Digital Scholarship Developer

The Research Data and Digital Scholarship (RDDS) team at the University of Pennsylvania facilitates data-driven and data-literate research and scholarship and fosters critical and ethical data communities of practice across the disciplines at Penn. Our team has expertise in text and data mining, public scholarship, digital humanities, qualitative and quantitative data analysis, data visualization, open science, and GIS.

The Research Data and Digital Scholarship (RDDS) team at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries is looking for a candidate to be the technical consultant and developer on digital scholarship projects.

As a digital scholarship project technical consultant, this candidate will demonstrate excellent knowledge of various methods and techniques necessary in digital scholarship projects and a willingness to explore and develop new skills as necessary. Expected areas may include web-development technologies and frameworks (Javascript, CSS, HTML5) suitable for static-site generation; relational and NoSQL databases; Python; and/or machine learning techniques and AI. 

As a patron-focused member of a service-oriented library team, they will have a demonstrated ability to explain complex ideas to a variety of stakeholders and have an interest in developing training and workshops for similarly broad audiences.

The position is integral to a small Digital Projects, Publications, and Partnerships team that works to create lightweight web applications, digital humanities tools, and digital projects in collaboration with Penn faculty and students. On this team, this candidate may serve as a project manager for some projects and, therefore, should be able to demonstrate sound project management abilities and experience.

Job Responsibilities

• Serve as technical consultant on digital scholarship projects, providing guidance and recommendations for project infrastructure.

• In collaboration with the RDDS team and others, develop and maintain open-source tools, platforms, or projects for digital scholarship use.

• Work with the Digital Projects, Publications, and Partnerships team to plan workflows, review project proposals, and assist as project manager on some projects.

• As a member of the RDDS team, provide instruction on digital scholarship methods as appropriate to the candidate’s skills and knowledge.

• In collaboration with the wider Penn Libraries, contribute technical expertise to promote collections as data initiatives.

• Remain abreast of the digital scholarship field and innovations.

• Perform additional duties as assigned.

Qualifications:

Required

• A master’s degree in a relevant discipline and 3 to 5 years of experience, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Experience with digital scholarship projects and the ability to communicate complex ideas in an understandable way to a broad variety of stakeholders.
• Demonstrated programming skills in one or more languages (Python, JavaScript, etc.) and digital scholarship methods and infrastructure, such as static site generation, relational and NoSQL databases, and software as a service (SaaS).
• Proven ability to write clear, well-documented code and work with version control using GitHub.
• Willingness and demonstrated ability to learn new skills and technologies beyond existing areas of knowledge, including new software applications and/or programming languages.
• Experience successfully working in a collaborative team on interdisciplinary digital scholarship projects.
• Excellent problem-solving and analytical capacities.

Preferred

• Experience with AI and machine learning applications in digital scholarship.
• Demonstrated informal or formal teaching experience.
• Project management experience.