Blackboard Inc.
Washington, DC
iPhone Engineer
Position Overview
Blackboard Mobile is a new division of Blackboard Inc. (NASDAQ: BBBB), a global leader in enterprise technology and innovative solutions that improves the experience of millions of students around the world, every day.
Blackboard Mobile (http://www.blackboard.com) allows education institutions to deliver a rich set of campus life services and content to mobile devices, uniquely branded for each institution, to better connect current students, parents, faculty, prospective students and alumni to the campus experience in a way that wasn't possible before.
With an Apple iPhone, iPod Touch or other device with a mobile Web browser, Blackboard Mobile users can navigate course catalogs and campus maps, e-mail professors and classmates and get real-time updates on their course schedules, campus events, news and sports teams. Stanford and Duke University were the first schools to adopt the Blackboard Mobile platform—now, 11 higher-ed (including UC San Diego, Texas A&M, University of San Diego, Texas Christian University) and two K-12 institutions use the platform.
Blackboard Mobile was formerly a creation of Terriblyclever Design, a small company based out of San Francisco—Terriblyclever was acquired by Blackboard in July 2009.
The Blackboard Mobile team is now hiring experienced, talented, and passionate engineers to join the San Francisco team and continue innovating in this new area of mobility in education.
We pride ourselves on creating well-designed mobile solutions that leverage powerful components of the iPhone and other mobile devices. Thousands of students and faculty members use our product at each of our institutions. We’re looking for new engineers who can share that excitement and help us create new and interesting mobile tools as part of our platform.
POSITION RESPONSIBILITIES
Blackboard’s Mobile’s team is committed to delivering high-quality and unique mobile applications that utilize the most interesting and powerful aspects of mobile technology. This goal is best achieved when Blackboard Mobile staff take ownership of their product area(s) and demonstrate a genuine interest and passion for mobile technology, as well as demonstrating a desire for maintaining clean, intelligent and expandable code and software design principles. As application code and technical artifacts constitute company assets, all engineers are responsible for helping maintain the asset’s value. Specifically, s/he will:
• Collaborate with engineers to create new components and enhance existing components of Blackboard’s Mobile platform.
• Be responsible for breaking down large/complex problems and be involved and/or lead the process of design and implementation of solutions.
• Use the latest technologies, tools, and techniques (Objective-C, Xcode, Interface Builder, Instruments, etc.)
• Contribute feedback and guidance to the development of functional and technical specifications.
• Work with other developers to set standards and define best practices for coding and design. Perform design and code reviews.
• Have the opportunity to grow professionally and pursue technical leadership positions along the engineering management and/or technical architecture route.
• Shape the future of eLearning and Campus Mobility by helping develop the next generation of mobile products.
PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS
REQUIRED SKILLS:
• 5 years of software design and development experience using Objective-C
• Expertise of advanced software engineering concepts, most importantly object oriented design.
• Ability to contribute to a team of engineers in cross-functional teams (including QA, Product Management, Performance Engineering, etc).
• Expertise or familiarity with well-designed user interfaces
• Demonstrated dedication for creating well-designed interfaces, or a desire to continuously improve design and interfaces for new products and existing products to adhere to more sensible Human-Computer-Interaction principles.
• Demonstrated ability to communicate effectively with both technical and non-technical individuals. Effective at collaborating with product management and UI team to help define and specify requirements.
• Experience performing as a team lead is a plus.
• B.S. in Computer Science or related area of study and be eligible to work in the United States. Master’s degree desirable.
PREFERRED SKILLS:
• Experience with iPhone SDK is a plus.
• The ideal candidate will have an interest in building iPhone applications that utilize web-services (either HTTP based, XML, or other services), in order to tie our applications to critical server-side APIs.
Blackboard Inc is an equal employment opportunity employer and considers qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, gender, age, color, religion, national origin, marital status, disability, sexual orientation, or any other protected factor
