Jobs at eBird

29 Jan 2016 By Team eBird

Available Languages

Team eBird is based out of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York. We are a passionate team that includes bird-heads, application developers, user interface and design experts, and database gurus who are committed to building tools to deliver high quality data that can be used for science and conservation. We work collaboratively with many other teams at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology including the Macaulay Library, Bird Populations Studies, Conservation, Education, and Communications and positions from those groups that are most directly related to eBird are also included here.

Please see below for the current jobs that are available with eBird (and sometimes with other related projects).

See additional job openings at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

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eBird Project Coordinator
Extension Support Specialist I – Band E
Lab of Ornithology, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Cornell University

See full listing and apply here

The Information Science Program is currently seeking an eBird Project Coordinator. This position will focus on working with the eBird community and coordinating eBird’s communications: being the ‘face’ of eBird. Specific duties include:

Collaborate with diverse eBird team of project staff, application developers, designers, and scientists to lead and grow the global eBird project.
Coordinate global community engagement and outreach; increase participation, focusing on improving data volume and quality.
Develop, manage, and maintain a global network of hundreds of volunteers across a broad spectrum of eBird activities from outreach and engagement with a particular focus of on eBird’s network of more than 1500 international data quality reviewers.
Build the international collaborations and partnerships required to make the project a global success.
Serve as non-technical lead for testing application development working with global user community to projects work across wide variety of web and mobile platforms across many languages.
Create data products that deliver eBird data in useful ways to thousands of researchers and conservation practitioners, as well as monitoring overall data use.
Assist academic team members and PI’s with publishing key findings in popular literature and peer-reviewed literature.
Develop the political skills to negotiate with international partners.
Assist with preparation and submission of proposals to secure additional program funding.
Seek out and develop program funding opportunities.
Collaborate with Cornell students and outside contractors to meet goals and objectives for eBird.

Required Qualifications:

Bachelor’s degree; more than 2 years’ experience or equivalent.
Deep understanding of birds and bird distribution.
Proven skills in project management and coordination are essential, along with excellent interpersonal skills.
Familiarity and proficiency with the Internet and content management systems is critical, along with a strong interest in using the Web as a tool to conduct research, engage and educate the public.
Mastery of common computer skills including word, email, and excel.
Prior knowledge of social media outlets.
Strong communication skills (written and oral) to clearly articulate vision and plans, and provide instruction effectively to all levels of management, staff, new partners, funding agencies, eBird users, and visitors are critical.
Ability to establish and maintain effective working relationships with all levels of management and staff internally and externally.
Candidate will value teamwork and be able to stimulate cooperation between all employees and partners.
Strong interpersonal skills.
High level of integrity and dependability with a strong sense of urgency and results-orientation.
Provide high level of initiative to anticipate needs of the project and fulfill project objectives with very minimal supervision.
Ability to prioritize activities and multitask is essential.
Ability to travel internationally when necessary; must obtain and maintain valid passport.

Preferred Qualifications:

Proficiency in Spanish or Portuguese.
Experience with GIS software.
At least two years’ experience using eBird and eBird Review tools strongly preferred.
Experience with WordPress, SQL helpful.

This position requires extensive international and domestic travel to cultivate and develop international partnerships. Annual term appointment with possible renewal based on performance and available funding. Applicants to provide cover letter, resume, contact information for 3 references. Visa Sponsorship is not available for this position; not eligible to apply. Relocation assistance is not provided for this position.

This position is based in Ithaca, New York.

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Software Engineer
Applications Programmer III – Band F
Lab of Ornithology, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Cornell University

See full listing and apply here

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology is seeking a motivated Software Engineer to lead efforts to manage millions of images, sounds, and videos in a scientific archive, the Macaulay Library. An active community of citizen scientists gather media with metadata (such as date and location) that are uploaded through online applications (including eBird), stored, and accessible for display on applications, and requested by researchers and educators. Specific duties include:

Develop the software to support pipelines for media delivery and long-term, archival storage.
Collaborate with world-class experts and development teams on challenging data-intensive projects that will advance science and conservation.
Develop, deploy, and maintain data management, media automation systems, and tools that facilitate the use of media for science, education, and conservation.
Review and improve workflows for processing and managing media and metadata.
Design, implement, and test software and server systems to: preserve, structure, and synchronize media metadata; allow users to find, play, preview, download, and license recordings; equip staff and contributors with tools to manage media and metadata; and automate media and metadata management.

