Director of Web Application Development
- I was hired into the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences at UNC Charlotte
- This college has split into the Klein College of Science and the College of Humanities & Earth and Social Sciences
- My position has been moved to Central IT (OneIT), but I only work with people in the colleges.
- Reporting Structures at state universities are weird.
Job Description
This is technical and analytical work in developing, designing, and/or supporting applications for the business, research, and/or instructional functions of clients. Employees participate in the development of solutions using programming expertise for day-to-day problems to include maintenance, modification or development of complex inter-related applications/solutions. Solutions link technical knowledge with business, research and/or instructional solutions and may range from consulting services (software or hardware recommendations) to developing integrated-automated systems. Duties include client needs assessment as well as evaluating hardware availability and software requirements. Employees should be able to work independently with minimal supervision.
Core Competency: Technical Support
Serves as a key resource in solving problems of high complexity to other analyst and technicians. Troubleshoot security breaches through examination of access logs, manipulation of backups to avoid further contamination, and hardening of vulnerable applications to prevent further undesired access. Analyze performance of existing shadow systems to resolve technical issues and to constantly seek opportunities to migrate such systems to a centrally supported platform.
Once migrated, process improvement and feature development will still continue through direct coordination with ITS staff. Utilizes advanced skills to make technology modifications. Mastery of all components of enterprise web based application delivery, including server operating systems, database programming and improvement, web server configuration and tuning, and highly functional scripting to tie everything together. Works within standards established by campus IT administration for authentication, compatibility and security. Custom solutions serve nearly half of the faculty in the university in its largest college.
No single developer outside of ITS has as much scope or scale, so mastery of best practice in all aspects of application development is essential. PHP or Perl, Unix or Linux, Apache, MySQL (Oracle), C++, Java, Ruby on Rails. Recommends methods of resolving problems to lower level analysts or client representatives.
Core Competency: Consultancy Skills
Provides consultation on issues and requests from clients that require the implementation or creation of a custom solution. Give examples of custom solutions and how this position will integrate these solutions with the existing architecture, the technical knowledge required to ensure security, confidentiality and accessibility standards are maintained, the skill to train users on new systems, the ability to coordinate large scale projects involving multiple disciplines, partners and/or platforms with budget and time constraints.
Example Projects
Combine data from Institutional Research, Banner HR, and Banner Finance to create a secure dashboard allowing the Dean to manipulate variables for both reporting and visualization/planning purposes. This must be done in a way that does not violate campus IT security practices/policies and avoids the redundant creation of shadow databases by securely referencing data at its source (usu. Operational Data Store or equivalent). This will require managing a project involving participants from multiple campus units.
Create a searchable and manipulable database of faculty information that serves as a data source for external searches of expertise, community involvement and research interests, internal and external contact indices, and any other project requiring a reference to contact information. Again, this data should come straight from the source and not represent a copy of core data. Creating the necessary joins across database tables to allow this functionality requires a sophisticated understanding of the technologies and processes involved.
Understands the market, industry and competitors that have an impact on the
customers business. Consults with senior level decision makers, on an ongoing
basis, to develop long range strategic alternatives. Builds client support of ITS
objectives.
Core Competency: Technical Solution Development
Investigates, researches and implements new technologies in specialty or related area. Mastery of all components of enterprise web based application delivery including server operating systems, database programming and improvement, web server configuration and tuning, and highly functional scripting to tie everything together.
Works within standards established by campus IT administration for authentication, compatibility and security. Custom solutions serve nearly half of the faculty in the university in its largest college. No single developer outside of ITS has as much scope or scale, so mastery of best practice in all aspects of application development is essential. PHP, Perl, Unix, Linux, Apache, MySQL (Oracle), C++, Java, Ruby on Rails.
Devises or modifies procedures to solve complex problems considering computer equipment capacity and limitations. Regularly provides guidance and suggestions to less experienced analysts/programmers.
Core Competency: Technical Knowledge
Serves as an experienced technical resource to technicians and analysts. Programs complex routines. Typically has significant expertise and experience. Ability to apply deep understanding of enterprise database technologies with cutting edge security and authentication protocols will allow the CLAS community to access centralized information resources more securely and efficiently than would be the case without such expertise. Ability to test and harden open source software solutions to meet UNC Charlotte security criteria. This includes interfacing with Oracle databases through secure strategies approved by ITS. Ability to automate the patching and maintenance of all CLAS web applications to maintain security and minimize downtime.
Ability to analyze and clean up after security breaches working with ITS security as well as hosting providers to minimize the risk of repeat occurrences.
Frequently works at a high technical level of applications systems analysis and programming. Mastery of all components of enterprise web based application delivery including server operating systems, database programming and improvement, web server configuration and tuning, and highly functional scripting to tie everything together.
Works within standards established by campus IT administration for authentication compatibility and security. Custom solutions serve nearly half of the faculty in the university in its largest college. No single developer outside of ITS has as much scope or scale. Uses detail understanding of technical issues to design architecture for stable technologies and provides direction for technicians and other analysts. Build custom web based applications to meet the administrative, teaching, research, and service missions of the college. Past examples include the Faculty Research and Community Involvement Database and the Electronic Reappointment and Tenure application.
Core Competency: Planning and Organizing
May regularly assist management in establishing work standards, standard processes and references. Identifies web based technologies that meet the diverse needs of CLAS units and assists in incorporating the necessary infrastructure for those technologies into CLAS strategic planning process. Coordinates and constantly improves project management infrastructure used for tracking and reporting on ongoing programming efforts by student and full time team members.
Serves as primary systems administration liaison for college web infrastructure, monitoring performance, planning for and implementing improvements and maintenance strategies, and informing all involved parties of the impact of such activities.
Provides regular day to day planning and organizing the work of other technician and/or analyst. Coordinates development activities of programming team, which includes full time technical support staff, part time student employees, and technical interns. Responsible for the training and development of programming skills and effective project management practices of all programming team members.
Core Competency: Project Management
Manages complex projects. Supervises the establishment, implementation, maintenance and improvement of all web based application delivery for the 21 units of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (with each unit having a primary web presence and any number of custom applications). This includes the development of custom tools to migrate content into managed infrastructure, monitoring and responding to security concerns, and identifying standard processes and procedures for the hundreds of clients who utilize these systems.
Coordinates the training and support of all CLAS IT support staff in use and improvement of supported web based applications.
Complexity comes from the following factors:
- Specialization: the need to tailor solutions to meet the needs of a specific discipline while avoiding one off programming that is wasteful of resources
- Scale: The sheer number of students, faculty and staff who use the applications demands an understanding of effective application design and efficient project management to effectively capture all requirements and still maintain a timeline.
- Technical: Several disciplines (especially natural sciences, mathematics and statistics, and social sciences) work regularly with complex data and require high capacity processing. Solutions must accommodate such technical complexity. Develops project plan, manages milestones and drives project forward. Accountable for keeping project on track.