Senior Application Developer

Cornell University•Ithaca, MI

2d•$108,095 - $132,116•Remote

About The Position

Student & Campus Life (SCL) inspires transformation in all Cornell students on their journey of individual, academic and personal evolution. Our division is comprised of leading student affairs experts who support our campus on pressing student life matters including public service, health, wellbeing, connection and belonging, residential living, food services, sports, recreation, career services, and student activities and organizations including sorority and fraternity life. We provide support and services to roughly 25,000 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students on multiple campuses in the U.S. and abroad. Student Service Information Technologies (SSIT) provides IT support to a number of divisions, including SCL, and allows numerous operations to run effectively while using hundreds of different IT systems. SSIT is comprised of five different service teams: Client/Desktop Services, Infrastructure Services, Business Applications & Development, IT Service Management, and Business Application Services. As part of Student Services Information Technology (SSIT) and as a member of a team of software developers who have adopted a cloud first approach, the Senior Application Developer serves as a key contributor to the needs of our customers, spending time on the support and maintenance of existing applications, ongoing changes to applications and processes as business requirements evolve, and the development of new applications to meet new needs. This position will regularly research innovations in technical architecture, recommend implementations, and design new procedures and data and software integrations to improve the efficiency, reliability, and security of the applications we support. The Senior Application Developer applies significant technical expertise as an independent contributor, team member, and coach, frequently helping other developers, business analysts, infrastructure staff, and DevOps staff troubleshoot and resolve technical problems. Additionally, this position will provide input into the creation and modification of department policies and procedures and will conduct research and development aimed at improving SSIT's footprint in cloud environments. SSIT is a collaborative environment made up of several groups who work together to deliver and support applications. Service managers own the relationships with our campus partners and bring the business need forward. Business analysts help shape and document what an application is supposed to do and provide direct operational support to our customers. Infrastructure and DevOps staff manage the systems and platforms our applications run on. The development team, which this position joins, designs, builds, and maintains the custom applications themselves. The Senior Application Developer works directly with all five service teams within SSIT, as well as with stakeholders and customers across the division, rather than receiving a finished specification and working in isolation. Comfortably communicating across these relationships and taking initiative to move work forward is critical for this position. While position responsibilities vary, every member of our community is expected to foster a culture of belonging and a healthy work environment by communicating across differences; being cooperative, collaborative, open, and welcoming; showing respect, compassion, and empathy; engaging and supporting others regardless of background or perspective; speaking up when others are being excluded or treated inappropriately; and supporting work/life integration of oneself and others.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree and at least 5 years relevant experience or equivalent combination of education and experience.
Experience working in an enterprise grade custom development environment, with a demonstrated understanding of the full software development lifecycle from design through deployment and maintenance.
Demonstrated ability to independently research, learn, and apply unfamiliar tools, frameworks, and technologies.
Clear communication skills, including the ability to work directly with technical and non-technical colleagues, and to judge which means of communication is best in various remote work situations.
Recent expert level experience with one or more server side and client-side languages, and with relational database backends.
Experience with a server side Node.js framework such as Express or Nest.js.
Experience with a modern client-side framework (SSIT uses Angular but not React).
Experience with front end component frameworks such as Bootstrap and Angular Material.
Experience with database design, SQL, and at least one ORM, including a relational database such as MySQL.
Experience consuming and building APIs.
Experience with Git and modern Git source code management platforms such as GitHub or Bitbucket.
Experience with shell scripting (for example PowerShell or Bash) for local development, deployment, and supporting tasks.
Container experience (for example, Docker).
Familiarity with key AWS services such as S3, ECS, EC2, RDS, and SQS.
Familiarity with security practices at both the system and application level, including awareness of the OWASP Top Ten.
Familiarity with monitoring and logging systems.
Experience with technical and high level documentation of complex systems.

Nice To Haves

Amazon Web Services (AWS) hosting experience, and experience using the AWS SDK in a custom application.
Configuring Apache or Nginx as proxies for web applications.
Serverless platforms (AWS Lambda, Microsoft Azure Functions, Google Cloud Functions, etc.), as evidence of a broad and adaptable cloud background.
Using and implementing CI/CD pipelines.
Shibboleth, OAuth, or SAML concepts.
Experience working with AI assisted development tools, with the judgment to review and validate generated code.
Familiarity with general AI and large language model concepts as applied to software development.
Databases such as MySQL and MongoDB.
WCAG 2.x compliance and testing experience.
Examples of responsive design used in a production product.

Responsibilities

Serves as a key contributor to the needs of our customers, spending time on the support and maintenance of existing applications, ongoing changes to applications and processes as business requirements evolve, and the development of new applications to meet new needs.
Regularly research innovations in technical architecture, recommend implementations, and design new procedures and data and software integrations to improve the efficiency, reliability, and security of the applications we support.
Applies significant technical expertise as an independent contributor, team member, and coach, frequently helping other developers, business analysts, infrastructure staff, and DevOps staff troubleshoot and resolve technical problems.
Provide input into the creation and modification of department policies and procedures.
Conduct research and development aimed at improving SSIT's footprint in cloud environments.
Works directly with all five service teams within SSIT, as well as with stakeholders and customers across the division.
Foster a culture of belonging and a healthy work environment by communicating across differences; being cooperative, collaborative, open, and welcoming; showing respect, compassion, and empathy; engaging and supporting others regardless of background or perspective; speaking up when others are being excluded or treated inappropriately; and supporting work/life integration of oneself and others.