IT Professional - POPROX

About the Job:
This position serves as a developer and research support engineering for a news personalization system being designed to serve as an experiment platform for the broader research community.  The team includes two full-time research staff, six faculty (at five institutions), and 6-10 students.   The University of Minnesota-led project aims to develop a shared news recommender system that will enable researchers nationwide to carry out live one-time and longitudinal experiences on users of AI systems that personalize the news-reading experience.
Approach is agile and collaborative. Development will be integrated with support to experimenters. The ability to learn new technologies and work with a team of students is essential. Job Duties/Responsibilities: Serve as software architect and developer for news personalization research project (70%)

• Design and build research software for news personalization project
• Create the systems needed to import and process news articles, manage membership, manage experimental conditions, and deliver personalized news as newsletters and web/mobile sites
• Create the systems and interfaces to support researchers using the system to conduct studies, including systems to track, store, and report on research data. 
• Collaborate with and direct students working on software development for the project

Support 5-site team of faculty and students to better study AI-powered news recommender systems (20%)

• Work with researchers, students, news experts, and ethics experts to help guide the development and operation of a news personalization infrastructure and associated use guidelines. 
• Incorporate researcherâ™s findings on design choices and their impact on users into the news personalization system.
• Support shared research infrastructure that provides artificial intelligence researchers and students across the nation with access to transformative resources including high-quality data on human-machine interactions in the context of news recommendation.

Other related tasks as needed (10%) Location:
Primary project site is University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Additional sites are in Clemson, SC; Philadelphia, PA; Boulder, CO; and Evanston, IL.  Hybrid and remote work options are available with the US, but we are also happy to provide onsite work facilities at one of the project sites (Minnesota preferred). Work experience includes work that was paid and unpaid, as an employee in industry or in any other arrangement. The experience needs to be clear in the CV or resume when applying, or the application may not be forwarded.

Required Qualifications:

• BA/BS degree and two years of work experience or MS degree in Computer Science or Software Engineering

Preferred Qualifications:

• For all candidates, work experience must include a minimum of 12 months of experience developing software on the AWS Cloud Platform.
• Proficiency and experience programming in Python. 
• Experience in front-end development and user experience design.
• Experience in web development, including mobile web.
• Experience in back-end development including web back-end and databases.
• Experience mentoring or supervising staff or students.
• Experience with recommender systems, machine learning, information retrieval, and/or natural language processing.

About University of Minnesota Twin Cities

The University of Minnesota, founded in the belief that all people are enriched by understanding, is dedicated to the advancement of learning and the search for truth; to the sharing of this knowledge through education for a diverse community; and to the application of this knowledge to benefit the people of the state, the nation, and the world.