One-year term appointment with possibility of renewal based upon performance and availability of funding.

Required Qualifications:

Bachelor’s degree in computer science or related field, and 3-5 years programming experience or equivalent.
Two year experience designing, building, and testing web applications.
Proficiency using Java/Spring, Ruby/Rails, Javascript, or similar frameworks.
One year experience writing SQL.
Experience integrating multiple systems, and building/consuming APIs.
Experience using software development tools such as git, jenkins, and jira.
Experience with linux server administration.
Experience collaborating with a team of engineers, designers, project managers, and stakeholders, to solve problems and achieve common goals.
Able to adapt to changing priorities, situations, and demands.
Able to express highly technical terms in everyday language.
Able to participate in a team rotation for off-hours monitoring.

Preferred Qualifications:

Experience with Spring, Oracle, Solr, ELK, Docker.
Knowledge of birds, conservation, and natural science.

Applicants to provide cover letter, resume, contact information for 3 references. Visa Sponsorship is not available for this position; not eligible to apply. Relocation assistance is not provided for this position.

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Administrative Assistant
Administrative Assistant IV – Band D
Lab of Ornithology, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Cornell University

See full listing and apply here

The Lab is seeking a highly motivated, dynamic, self-driven Administrative Assistant. As a member of the Lab’s administrative team, provide independent, high-level, confidential program, administrative, and customer service support for the Lab with primary focus on assigned programs, directors, and financial specialists. This could include several different program areas or functional groups. Program directors are similar to department chairs.

Specific duties include:

Serve as primary contact for all administrative functions for assigned programs.
Receive and handle incoming phone calls, mail, packages, and unannounced visitors.
Assist with correspondence on behalf of the Program Directors.
Handle procurement of goods, equipment, and services using eshop, pcard, purchase orders, and other means as needed.
Make complex travel arrangements.
Explain policies and procedures to incoming students and staff; research and answer policy questions as needed.
Pack and ship equipment and supplies.
Maintain calendars and special contact lists for Program Directors as requested.
Plan, coordinate, and support special meetings, events, visitors, retreats and workshops.
Maintain equipment inventory and insurance information.
Serve as the primary contact for Risk Management for assigned programs with regards to insurance needs for equipment, travel, field work and other projects as necessary.
Collaborate with Finance Specialist and Lab’s Business Service Center (BSC) to ensure the smooth and timely processing of all financial transactions and complex travel reimbursements.
Assist Directors and Finance Specialist with grant proposal submissions.
Act as liaison to both internal and external colleagues including staff, alumni, Lab members, research partners, commercial and governmental personnel.
Must be able to manage all issues with a high degree of judgment, tact, and diplomacy while fostering excellent working relationships with collaborators.
Attend and document meetings as requested and convey/relay information as appropriate.
Assist with the administrative preparation, distribution, and tracking of scientific papers, technical reports, and publications.
Provide backup administrative coverage for other programs, the Lab’s BSC, and campus shuttle service when necessary. This includes providing support for the Lab’s special events and may require work on weekends, early mornings, and/or evenings.

Required Qualifications:

Formal training beyond a HS Diploma of 1 to 2 years, 2 years college coursework, or Associates Degree.
At least four years administrative experience.
Demonstrated experience with proofreading and editing materials.
Highly capable of working with office computer systems and software such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, FileMaker Pro/Access and Outlook.
Must be able to work under pressure with a great deal of initiative.
Must have excellent customer service skills and demonstrated ability to serve and communicate with a broad range of people.
Attention to detail, time management, and organizational skills are critical.
Illustrate a proven track record of successfully managing multiple projects and priorities.
Must be able to learn, understand, and comply with PCI requirements.
Must be able to change direction/tasks quickly.
Demonstrated history of reliability and the ability to maintain confidentiality.
Experience that demonstrates sound judgment, creativity, management, and problem-solving skills and the ability to work well within a diverse team of professionals.
Must be able to work independently while supporting the efforts of an overall team.
Must be able to work early mornings, evenings and weekends when necessary.
Must maintain a valid driver’s license.

