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3995 Fashion Square Boulevard
Saginaw, MI, 48603
United States

800.833.6243

Intercultural student exchange programs for high school students, 
teenagers, youth, host families, schools & communities to more than 70
foreign countries.

Career Listings

The ideal candidate will provide technical guidance to the Chief of Staff relating to changes and developments of YFU’s IT systems and processes. In addition to possessing the technical knowledge to learn the back end of YFU’s IT systems, the IT Operations Manager can clearly and effectively communicate changes, issues, and outcomes to YFU stakeholder staff and customers. The IT Operations Manager has an overall understanding of YFU’s mission and organizational goals and makes decisions and recommendations to align the IT Department to those goals and budget considerations. The position can think strategically, but can also act with a direct hands-on-approach to resolve issues and interface professionally with customers.

Junior Developer, Ruby on Rails

Jennifer McKendree

Department: Chief of Staff                           

Job Classification: Exempt

 Supervisor:  YFU Germany IT Director (and in the US by YFU USA’s Chief of Staff and Senior Software Engineer)

Mission: 

YFU advances intercultural understanding, life-long learning, global competencies, mutual respect, and social responsibility through transformational educational exchanges for generations of youth, families, and communities, supported by dedicated volunteers and professional staff. Participants’ experience abroad gives them leadership competencies necessary to meet the challenges and benefit from the opportunities of a fast-changing global community. YFU USA is one of over 50 partners as part of a large global network of YFU’s across the world.  

Purpose of the Position: 

Since 2011, YFU USA’s partner, YFU Germany, based in Hamburg, Germany have been developing its own customer relationship management system in Ruby on Rails, which is simply called the YFU intranet. The intranet is used for the administration of all processes relating to student/participant intercultural exchange. The YFU intranet is the linchpin of all processes and is continuously developed in an agile process. YFU Germany developed test gearboxes and works to continue to research and base technology on current IT trends including machine learning algorithms to help departments with better decision making or buzzwords such as "Continuous Delivery". The YFU intranet is a large system with multiple interfaces, e.g. Android and iOS apps that was developed in house. YFU USA is adapting this system to use in the United States and is seeking a junior developer to work closely with YFU USA’s Senior Software Engineer and YFU Germany’s IT director, providing programming oversight, mentoring, and guidance. The position is managed by YFU Germany’s IT Director as part of a larger Ruby on Rails international development team, while receiving local support from YFU USA’s Senior Software Engineer and Chief of Staff. This position is either home based or office based in YFU USA’s main office in Washington DC.

 Core Competencies:

  • Achievement Motivation – Drive and commitment to succeed, competitiveness and goal achievement.

  • Emotional Stability/Adaptability – Ability to function effectively even when faced with rejection or stressful situations. Sees each failure as one step closer to success. Learns from failures and doesn’t take it personally.

  • Emotional Intelligence – Ability to empathize and understand the emotions and motivations that underlie human behavior, i.e., ‘reading people’ well.

  • Accountability/Locus of Control - Responsibility for one’s own success or failure.

  • Organization/Time Management - Effective prioritization.

  • General Cognitive Ability – Ability to interpret information quickly and accurately.

  • Communication (oral and written) - Ability to articulate well and be easily understood.

Essential Functions:

  • Provided with requirements gathering documents, customize the intranet for use in the United States, taking into account key compliance functionality required by US Department of State regulations

  • Develop test gearboxes, mainly in the back end of the YFU intranet, in Ruby on Rails, but as a full-stack developer, also handling them in the front end

  • For new developments, advise from the beginning and give recommendations on functionality and concrete implementation     

  •   Help the team with user support

  •    Other duties as assigned

    Qualifications and Knowledge:

  • University degree in computer science or are a career changer    

  • Experience with Ruby on Rails, Git and PostgreSQL  

  • Willingness to educate yourself and enjoy working with modern technologies, even if you do not know them yet, and work on them independently     

  • Enjoy working in an agile software development process and enjoy bringing your ideas and feedback to the team and managing and changing the process yourself     

  • Thrive on diverse tasks that you can actively help to shape and exciting challenges where your solutions are used immediately     

  • Short decision-making in a flat hierarchy     

  • Previous experience working in an international environment, preferred not required    

    Equipment Used:

  • Computer, keyboard, calculator, telephone, printer, computer software.

This job description will be reviewed periodically as functions and responsibilities change with business necessity.  Essential and marginal job functions are subject to modification.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Applicants must be eligible for employment and able to pass a pre-employment background check. If you are qualified and interested in being considered for this position, please submit your resume, cover letter, and salary requirements at the career site.

CLICK HERE FOR THE APPLICATION!

tags IT, software, rubyonrails