Data and Engineering Manager

University of Chicago - Chicago, IL

Full-time - Manager

Chicago, IL

Educational Services

About the position

The Data and Engineering Manager at the University of Chicago will play a pivotal role in leading the internal engineering team across various research initiatives within the Data Science Institute. This position is crucial as the institute is expanding its engineering capacity and headcount. The successful candidate will not only establish and nurture software development best practices but will also be excited about the opportunity to build and grow a team in a dynamic academic environment. The role requires significant technical expertise in areas such as cloud computing, database design, web-based applications, or machine learning. The engineering manager will have substantial decision-making authority regarding project selection and execution. In collaboration with the Executive Director of the Data Science Institute, the Chief of Staff, and the Director of the Data Science Clinic, the manager will evaluate external proposals based on their technical merit, costs, and overall value. This position also involves external collaboration with researchers, students, postdocs, and industry partners, making it essential for the manager to effectively communicate and work with diverse stakeholders. The role is divided into approximately 30% project management, 30% development activities, and 40% direct contribution to projects, ensuring a balanced approach to leadership and hands-on work. The Data and Engineering Manager will oversee a team of engineers and students, driving the development of robust and scalable core components for the Data Science Institute's research, education, and outreach activities. Responsibilities include providing mentorship, establishing processes for bug tracking and resolution, defining technical standards, and collaborating with faculty and external organizations to develop novel research initiatives. The manager will also participate in code reviews, act as a subject matter expert in database design and cloud deployment, and manage employee performance and project timelines.

Responsibilities

• Manage a team of engineers and students contributing to projects across the Data Science Institute's activities of research, education, and outreach driving the development of robust, scalable, core components.
• Provide mentorship to engineers and students and share your passion for staying on top of tech trends, experimenting with and learning new technologies.
• Establish processes to triage bugs, track software defects, and ensure their timely resolution.
• Define and steward technical standards and code quality.
• Oversee internal computing resources.
• Work closely with faculty, staff, and external organizations to develop novel research and act as the principal liaison to faculty research partners.
• Collaborate with external data science partner organizations on engineering projects.
• Develop, apply and communicate standards for evaluating project proposals based on technical merit and other institutional goals.
• Develop and communicate program priorities and performance standards and assess operations using these criteria.
• Participate and direct code review and code evaluation activities.
• Act as a subject matter expert and technical lead on one or more areas of database design, cloud deployment, microservices, devops best practices.
• Manage employees by establishing annual performance goals, allocating resources, assessing annual performance, and determining individual merit, incentive and/or promotional increases.
• Provide technical oversight and develop standards, guidelines, and processes for application systems.
• Advise decisions on project and infrastructure needs, including the evaluation of server technologies, languages, platforms, and frameworks.
• Develop timelines and project plans for the team.
• Perform other related work as needed.

Requirements

• Minimum requirements include a college or university degree in a related field.
• Minimum requirements include knowledge and skills developed through 7+ years of work experience in a related job discipline.
• Over 3 years of professional software development management experience.
• Project management experience using agile methodologies (scrum, Kanban, etc.).
• Experience with research universities or research environments; experience working with faculty, students, and researchers.
• Student mentoring experience.
• Experience using and developing on one of the major cloud providers (AWS, GCP or Azure).
• Significant experience developing code in Python with knowledge of Node.js and a compiled language such as C/C++.
• Strong foundation in data management and data science.
• Cloud computing cost estimation and budgeting.
• Strong analytical skills and problem solving.

Nice-to-haves

• Demonstrated communication skills and the ability to break down complex technical problems.