Preferred Qualifications:

Bachelor’s degree with five or more years related experience preferred.
An interest in birds and biodiversity along with advancing the cause of scientific conservation and the Lab of Ornithology’s mission of applying research to interpret and conserve the earth’s biological diversity.
Knowledge of Cornell accounting systems and policies.
Background working in scientific research organization.
Previous grant preparation experience.
Experience in an academic setting.
Prior event planning experience.
Experience with royalty payments.

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Collections Development Manager
Extension Support Specialist II – Band F
Lab of Ornithology, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Cornell University

See full listing and apply here

The Lab of Ornithology is currently seeking a Collections Development Manager. Specific duties include: Strategically grow the ML archive, increase rates of data collection and improve data quality. Lead activities and projects that work collaboratively with ML staff and other Lab programs, particularly Information Science, as well as outside partners. Work with Program Manager and ML leadership to set overall strategies that align with ML’s mission and the Lab’s strategic priorities. In collaboration with the ML leadership, develop goals and priorities for collections development that will ensure the expansion of the ML archive to better serve clients; build strategic partnerships with institutions and individuals; provide guidance and contribute to the development of online tools and other mechanisms/strategies to facilitate acquisition of media specimens and data from contributors; expand ML’s training efforts to become state-of-the-art and global in scope; sustain a fleet of professional audiovisual field recording equipment for use in the field; and organize and conduct training workshops in collaboration with other Lab programs (particularly eBird and Bioacoustics Research Program) and partners. Basic functions and responsibilities include the following:

Collections Development and Strategic Partnerships Development: In collaboration with ML’s Program Manager, Collections Management Leader, and other Lab staff, define strategic plans and projects to increase the rate of media submission and data quality. Facilitate communication, coordination and high-level collaboration with research groups, institutions, biological collections and media archives around the world, particularly with respect to development of biodiversity audiovisual collections.
Outreach, Training Activities, and Research Facilitation: Design, implement, and conduct audiovisual field recording, media editing, data management, and recording analysis training programs and related educational resources.
Fundraising: Initiate and/or substantially contribute to the identification, preparation and securing of grant proposals and other fundraising efforts in support of the Macaulay Library. This may include recruitment of corporate and institutional partnerships, in addition to foundations or government funding.
Project Management: Provide day-to-day functional leadership by overseeing projects and managing workflows, including setting priorities, coordinating individual and group activities and managing activities to meet project deadlines. Facilitate communication within and across teams to ensure that project goals/deadlines are met.

Required Qualifications:

Bachelor’s degree, or equivalent, in biological sciences, museum studies, information sciences or other relevant field.
Less than 5 years of experience with a combination of: using/curating biological research collections, using audiovisual media for scholarly activities, large-scale digital asset management initiatives, and/or biodiversity informatics data management projects and initiatives.
Advanced identification skills and experience with birds.
Advanced sound and video recording, and/or photography experience.
Must have a record of successfully meeting schedules and milestones of projects involving multiple stages, participants and stakeholders.
Demonstrated record of success in large-scale project leadership and management.
Experience with audiovisual media recording technology, manipulation and archival practices, with emphasis on birds and natural history.
Experience using audiovisual media collections for research, formal and informal science education, and/or public outreach.
Mastery of standard office management software (e.g. Word, Excel, PowerPoint , etc).
Excellent organizational and time management skills.
Must have ability to obtain and maintain a valid passport and driver’s license.
Must be able to think critically and make a positive contribution to ML’s and the Cornell Lab’s mission.

Preferred Qualifications:

PhD in biology or related field with at least 2 years of postdoctoral experience.
Demonstrated track record of obtaining extramural funding.
Experience mentoring and advising undergraduate students.
Advanced knowledge and multiple years of experience using eBird.
Fluency in Spanish highly preferred.

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Cornell University is an innovative Ivy League university and a great place to work. Our inclusive community of scholars, students and staff impart an uncommon sense of larger purpose and contribute creative ideas to further the university’s mission of teaching, discovery and engagement. Located in Ithaca, NY, Cornell’s far-flung global presence includes the medical college’s campuses on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and Doha, Qatar, as well as the new Cornell Tech campus to be built on Roosevelt Island in the heart of New York City.

We offer a rich array of services, programs and benefits to help employees advance in their career and enhance the quality of personal life, including employee wellness, workshops, childcare and adoption assistance, parental leave and flexible work options.

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