eeoc_self_print_poster.pdf
    Important legal information
    http://hrnt.jhu.edu/legal.cfm