Staff Employment Opportunities
We are currently accepting applications for the following administrative staff positions within the Information School. To see full job descriptions and apply please visit the University of Washington's UWHires site and search by either requisition number or keyword iSchool.
Commitment to Diversity
Committed to attracting and retaining a diverse faculty and staff, the University of Washington will honor your experiences, perspectives and unique identity. Together, our community strives to create and maintain working and learning environments that are inclusive, equitable and welcoming.
The University of Washington articulates its commitment in the UW Diversity Blueprint.
Full-stack Software Engineer, CIP
The University of Washington’s (UW) Center for an Informed Public (CIP) is seeking a Full-stack Software Engineer to join the Engineering team to support cutting edge research in a societally critical field.
The CIP’s mission is to resist strategic misinformation, promote an informed society, and strengthen democratic discourse. The core of almost all the CIP’s work is social media data, which the Engineering team owns. The Engineering team is instrumental to the success of the CIP’s mission, supporting efforts across research, education, and community impact.
The CIP is a collaborative research center, located within the Information School, that brings together faculty, researchers, staff, students, and community partners in service of the mission. The Engineering team provides computational and methodological infrastructure and support to diverse researchers working within the CIP.
The Full-stack Software Engineer will be a force multiplier for the CIP’s mission, increasing the pace of inquiry, expanding the kinds of research that can be done, and increasing capacity to serve a growing number of researchers. This is not a direct research position. The primary responsibilities will be supporting others’ research projects and agendas. However, the Full-stack Software Engineer may have the opportunity to contribute to published research in ways that warrant authorship.
The Engineering team is composed of three positions. In a small team environment, each team member makes a critical and massive impact. The team has very low overhead (meetings), so team members spend the vast majority of their work time designing, building, maintaining, and working one-on-one or in small groups with researchers.
What You’ll Be Doing
Full-stack Software Development:
- Design and build tools, webapps, and infrastructure that allow researchers to collect data from social media platforms. Data Engineers have already built the collection functionality.
- Design and build tools, webapps, and infrastructure that CIP researchers can use to conduct their research, including completing exploration and analysis tasks.
- Design, build, deploy, and maintain any needed services, tooling, and infrastructure.
- Write documentation both for researchers and for internal knowledge transfer within the Engineering team.
Research Analysis and Evaluation:
- Support the research cycle including data collection, data management, data analysis, and data archiving.
- Assess the research methods and technologies used.
- Evaluate the technical viability of the research outcomes.
- Understand the underlying algorithms and their implementations.
- Design and execute tests to validate research-based implementations.
Research Infrastructure Support and Maintenance:
- Maintain and improve existing tools, webapps, and infrastructure.
- Maintain and evolve the CIP’s Azure account and its infrastructure, which is entirely serverless except for the below two cases.
- Maintain the CIP’s JupyterHub instance, which runs on a single non-internet-connected Linux host in Azure.
- Maintain and evolve the CIP’s monitoring infrastructure, which runs on a single non-internet-connected Linux host in Azure.
- Support a creative, open environment for vibrant research development.
Other:
- Participate in regular CIP events and activities.
- Attend meetings and participate in iSchool and University of Washington committees, working groups, events, and/or activities.
- Engage in professional development activities to increase knowledge base for position.
The CIP’s tech stack is:
- Microsoft Azure
- Databricks data lake backed by Azure Data Lake Storage (ADLS) and Delta tables
- Custom Python code and pyspark jobs for ETL
- Kafka (Azure EventHubs)
- Docker
- Github and Github Actions
- JupyterHub
- Serverless, managed Postgres for infrastructure metadata (e.g. JupyterHub) and for researcher self-managed data
- Prometheus and Grafana for monitoring and alerting
- Azure App Service - for various dynamic websites that need to be maintained but not changed
- Azure Static Webapps - for various static website that need to be maintained but not changed
Minimum Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in computer science, computer engineering, information science or a related technical field.
- 6+ years of experience as a Full-stack Software Engineer:
- Coding in Python with either Django, Flask, or FastAPI
- Coding in JavaScript with a modern, industry-standard framework such as React, Vue.js, etc.
