Developer

Your next great EdTech opportunity is here... Relay Graduate School of Education, based in the Flatiron neighborhood of New York, is looking for a developer to join our core technical team.

In support of Relay's ongoing expansion, we continue to improve our program, learning platform, student information systems, and on-line video assets. We are integrating the best innovations across education technology ("EdTech") as we re-imagine both online learning and in-person teacher training. Technology is a critical strategic lever to achieve Relay GSE's vision to serve a broader audience of teachers and extend our reach to new schools and students. This position will put you squarely in the middle of the revolution in education technology and education reform more broadly.

THE ROLE

As a core member of our development team you will spend approximately 55% of your time on front-end development (HTML, JavaScript/JQuery, CSS) and 45% of your time working to enhance the back-end PHP-based learning management system, as well as other applications we use to manage student information, admissions, financial aid, etc.

On the front-end, we need to build intuitive user experiences that complement our hybrid instructional approach, which is about a 40/60 mix of on-line to classroom time. A priority of ours in the coming year is to embrace adaptive design principles as we enable our applications for delivery through mobile devices, especially tablets. In this role you'll be expected to help turn designs into user interfaces using HTML, JavaScript, and CSS that account for the back-end "hooks" developed in PHP.

We'll also expect you to spend some of your time developing the back-end itself, specifically working on PHP code built on the Symfony framework, which is the foundation for our "Course Platform" ("CP"). The CP is our learning management system that powers both our on-line and in-person education. In addition, you'll work with our MySQL databases that power the back-end.

Some of the challenges you'll be taking on include:

• Developing a mechanism by which we can better track the progress of our graduate students' own public school students. Measuring student achievement is a key part of our approach and we need to improve the way by which we do this.
• Preparing for our expansion nationally and launching new Relay GSE programs. We need to develop and extend our CP and backend systems to better handle a variety of education programs.
• Improving the flow of information and data within and among systems, both within Relay GSE and externally. We need to take more of a "data-first" approach to our application development, which in turn will allow us to improve our ability to develop insights based on our data.
• Improving our code base to make it further compliant with MVC design patterns for PHP and Symfony; developing new RESTful APIs for our LMS applications; abstracting our code base to make it more modular and flexible as Relay launches new programs into new geographies

This position is contract to hire — our expectation is that the right candidate will excel at Relay GSE and we will convert the role into a full time employee position within 6-9 months.

OUR TEAM

We currently have nimble product and technology teams that include a full-time developer, a full-time product manager, several full-time technology generalists, two full-time technology infrastructure specialists, and other colleagues with expertise in online learning, media production, and K-12 and graduate schools.

QUALIFICATIONS
Requirements

• HTML, including HTML5
• Client-side JavaScript & JQuery
• CSS
• PHP (PHP 5.3)
• LAMP Development, especially MySQL experience
• At least 2-3 years of relevant development experience generally

Great-to-Have

• Symfony 2 framework
• MVC design patterns for PHP
• Experience with both Adaptive and Responsive Web Design principles
• XP, Agile and generally iterative type methodologies
• Test Driven Development - Experience developing test cases first, before development
• Experience with LMS and/or SIS systems
• Familiarity with the Microsoft suite – MS SQL Server and InfoMaker in particular
• Interest and passion for EdTech, education, and helping teachers better teach public school students
• Demonstrated experience with envisioning and realizing web-based services that meet consumer needs and solve business problems
• A passion backed by knowledge of what it takes to create a compelling user experience
• An entrepreneurial spirit with the desire to individually own primary responsibility for technology and collectively realize the vision of future products
• Comfortable learning and embracing new languages and frameworks quickly; ability to help us assess where new technologies, languages, and platforms may be things we should consider
• Excellent communication skills to both technical and non-technical audiences

ABOUT US

The Relay GSE is a ground-breaking graduate school with an innovative Master's degree program designed specifically to respond to today's urgent demand for effective and successful teachers. Relay GSE is currently serving over 600 graduate or alternate route program students in both New York and New Jersey.

Relay GSE's mission is to teach teachers to develop in all students the academic skills and strength of character needed to succeed in college and life. Our academic programs — practically focused, reinforced by the proven practices of high-performing schools, and substantiated by research — were designed to enable our graduates to lead their predominantly urban public school students to demonstrable annual achievement gains. Relay GSE is positioned to bring about transformational change in teacher preparation, becoming the place where a new generation of continuously-improving, results-focused individuals can fulfill their destiny in the world's greatest profession.

Relay GSE provides equal employment opportunity for all applicants and employees.