Opportunities

2023/06/05: there are no vacancees at the moment. The positions below are now filled.

Principal Full Stack Developer

We are recruiting a Principal Full Stack Developer to work on the Lambda Feedback project.

Work is by contract for up to 40 days per year. The contractor will implement new features, review work by software engineers on the project, and advise on architecture decisions.

The developer should be senior with significant experience taking responsibility for a full stack application, and ready to 'hit the ground running'. The tech stack is AWS / Postgres / Prisma / GraphQL / Nest.js / Next.js (React.js). The project is all built in Typescript. Infrastructure, testing, and deployment is all automated. We use test driven development, and CI/CD using CircleCI.

We are a diverse team of educators, students, and software professionals developing an application in-situ with our users. This is a motivating application in education and uses exciting new technologies. We are a flexible team that values creativity and redefining problems before solving them.

We have work that needs to be completed by July, and will have potential follow on work and commercialisation opportunities if the initial work is successful.

Work is by contract (outside IR35) and we pay for deliverables. Prices for deliverables are agreed based on a day rate of £500-£800 depending on competence. We prefer to write and agree detailed completion criteria before agreeing to work. All work is quality assured, including testing with users, before approval.

The Lambda Feedback project is owned and operated by Imperial College London. We work on campus in South Kensington, London. The position of contractor can optionally be fulfilled remotely if the holder prefers but we do expect occasional visits in-person. We are very flexible with timings and work regimes - our priority is to get the deliverables; we know that people work differently, and that people work best when they work in their own way.

If you are interested, please enquire by email with peter [dot] johnson [at] ic.ac.uk.

Summer placements

Bursary: 8 positions, 8 weeks each (flexible), full-time. Bursary: £365 per week.

Who should apply:
Students from Imperial College London from any cohort who study in the following subjects: Aeronautics, Chemical Engineering, Computing, Design Engineering, Materials Science, Mathematics, Mechanical Engineering, Physics.

Campus/Location: South Kensington, with opportunities to be remote later in the project.

How to apply: apply here. Applications should be 300-500 words.

Deadline: 31st March

Contact details: Peter [dot] Johnson [at] ic.ac.uk

More details on the project:

Lambda Feedback software, a place to do homework

Lambda Feedback is a web platform that hosts homework, with a focus on mathematical subjects. The platform hosts question content both in the browser and in traditional PDF format. Online step-by-step solutions are also provided and are particularly popular with students.

In addition to content delivery, the platform provides automated feedback on student responses. The long-term vision is rich, timely, personalised, feedback to students at the time of doing their homework.

The software is being developed within Imperial. This year is our first academic year in ‘alpha’ version which hosted 9 modules across 8 departments and 2 faculties, with over 1,000 student users. We are now working to widen the availability of the software and to improve the functionality.

More information about the software can be found here:  Article: https://teachingengineers.wordpress.com/2022/07/18/computers-make-us-human/  Presentation: click here

We have 8 StudentShapers positions in summer 2023 each with the following purpose:  • In partnership with an academic staff member, curate their content on Lambda Feedback. Key aspects include content transfer and editing; setting up automated feedback; improving the content.  • As part of the wider team of summer students, develop the software more broadly. Key aspects include documenting good practice, testing new features, designing new features, and designing a broader vision for the future software – for example curating positive learning communities on the platform, identifying key analytics to serve students and teachers, or developing study aids.

Essential skills and experience that we are looking for:  • A passion for and knowledge of your own subject  • A deep appreciation for the student experience in your subject, and the key needs of students  • A keen interest in content management, including typesetting
(markdown, LaTeX, images; learn as you go!)  • A vision for digital education where software serves the needs of today’s students

Additional ways you can add value to the project if you have the skills:  • Mathematical computing skills, e.g. in Python, to help develop our evaluation functions (more info here: https://lambda-feedback.github.io/user-documentation/advanced/)  • Data science skills to analyse our growing data set, for example skills in SQL queries, data analysis e.g. in Pandas, data visualisation, machine learning.  • Graphic design, UI/UX design, vision development for online products  • Web development skills in any part of the following stack: AWS / Postgres / Prisma / GraphQL / Nest.js / Next.js (React.js) / Typescript / CircleCI