- Building applications that have state stored in PostgreSQL
- Deploying to a serverless runtime environment such as Azure App Services
- Deploying to production
- Monitoring webapps running in production
- Using and building APIs with Python
- Using APIs with JavaScript
- Using version control software (git, Github)
- Using Docker containers and creating Docker images
- Using public cloud services such as AWS, Azure, or GCP
- Working with and maintaining low-scale, non-internet-connected Linux hosts
- Understanding of data security best practices.
- Demonstrated understanding of how to communicate complex technical concepts to researchers with a range of technical expertise, including those with only minimal experience.
- Responsive, proactive style in supporting the needs of researchers.
- Experience managing complex projects from start to finish.
- Demonstrated success in working with diverse populations.
- Ability to work independently or as part of a team and interact well with faculty and researchers.
- Experience documenting processes, procedures, code, data, and infrastructure.
Desired Qualifications
- Experience with Azure.
- Experience with Kafka or Azure EventHubs.
- Experience with Github Actions.
- Training in and appreciation of user- or human-centered design principles.
What’s in it for you
- Full benefits, including medical and dental insurance and retirement plan.
- Paid vacation and sick leave, as well as 11 paid holidays a year and one personal day.
- Fully subsidized transit pass.
- Work for an exciting, cutting-edge research institute within the University of Washington.
Grants and Contracts Specialist
The University of Washington’s Information School is seeking a Grants and Contracts Specialist to provide effective, timely, and compliant analysis and administration of research grants and contracts. This individual will work with principal investigators, research partners, sponsors, and University research support offices to manage the full lifecycle of grants and contracts.
Researchers in the Information School work to solve information problems from many disciplinary perspectives with funding from many different sponsors. The range and complexity of the research enterprise in the school requires high-quality, professional grants management support for novice and experienced researchers; continual monitoring, analysis, and improvement of procedures, policies, and resources for the conduct of research in the Information School; and regular engagement with professionals in other units in the Information School and the UW.
The Grants and Contracts Specialist works independently to design, develop, manage, and ensure timely submission of complex grant and contract proposals. They ensure effective receipt, budgeting, and expenditure of awards, in compliance with federal, state, funding agency, and University of Washington regulations, policies and procedures. In collaboration with the Director of Research Administration, they are responsible for post-award procedures, record keeping, analysis, monitoring and reporting systems.
There is an expectation that the person in this position will step up where they see an opportunity to apply their special expertise or talents, speak up when they identify opportunities or concerns, and lead by taking actions that exemplify the Information School’s core values. This leadership may be expressed in diverse ways, reflecting the variety of styles and cultures that are represented by Information School faculty and staff.
What You’ll Be Doing
The Grants and Contracts Specialist provides overall management of proposals and awards for approximately half of the active researchers in the school.
Pre-award proposal analysis and support
Manage the preparation of competitive and non-competitive grant and contract proposals for submission to sponsoring agencies. Provide review and analysis of proposals to ensure complete and successful submissions. Responsibilities and areas of oversight include:
- Manage preparation and submission of complex proposal budgets, including cost sharing documentation.
- Manage preparation and submission of all other administrative and compliance components, including those related to narrative portions of proposals.
- Advise researchers on sponsor guidelines and University and funding agency policies and procedures.
- Establish timelines for and administer submission of grant and contract proposals in accordance with school, UW, and sponsor requirements and deadlines.
- Assist and act on behalf of principal investigators in negotiating terms of research grants, contracts, and subcontracts.
- Act on behalf of investigators in communicating with research partners, sponsors, and UW offices of research administration.
Post-Award financial analysis and support
Manage research awards, ensuring compliance with budget and fiscal policies, procedures, monitoring, reconciliation, and reporting for research grants and contracts. Responsibilities and areas of oversight include:
In collaboration with/on behalf of principal investigators:
- Research, interpret, and implement funding agency fiscal guidelines and rules.
- Provide financial planning and award administration support, including complex budget management, complicated expenditure transactions, and preparation of fiscal documents for external purposes.
