University of Washington Jobs

Req #: 236192

Department: ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH & SAFETY

Job Location Detail: Hybrid, onsite 2 days a week

Posting Date: 06/28/2024

Closing Info: Closes On 07/07/2024

Salary: $9,000 – 10,000 per month

Shift: First Shift

Notes: As a UW employee, you will enjoy generous benefits and work/life programs. For a complete description of our benefits for this position, please visit our website, click here. (https://hr.uw.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2018/02/benefits-professional-staff-librarians-academic-staff-20230119_a11y.pdf)

As a UW employee, you have a unique opportunity to change lives on our campuses, in our state and around the world. UW employees offer their boundless energy, creative problem solving skills and dedication to build stronger minds and a healthier world.

UW faculty and staff also enjoy outstanding benefits, professional growth opportunities and unique resources in an environment noted for diversity, intellectual excitement, artistic pursuits and natural beauty.

UW Environmental Health and Safety (EH&S) has an outstanding opportunity for a Software Engineer.

This Software Engineer position in the University’s Environmental Health & Safety Department (EH&S) will be responsible for supporting the department’s information technology systems (ITS) and services for over 80 environmental and health and safety programs required for University-wide health, safety and compliance. This position is also responsible for maintaining EH&S internal systems to improve and optimize workflow for EH&S staff and University units. This position will be responsible for gathering requirements for, designing, developing, recommending, and testing complex database backend and web frontend software applications, many of which are used University-wide. Often this involves developing custom software and integrating it with third party software or systems using Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) or Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) processes. Position deliverables include creating and maintaining custom applications, making updates to existing systems as appropriate to modern software platforms, proactively maintaining system security, consolidation of database systems, and improving application efficiency for both internal and external applications. The position will provide future solutions to existing systems, and the conversion to modern technology.

The Software Engineer will support existing systems (which may be sunsetting) and lead the purchase of new solutions. This position involves working with annual license renewals and serving as the point of contact with vendors for technical information, ensuring compatibility with university policies during purchases, verifying software's ability to meet system requirements, and providing technical support for existing systems. This position is expected to both learn and provide staff support, with excellent knowledge of DPA (data processing agreement) and Accessibility standards to facilitate negotiations.

This position manages and executes both business and technical components of complex technical projects. Project work focuses on gaining efficiencies by documenting business processes; defining and designing process improvements; designing technical solutions based on requirements; and data modeling and metadata definition. Designing, engineering, and improving software solutions is critical for this role.

EH&S software systems serve various university communities and have lifespans of years, often decades. Examples include third-party systems like OARS (Online Accident Reporting System), which serves the entire university, and custom in-house systems like the Laboratory Safety System for managing over a thousand annual lab surveys. Therefore, this position must be capable of building complete custom software solutions, supporting outdated systems, and upgrading systems as departmental strategic goals change.

This position reports to the EH&S Computing Manager and will be part of a collaborative ITS team in the EH&S Department’s Planning and Administration Section.

The Software Engineer will work both independently and in collaboration with technical staff to develop, implement, and support software applications and systems that are integral to program operations, including understanding the business processes in EH&S and how the IT systems support these processes. Most of these systems are used University-wide and required for health and safety and compliance program support with federal, state, and local agencies and contain sensitive information. The incumbent selected must be able to simultaneously work on multiple projects with different timelines, often providing novel solutions to complex problems. Working directly with subject matter experts (SMEs), this position will be responsible for working with clients and improving functionality of a wide range of current and dated technology while performing maintenance of existing local and external applications, websites, databases, and their operating system platforms. The position is part of a development team using a central GitHub environment. The successful candidate must understand state and federal accessibility requirements and meet those requirements during development of new systems and modifications of existing code.

As EH&S is a university-wide resource ensuring the safety and compliance of all departments, this position will significantly impact EH&S's ability to provide technical resources to the university community. The role supports the technology requirements of EH&S and will maintain current knowledge of university requirements while interacting with various university computing organizations. As a core safety resource, EH&S relies on this position to ensure its university-wide applications continue to effectively support and communicate safety guidance for standard regulatory information and expand capabilities for emergency topics. Examples of university-wide systems this position will support include OARS (Online Accident Reporting System, serves all UW employees), Bridge (online safety training application, over 40 thousand courses completed each year), and the Lab Survey Dashboard (serves all PIs and Deans).

DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES Design and Implement Applications 60%

• Implement web services and APIs for integration with other platforms and services. • Collaborate with development teams to deploy and manage applications within the cloud infrastructure. • Creating and maintaining custom software programs and applications. • Serves as a technical expert in the evaluation/testing of the capabilities and requirements of existing and emerging systems, many of which are used University-wide. • Performs technical analysis, maintenance, and modification of custom software programs and applications. • Evaluates and recommends new software products for managing specialized health and safety programs. • Full stack web application development • Ensure data privacy and security requirements met such as those for HIPAA , FERPA, CDC/USDA, and WA Department of Health. • Provide training to appropriate personnel, at associated skill levels • Apply future enhancements as required • Create application level SSO configuration and Shibboleth authentication • Assist in use of custom developed applications

Support and Maintenance of Existing Applications and Infrastructure 30%

• Works as an integral member of the software development team to implement new functionality within the existing code base. • Support vendor software, including diagnostics, triaging issues with vendors, and negotiating new or updated features as needed. • Implement enhancement requests in existing custom applications • Implement usability and accessibility improvements in existing custom applications • Triage, investigate, diagnose, and implement solutions of issues • Assist users with department system applications • Maintain existing software platforms, apply updates and patches, etc. • Modify database design, add queries and reports, optimize SQL queries • Maintain application level SSO configuration and Shibboleth authentication

Miscellaneous Duties 10%

• Work in team environment to build backup support knowledge of existing systems • Document existing systems and current/future state • Write tutorials, usage examples, and user manuals following unit guidelines • Provide weekly status reports to the management or as required. • Participate in all aspects of improving the team, including education/training of other team members and contributing to process/communication improvement initiatives. • Follow and maintain industry-standard best practices during system conversion and design • Incorporate strategic planning initiatives into workplan. Support data gathering for metrics and performance monitoring of programs to ensure organizational efficiencies and desired outcomes are met. • Other duties as assigned

MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS:

• Bachelor's degree, preferably in computer science, information systems, or equivalent with programming experience or other related field. • 4 years experience designing, developing, testing, debugging, and implementing complex software applications and complex database systems in multiple database languages (MySQL, MS SQL, others)

Equivalent education/experience will substitute for all minimum qualifications except when there are legal requirements, such as a license/certification/registration. ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS:

• Experience developing and debugging complex queries • Experience programming web applications using front end technology • Demonstrated experience creating clear, detailed, documentation including standard operating procedures, system diagrams, and other technical specifications • Familiarity with RESTful APIs • Demonstrated experience with the software development lifecycle including version control (Git) and code reviews • Solid knowledge of security issues affecting web and database applications • Able to interpret user requirements into complex data systems • Able to translate technical material to clients of multiple skill levels • Able to work both independently and collaboratively • Excellent written and oral communication skills • Ability to work outside normal schedule if requested

DESIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Experience working in an academic environment • Experience with Drupal 9/10 CMS • Experience in front end technology, examples PHP, Python, HTML/CSS/JavaScript • Experience in production management • Experience developing front-end frameworks such as Angular and React • Experience meeting IT accessibility WCAG Accessibility standards • Experience with REDCap • Experience with Tableau • Familiarity with request/incident ticketing software • Proficient experience with major cloud platforms such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud Platform (GCP). This includes understanding their core services like compute, storage, networking, and security. • Strong background in DevOps methodologies, including continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD), infrastructure as code (IaC), and automated testing.

WORKING ENVIRONMENT

Hybrid, onsite 2 days a week in an open work environment

Application Process:

The application process for UW positions may include completion of a variety of online assessments to obtain additional information that will be used in the evaluation process. These assessments may include Work Authorization, Cover Letter and/or others. Any assessments that you need to complete will appear on your screen as soon as you select “Apply to this position”. Once you begin an assessment, it must be completed at that time; if you do not complete the assessment you will be prompted to do so the next time you access your “My Jobs” page. If you select to take it later, it will appear on your "My Jobs" page to take when you are ready. Please note that your application will not be reviewed, and you will not be considered for this position until all required assessments have been completed.

University of Washington is an affirmative action and equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to, among other things, race, religion, color, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, sex, age, protected veteran or disabled status, or genetic information.