The Stamford Startup Studio (S3) will employ seven UConn students full-time during the 2022 – 2023 academic year to create technology products and solutions for local industries. We have seven unique positions: Data Scientist, UX Researcher, Content Producer, Front-End Developer, Back-End Developer, Graphic Designer, and UX/UI Designer.

Job Descriptions

Purpose

A Data Scientist makes the biggest impact by seamlessly integrating data-enabled research methods into the wider design research process. This person can seek out, explore, and analyze existing data sets, as well as create new ones, to generate insights for design.
They are responsible for structuring human-centered research and leading multidisciplinary internal and client teams through designing research plans, developing quantitative research activities and tools (survey based, sensor based, or whatever best captures the need), communicating complex technical concepts and results with clients and teams, discovering and leveraging novel public data sources, leveraging new data science methods and tools, and otherwise finding smart ways to augment qualitative research processes and insights with those that are data-enabled.

Responsibilities Include

• Use quantitative data and insights to inform the design of products, experiences, and services
• Teach others about how they can leverage data in their work
• Develop new research approaches to innovate on common market research practices
• Tell compelling stories with data
• Refine ambiguous questions and generate new hypotheses about the product through a deep understanding of data, customers, and business
• Design experiments and interpret the results to draw detailed and impactful conclusions
• Define how our teams measure success, by developing Key Performance Indicators and other user/business metrics, in close partnership with Product and other subject areas such as engineering, operations and marketing
• Collaborate with applied scientists and engineers to build and improve on the availability, integrity, accuracy, and reliability of data logging and data pipelines
• Develop data-driven business insights and work with cross-functional partners to identify opportunities and recommend prioritization of product, growth, and optimization initiatives
• Ability to extract insights from data

Preferred Skills & Qualifications

• Technical Skills: SQL, A/B Testing, excel, data visualization (i.e. Tableau, Mixpanel, Looker, or similar)
• Majors: Math, Economics, Bioinformatics, Statistics, Engineering, Computer Science, Quantitative Social Sciences, or other related fields
• NLP and/or network analysis or advanced statistical analysis
• Social Network Analysis (whether based on interview techniques or existing data)

Purpose

UX Researchers have a deep curiosity for people and for data. In this role, you will tackle some of the most complex challenges to gain deeper insights into how people interact with each other and the world around them. You will need to think end-to-end about the user experience, both broadly and deeply. The UX Researcher will dive into our users and understand their perceptions, desires, needs, frustrations, environments, and problems. The right person for this role is someone that is passionate about finding creative ways to leverage research data in order to inform the products that we produce in the Stamford Startup Studio.

Responsibilities Include

• Defining research questions and selecting appropriate methods of data collection
• Conduct a mixture of qualitative and quantitative research activities to inform product design, including surveys, focus groups, field studies, usability tests, and 1:1 interviews
• Recruiting participants for research studies
• Plan, design, and analyze data from research studies and present rich findings simply and clearly to various audiences
• Synthesize research findings into actionable insights and recommendations that your stakeholders and peers can act upon
• Work disciplines with Designers, Data Scientist, and Engineers to ensure that we’re addressing the most critical business and technology objectives to meet the right user needs and opportunities
• Collaborating with designers and stakeholders to understand research needs

Preferred Skills & Qualifications

• Communication skills: Much of the job involves working with a design team and communicating with research participants to answer research questions.
• Empathy: Understanding a user’s expectations, frustrations, goals, and reasoning process can help you develop solutions to real user needs.
• Design thinking: Each stage of the design thinking process—empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test—offers opportunities to learn more about our target users.
• Problem solving: Thinking critically about what questions you’re trying to answer with your research can help you select the appropriate methodology.
• Curiosity: A sense of curiosity can prompt you to ask insightful questions and discover meaningful insights.
• Collaboration: As a UX researcher, you’ll often be working alongside developers, designers, product managers, and other stakeholders to bring the best possible product to market.
• Technical Skills: R, SQL, STATA or SPSS
• Majors: human behavior related field, such as Human-Computer Interaction, Psychology, Sociology, Communication, Information science, Media studies, Computer Science, or Economics

Purpose

This role requires a mix of a content creator and project manager. You will be responsible for developing creative digital content such as email marketing campaigns, social media, video, web and app content, and digital advertising. We’re looking for someone who is a creative, detail-oriented, data-driven and customer-centric digital content professional. If you’re passionate about great storytelling, an effective collaborator, and is technically proficient in CMS, HTML, creative software (Adobe Creative Suite), and digital analytics, this job is for you!

