AD&T Committee Coding Volunteer Position Description

Please refer to the Organization for Transformative Works' Volunteer page for a list of open volunteer positions and more information about volunteering with the OTW.

Please do not edit this page unless you are an official volunteer.

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Position title: Accessibility, Design, & Technology Committee Coding Volunteer

Organization name: Organization for Transformative Works

Committee: Accessibility, Design, & Technology Committee

Reports to: AD&T Committee Chair(s), AD&T Committee Senior Volunteers

Minimum time requirements: Following the initial training period:

• 4 hours of chat every month
• 1 pull request every 2 months, for an issue of at least moderate difficulty

Term:
1 year

Role overview and responsibilities: Coding volunteers work on the otwarchive software that powers the Archive of Our Own. They develop features, fix bugs, and write tests in accordance with priorities set by AD&T senior volunteers. To keep up-to-date with these priorities, they participate in chat and review minutes from committee meetings.

Coders are expected to communicate with chairs regarding their availability and with fellow committee members regarding their progress on coding projects. Reliable coding volunteers who demonstrate a high level of commitment and wish to have more input and take on more responsibilities may be recruited to committee staff.

Skills, experience, and attributes: Coding volunteers should be self-motivated and have a genuine desire to work with the complex code that powers the Archive of Our Own. They should have previous experience in web development and be willing to learn and work with the following technologies and tools:

• Server-side technologies
  Previous experience with a server-side coding language is a must; experience with one or more of our technologies is a bonus!
  • Ruby on Rails
  • MySQL
  • Elasticsearch
  • Redis
  • Resque
  • Memcached
• Automated testing technologies
  We (strive to!) practice test-driven development.
  • Capybara
  • Cucumber
  • RSpec
• Front-end technologies
  The Archive has an established set of inhouse design patterns suitable for most projects, but knowledge of our front-end technologies is extremely helpful.
  • HTML5
  • CSS
  • JavaScript and jQuery
• Tools
  • Jira for bug tracking
  • Docker or local installations for development
  • GitHub for version control and code documentation
  • Slack and Google Groups for discussion
  • Mediawiki for internal documentation

Training: Coding volunteers will be trained in the tools and procedures for their role, through both tutorial-based self-study and one-on-one guidance in chat. New volunteers are expected to drop into the #ao3-adt-public Slack channel at least once a week for informal, ongoing support while they familiarize themselves with the Archive code base.