[Jobposts] Usability and Communications Specialist required at Canonical to work on Launchpad

[Matthew Revell]

Usability and Communications Specialist for Launchpad
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Location: home based, must have reliable broadband, European, African
and American timezones preferred
Employer: Canonical (http://www.canonical.com), the commercial sponsor of Ubuntu

Description:

We're offering a unique opportunity to drive and implement the
communications strategy for a mature web application that's used daily
by thousands of people across the world.

This role is about two-way communication, so the ideal candidate is
equally at home with usability research, as with producing
communications materials in a variety of media and managing the needs
of multiple community and business stakeholders.
You'll excel if you're a friendly people-person who writes beautifully
about technology, builds rapport effortlessly and can speak boldly in
a crowd of opinionated voices.

This position is within a fun-loving, skilled and highly motivated
distributed team building Launchpad. Launchpad is a suite of distinct
but tightly integrated open source project hosting applications. More
information on Launchpad is available at https://launchpad.net/.


Key responsibilities and accountabilities:

 * Devise and run an ongoing usability research programme for both
quick-turnaround projects and longer-term research goals.

 * Explain Launchpad in its web UI text, through traditional
documentation, in person, with video and audio and with blogging.

 * Promote Launchpad through blogging and other social media, at
events, through contacts in the media and in whatever others ways are
appropriate.

 * Build a community of Launchpad developers and users, bringing
common purpose to what are now a variety of groups.

 * Advocate to the Launchpad engineers on behalf of Launchpad's users.

 * Contribute to the interaction design of new Launchpad features.


Required skills and experience:

 * You have experience of running usability research programmes for a
web application that has a global audience and can describe those
projects in detail.

 * You have experience of producing innovative help materials, in
English, that explain complex ideas with a minimum of fuss and can
provide examples.

 * You've used blogging and other social media, in English, to explain
and promote a software product, as well as build a community around
it.

 * You have an exceptional ability to meet people at their level of
experience and understanding.

 * You have taken an active role in an open source software project
and understand the dynamics, demands and constraints of working in a
distributed community of volunteer and paid developers.

 * You love easy to use software.

 * You have a natural affinity with people and can turn your ability
to empathise into concrete recommendations of how software can better
serve its users and other stakeholders.

 * You're equally comfortable dealing with people in person, by phone,
over email or using IRC and other remote communication tools.

 * You believe in the principles of free software, are passionate
about Ubuntu and share our desire to see Launchpad as a leading
platform for developing open source software.

 * You are willing to travel internationally, for periods of one or
two weeks and occasionally longer, for developer-oriented meetings and
sprints.


Desirable skills and experience:

 * You are familiar with interaction design and have contributed to
the user interface of a leading web application.

 * You have built and managed a community around an open source project.

 * You're an experienced public speaker.

 * You have contributed code to an open source project.

 * You understand the basics of one or more of the following:

   - a Linux packaging system such as .deb or RPM

   - the process of software internationalization and localization,
maybe having helped a community translation effort

   - the issues around tracking bugs across multiple projects or communities

   - distributed version control and code hosting

   - Python development.

 * You've worked as part of a distributed team and can demonstrate the
self-motivation and discipline required in such an environment.


If you're interested and have the right skills/experience, please apply at:

  https://tbe.taleo.net/NA3/ats/careers/requisition.jsp?org=CANONICAL&cws=1&rid=348

Thanks :)


-- 
Matthew Revell
Launchpad Product Manager
Canonical

https://launchpad.net/~matthew.revell