Responsibilities Include

• Partner with key stakeholders to develop and publish a broad range of content
• Leverage analytics and insights to determine appropriate content
• Collaborate with photographers, videographers, and graphic designers to develop high quality content
• Proactively recommend creative solutions, enhancements, and uncover opportunities that align to business objectives within technical capabilities
• Manage digital projects from start to finish, including project discovery & planning, building, managing, and publishing content
• Writing and editing content
• Wireframing content and recommending opportunities to improve experience to site team

Preferred Skills & Qualifications

• Experience developing and managing content for websites, email marketing campaigns, social media, video, web and app content, and digital advertising
• Experience with core web technologies
• Experience with social and/or blog best practices and email marketing campaigns
• Technical Skills: CMS, HTML, CSS, Adobe Suite, SEO
• Major: journalism, marketing, or related fields

Purpose

This role requires you to understand customer pain points, and design and build custom solutions to solve them. Working in an agile environment, you will be part of an inter-disciplinary team working on the user interface development. This includes building high-quality user experiences, architectural planning for Front End technology, and collaborating on data formats and APIs with team members.

Responsibilities Include

• Have passion and experience for building responsive and engaging experiences with future friendly web technologies
• Turn wireframes and mock-ups into reusable code and build high-quality UI components with scalability in mind
• Work with researchers, designers, and developers to ensure solutions function as expected through development process
• Write high-quality, scalable, and reusable code
• Work with back-end developer to integrate UI components with APIs and databases
• Work in JavaScript, Node.js or frameworks such as React, Vue or Angular
• Stay plugged into emerging technologies and industry trends
• Have an interest in, understanding of, or experience with Design Thinking Methodology
• Have an interest in, understanding of, or experience with Agile development methodology

Preferred Skills & Qualifications

• Experience building responsive UI/UX components
• Experience leveraging web technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
• Experience building animation-focused UI
• Competency in building responsive, mobile-first layouts
• Basic proficiency with Photoshop and web design
• A basic understanding of user interface and user experience (UI/UX) design
• Experience with cross-browser compatibility testing
• Knowledge of accessibility guidelines and performance optimization techniques
• Collaboration in a GitHub repository
• User interface architecture/design of components
• Technical Skills: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, JSON and API usage
• Major: Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Information Science, or related STEM Degrees

Purpose

This person will be responsible for writing high-quality software. In this role you will help the team test and verify code as it's developed and deployed into production, as well as contribute to team growth and cohesion by participating in stand-ups, sprint planning, and professional development opportunities.

Responsibilities Include

• You’ll work in a dynamic, collaborative environment to understand requirements, design, code and test innovative applications
• Design and code servers, services, applications and databases that are reusable, scalable and meet critical architecture goals
• Create Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that are clean, well-documented, and easy to use
• Produce high quality production-ready code in an agile environment
• Collaborate within an agile team to understand business needs and work through complex business processes to create solutions that align with the company goals
• Refine solutions which account for scalability and optimize performance
• Design and implement back end and front end components and services
• Advocate top programming practices and standards
• Gauge new technologies and create prototypes for constant improvements

Preferred Skills & Qualifications

• Experience working with servers, applications and databases
• Familiarity with APIs
• Basic knowledge of operating systems and how they work
• Understanding of user and system requirements
• A sound understanding of computer science fundamentals such as algorithms, data structures, object-oriented design, functional programming, and databases
• Excellent written and oral communication skills
• High sense of ownership and great problem-solving skills
• Technical Skills: Databases, API, Python, Java, PHP, SQL, Git, HTML, CSS, JavaScript
• Major: Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Information Science, or related STEM Degrees

Purpose

The UX/UI Designer is responsible for working in partnership with the product team (researchers, developers, and designers) to solve complex user experience problems and articulate clear design requirements through a human-centered lens. You will create intuitive user experiences using key understanding of design concepts and collaborate with designers, developers, and researchers to meet technical business objectives for product design. As a UX/UI Designer you will translate ideas and concepts into workable wireframes, interactive prototypes, and functional design specifications. Additionally, you will present to key stakeholders regarding user needs and design solutions.

Responsibilities Include

• Design solutions to customer pain points identified through user research
• Document design solutions in user task flow diagrams, wireframes and hi-fidelity mock-ups using Sketch, and Adobe Creative Suite tools
• Create interactive prototypes of critical designs using Sketch and/or Axure
• Produce visual design elements as needed such as icons and visual design themes
• Conduct usability test sessions using Sketch and/or Axure prototypes as well as the current build of the solution
• Document user research findings and usability testing results in executive summaries
• Participate in user research activities such as user interviews, surveys, and usability studies
• Translate research insights into product ideas and solutions
• Understand and incorporate complex technical and business requirements into elegant design decisions based on data, trends, and industry best practices
• Present, articulate, and sell design ideas and recommendations to product management and business stakeholders

Preferred Skills & Qualifications

• Experience in interaction design, graphic design, industrial design, computational design.
• Experience creating process flows, user flows, prototypes, highly detailed wireframes and high-fidelity mockups for early-stage ideas and web applications.
• Core design skills: information architecture, UX documentation, visual communication, and hierarchy.
• Technical Skills: HTML, CSS, Adobe Suite, Sketch, Axure, Canvas, and JavaScript
• Major: design or human behavior related field, such as Digital Media, Graphic Design, Human-Computer Interaction, Psychology, Sociology, Communication, Information science, Media Studies, Computer Science, or Economics