Healthy Regions & Policies Lab

Research Programmer (Front-End)

Job Description:

The Visiting Front-End Research Programmer will lead research work related to managing innovative front-end computing architectures and developing web applications that contribute to health equity. The position will also help shape, develop, and guide open source software initiatives with a focus on FOSS4G (Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial) within a growing portfolio of applied research projects related to spatial analysis, health geography, and public health-relevant policy.

Job Duties: 

  • Lead the development of web applications (eg. maintenance, extensions, and implementation of new components) with a focus on front-end development (JavaScript) and spatial visualizations (50%), including:
    • Maintenance and archival support of the US Covid Atlas web application.
    • Extension of the Chives web application with new variables & interactive features.
    • Development of new community toolkits as (mainly static) modular websites, with option to extend geospatial components.
  • Research, test, and review product design challenges in an agile environment with the project team, working closely with the project coordinator, product designer, & community leads (15%);
  • Serve as a research mentor for the HEROP lab and community stakeholders as a leader in trainings, design discussions, code reviews, and product development meetings (15%);
  • Produce technical documentation, coding vignettes, and reproducible computational notebooks to support an Open Science culture of reproducibility (10%); and 
  • Contribute to development and maintenance of FOSS4G projects that facilitate an open ecosystem for communities working with place data (10%).

Qualifications:

Education. 

  • Required: Bachelor’s degree in computer science, geographic information science, engineering, or a related field, or equivalent in work experience.
  • Preferred: Master’s degree in computer science, geographic information science, engineering, or a related field, or equivalent in work experience.

Experience

  • Required: Six months of experience researching, presenting, and/or publishing technical projects or papers in a professional or academic setting.  A minimum of one year of relevant front-end development experience with a focus on open source software, including design, coding, testing, and support. Experience working with Javascript, HTML, and CSS and background with React, or other Javascript frameworks (Vue, Angular, Svelte, etc.);
  • Preferred: A minimum of one year of experience researching, presenting, and/or publishing technical projects or papers in a professional or academic setting.  A minimum of three years of relevant front-end development experience with a focus on open source software, including design, coding, testing, and support. Experience working with Javascript, HTML, and CSS and background with React, or other Javascript frameworks (Vue, Angular, Svelte, etc.); and experience with relevant front-end mapping libraries like Mapbox.js, Deck.gl, or Kepler.gl.