Programmer Analyst I

University of British Columbia•Vancouver, BC

9d•CA$6,950 - CA$9,993•Onsite

About The Position

The Programmer Analyst I supports the Learning Technology Hub with the design, development, and support of learning technology solutions for campus-wide teaching & learning activities. The Programmer Analyst I focuses on smaller software modules and system-to-system integrations as well as contributing to larger software systems available throughout the university. This role contributes to AI-powered and data-driven learning-technology solutions — including building platforms and shared services that other teams and developers build on, as well as retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) chatbots and conversational assistants, agentic AI tools and workflows, cloud-hosted services, and data pipelines and analytics — in support of UBC’s role in the responsible use of Artificial Intelligence in education. We are looking for a curious, self-directed developer who takes initiative, learns new tools quickly, and is comfortable working at the frontier of rapidly evolving AI technology.

Requirements

Undergraduate degree in a relevant discipline.
Minimum of three years of related experience, or the equivalent combination of education and experience.
Willingness to respect diverse perspectives, including perspectives in conflict with one’s own
Demonstrates a commitment to enhancing one’s own awareness, knowledge, and skills related to equity, diversity, and inclusion
Cloud computing — building, deploying, and managing solutions using cloud-managed services (e.g. AWS, Azure, GCP) and containerized applications (Docker, Kubernetes).
Data lake / data analytics infrastructure — building data pipelines (ETL/ELT), integrating datasets from multiple sources, and producing analytics-ready datasets; working with relational databases, including data cleaning and analyzing complex data structures.
AI / ML — applying Generative AI and Large Language Models, with specific interest in retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), chatbots / conversational assistants, agentic AI tools and workflows, building or consuming APIs for RAG, and the Model Context Protocol (MCP).
Data governance — implementing access controls and row-level security (RLS), and applying data privacy/security practices.

Nice To Haves

Experience with AWS and its managed services (e.g. Lambda, ECS/EKS, S3, RDS), including deploying and operating cloud-hosted solutions. AWS is the primary environment for our platforms and services.
Experience with full-stack development.
Experience with Python and/or TypeScript. We are otherwise fairly language-agnostic and like to see experience across other languages (e.g. Rust).
Experience with version control (Git) and CI/CD pipelines.
Fluency with modern development approaches, including the use of AI.
A curious, self-starting disposition — proactively explores new tools, builds prototypes and proofs of concept, and is comfortable with the ambiguity of emerging technology.
Effective problem-solving skills.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
Hands-on experience across more than one of the four focus areas listed under Required Qualifications.
Experience in a mixed software development and software maintenance role.
Experience building integrations with SAML, LTI, and APIs.
Experience with CI/CD tools (e.g. GitHub Actions, AWS CodePipeline).
Demonstrated ability to explain complex concepts in layman’s language.

Responsibilities

Programs solutions based on core teaching and learning applications; advises programmers developing faculty and/or department specific modules; advises through face-to-face interaction, virtual, phone and email/ticketing system.
Manages projects to implement learning technology solutions in cloud environments.
Builds and maintains platforms and shared services — reusable infrastructure, developer tooling, and self-service capabilities — that enable teams across UBC to build and deploy learning technology solutions.
Builds and integrates APIs and services, including APIs that power retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), chatbots and conversational assistants, and Model Context Protocol (MCP) tools/servers, to extend UBC’s teaching and learning ecosystem.
Designs and builds agentic AI tools and workflows and adopts AI-assisted development tooling to accelerate delivery, applying the responsible use of Generative AI and Large Language Models.
Contributes to data pipelines and data-lake / analytics infrastructure — ingestion, ETL/ELT, and producing analytics-ready datasets that support reporting and AI/ML use cases.
Implements data-governance controls, including row-level security (RLS) and access controls, consistent with University privacy and security policy.
Evaluates functional requirements and system features of UBC’s enterprise teaching and learning platforms.
Designs solutions to extend system capabilities and develop integrations for tools into UBC’s teaching and learning ecosystem.
Provides technical guidance to developers’ community at UBC including providing proactive recommendations in an agile manner.
Implements the latest standards in accessibility, security, privacy, equity and in other areas as regulated by University policies.
Documents code for internal and Open Source distribution and creates user manuals and documentation for end users.
Works collaboratively, as part of an Agile software development and learning technology operations team.
Designs, develops, tests, maintains, and supports enterprise learning technology solutions in support of faculty teaching and learning goals.
Participates in team practices including refinement, estimation, and planning.
Conducts demos of features and fixes for faculty and other campus stakeholders.
Contributes to documenting our processes, designs, and guidelines.
Supports continuous improvement activities.
Programs software applications and services.
Conducts testing and debugging to ensure application meets specifications.
Prepares programming documentation for supported programs.
Supports software development lifecycle, and applies and follows appropriate programming/development methodologies and best practices.
Integrates applications with UBC Campus Wide Login systems using Shibboleth as well as Learning Management Systems using LTI and APIs.
Maintains appropriate professional designations and up-to-date knowledge of current information technology techniques and tools.
Participates in project planning and implementation.
Builds and maintains good working relationships and collaborates with others to achieve client objectives.
Performs other related duties as required.