- Initiate and monitor sub-budget allocations and sub-contract accounts; coordinate with other UW departments and external partners.
- Monitor financial activity on grants and contracts, gifts, and internal funding allocations; provide regular budget projections; determine the need for revision of fiscal plans; respond to budget variances.
- Perform complicated expenditure transactions; review UW systems used to track award activity for compliance and accuracy. Troubleshoot and prepare expenditure corrections as necessary.
- Prepare, analyze, and distribute monthly budget management and compliance monitoring reports for research grants, contracts, and gifts - including review and reconciliation of monthly transactions and actual expenditures in comparison to budget plans.
- Analyze, verify, and coordinate salary certification report approvals (FECs and GCCRs).
- Oversee all sponsor reporting requirements including managing and timely submission of all reports (RPPR, etc.).
- Monitor, track, and document cost share commitments.
- Prepare just-in-time documents as required by sponsor.
- Communicate and coordinate with iSchool Human Resources staff on payroll additions or changes for research project personnel as indicated by budget plans approved by principal investigators.
- Communicate and coordinate with iSchool Finance staff on internal reporting, policy and procedure development, travel expenditures, and internal budget transfers.
In collaboration with the Director of Research Administration:
- Design and develop complex budget and expenditure monitoring and management reports, including compliance and audit reporting.
- Develop, revise, and administer policies and procedures for grant and contract financial management, record keeping, monitoring and reporting.
- Assist in the design, preparation, and interpretation of analytical reports on school-wide research funding and expenditure trends and projections for iSchool administrative leaders (primarily Associate Dean for Research, Assistant Dean for Planning & Administration, and Dean).
- Respond to compliance and other fiscal information requests from iSchool management, UW central administration, and other external partners, including reviewing and approving eGC1’s, business elements of proposals, no cost extensions, travel and expense reimbursements.
Other
- Coordinate and prepare documents for audits or other special external reviews.
- Special projects as assigned.
- Attend monthly MRAM and other research administrative-related campus presentations, workshops and trainings.
- Participate in professional development opportunities.
- Attend meetings and participate in committee and iSchool events and activities as appropriate.
- Perform other related duties as needed.
Minimum Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in Business, related field, or equivalent combination of education and experience.
- Minimum of three years’ experience in pre- and post-award grants and contracts management.
- Proficient with complex budget development, analysis, and reporting.
- Skilled in using MS Office, including creating and using complex MS Excel spreadsheets and workbooks.
- Experience using databases for queries and reports.
- Experience and commitment to providing accurate, detailed work products.
- Ability to work and problem-solve independently.
- Excellent written and oral communication skills.
- Ability to work effectively with faculty, researchers, and staff.
- Problem-solving skills, including active listening, planning and organizing, and teamwork.
- Ability to leverage experience while exercising expertise and informed professional judgment.
- Strong commitment to excellence in grants and fiscal services.
- Demonstrated ability to manage time and priorities among competing demands.
- Ability to adapt to change and adopt new procedures and systems and contribute to process improvement.
- Demonstrated success working with diverse populations.
Desired Qualifications
- Knowledge of University of Washington fiscal policies and procedures, including those related to grants and contracts.
- Experience with federal grants and contracts policies and procedures.
- Working knowledge of UW Systems, particularly SAGE eGC1, GrantTracker, MyResearch, eProcurement/ARIBA (including BPO preparation), and MyFinancial.desktop (MyFD); working knowledge of other applications including NSF FastLane, Research.gov, and other sponsor systems.
- Project management experience.
- Ability to assess and lead improvements in processes and work products.
What’s in it for you
- Full benefits, including medical and dental insurance and retirement plan.
- Paid vacation and sick leave, as well as 11 paid holidays a year and one personal day.
- Fully subsidized transit pass.
- Work for an exciting, cutting-edge school within the University of Washington.
Conditions of Employment
- A satisfactory outcome of a reference check of previous employment.
Questions regarding openings at the Information School should be directed to ihrhelp@uw.edu. We will do our best to respond to your inquiry within 2 business days.
The University of Washington is an affirmative action and equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, protected veteran or disabled status, or genetic information.