Interactive Application Developer #2753

WestEd, a nonprofit research, development, and service agency, works with education and other communities to promote excellence, achieve equity, and improve learning for children, youth, and adults. While WestEd serves the states of Arizona, California, Nevada, and Utah as one of the nation's Regional Educational Laboratories, our agency's work extends throughout the United States and abroad. WestEd has 16 offices nationwide, from Washington and Boston to Arizona, Southern California, and its headquarters in San Francisco.

Anyone can work for a .com for dollars. We're looking for someone who wants to work for a .org to improve education and learning.

WestEd has been ranked in the top 100 places to work in the Bay Area multiple times and we don't even have stock options. We provide an indisputably generous benefits package and a great working environment that allows you to collaborate with experts and thought-leaders in all aspects of the educational field, both inside and outside of the organization. And you can go to bed at night knowing that the work you do helps improve children’s lives.

WestEd is a respected leader in the Education sector. We have several hundred active projects at any given time, with an impact that ranges from schools to state departments of education to the federal government. WestEd Interactive, the organization's technology group, has supported over 100 projects in the last few years, and is one of the country’s largest not-for-profit development teams in the educational industry. We work in a fast-moving, evolving environment—and we are growing rapidly.

Position Description

We are searching for individuals who love solving problems, and who have an insatiable curiosity about emerging web technologies and how they tie together with existing technology and practices.

We are looking for someone to add expertise to an already diverse team of web, media, and database developers. We want someone who is interested in technology’s applications, someone who wants to be here because they want to use some of the most innovative tools available to solve long-standing problems. You will work on multiple projects in small teams to develop intuitive solutions. Almost all of your peers are located in our SOMA office in San Francisco, and that is where you will be based.

We want someone who can drive change in our organization, who can help guide us in how to implement new technologies and approaches to working on the web, who has experience with a wide variety of scripting languages, databases, and platforms. This position will focus on Ruby on Rails applications.

Responsibilities

You will help to develop intuitive, useful web-based applications for the educational sector.

* Experience with web application frameworks and platforms
* Comfortable working in UNIX-like environments, particularly Linux and
Solaris
* Knowledge of the Ruby language, object-oriented programming
* Experience developing and deploying Ruby on Rails applications
* Database design and SQL experience (MySQL and SQL Server directly
applicable)
* Strong HTML, XHTML, and CSS experience
* Experience working in a team environment; friendly, outgoing manner
* Great communication skills, both verbal and written
* Excellent time management skills to juggle multiple projects
simultaneously
* Able to work in our downtown San Francisco office

PREFERRED SKILLS
* Knowledge of Perl
* Experience with web services, R.E.S.T
* Skill in JavaScript and AJAX
* Experience with web software QA and version control
* Understanding of the principles and practices of usability and user
interaction design

NICE TO HAVE
* Knowledge of security principles, penetration testing
* Understanding of XML/XSLT/XML Schema
* Knowledge of integrating SQL Server and other products into an open-
source stack
* Understanding of accessibility implications in a range of web
technologies, from HTML to JavaScript to Flash
* Experience in Internationalization, the Semantic web, or machine
learning
* Background in Education