Want to apply your skills to directly helping society? Do you fantasize about getting paid a reasonable wage to make the world a better place? Benetech® is Silicon Valley's deliberately nonprofit tech company, and we apply technology to directly assist the causes of literacy, accessibility, human rights and the environment.

• Digital Collection Development Manager (#CDCM)
• Literacy Product Manager (contract) (#LPM)
• Customer Support Specialist (#CSS)
• Senior QA Engineer (position information on JobScore.com)
• User Interface Engineer (position information on JobScore.com)

Customer Support Specialist (#CSS)

The Customer Support Specialist position is an opportunity for a professional to make a significant and lasting impact in the success of Bookshare. This is an excellent opportunity to be part of a dedicated and highly successful professional team. It provides an environment where an individual can apply his or her service skills and product knowledge to support a broad range of customers for Bookshare. We are looking for candidates energized by the potential to make a difference in the lives of people who are helped by Benetech's nonprofit mission of technology serving humanity.

The Customer Support Specialist provides users and potential users a high level of customer support via email, phone, and in person at conferences.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Help users and potential users understand the best way to use our services with their assistive technology products.
• Advise product management of product development issues arising from problems identified through customer support contacts.
• Consult with AT partners on AT device issues and resolution, and AT device testing

Qualifications

• Customer Service experience and familiarity with customer support management tools such as Salesforce
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Familiarity with the assistive technology products used by our customers such as screen readers, OCR programs, Braille displays and PDAs.
• Demonstrated patience and interest in teaching and supporting individuals who may be new to assistive technology.
• Demonstrated significant experience with online and web based applications

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Digital Collection Development Manager

Benetech has a unique and exciting opportunity for a Digital Collection Development Manager for Bookshare, the world's largest library of digital electronic books for the blind and print disabled. This position is responsible for managing the staff of the Collection Development team as well as the outsourcing partners Bookshare has contracted with to scan and proofread thousands of books for the collection. In addition, this position manages inflow of digital content from publisher partners and all aspects of projects related to Bookshare collection development.

This position is on-site in Palo Alto, California, and reports to the Director of Literacy Operations.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Manage the Collection Development staff including those responsible for book processing, digital content and metadata.
• Function as a member of the Bookshare Operations Management Team.
• Measure, analyze and report metrics in Collection Development for reporting to the Department of Education and other funding sources on progress against goals.
• Develop and closely manage to the Collection Development budget, providing input on internal & external cost efficiencies, forecasts and actuals.
• Develop and manage production schedules for projects.
• Work closely with executive management to manage business relationships with the outsourcing partners.
• Assist in setting policy and standards regarding Collection Development functions, including submission process by members, publishers, universities, and others.
• Work closely with Engineering on conversion processes, site fixes, bug reporting and QA testing relevant to Collection Development and the members it serves.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree plus a minimum of three years in a management position with direct staff on a software, documentation, library or publishing project.
• Direct project or production management experience.
• Direct digital content management experience, including XML and metadata.
• Demonstrable experience in partner management and the assessment of contractual deliverables.
• Ability to multi-task and provide consistent high attention to detail.
• Excellent interpersonal skills.
• Excellent Excel skills.
• Familiarity with OCR technologies is a plus.
• Experience with Wiki content management and with bug tracking and reporting systems is highly desired.
• Interest in disability technology is a plus.

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Literacy Product Manager (#LPM)

This contract position provides an excellent opportunity for the right individual to help plan and manage the delivery of Literacy products, thereby helping people with disabilities and other learning difficulties have access to the information they need for education, employment and social inclusion. This includes defining product requirements and roadmap planning, execution, implementation and ongoing support. The person will be one of the Product Managers interfacing between operations, marketing and the software development team(s) to ensure that we meet business goals and objectives. This person represents the interests of our clients, ensuring that our products and services truly meet their needs for literacy and access.

Benetech's Literacy Program includes Bookshare the largest online digital library of copyrighted books, newspapers and magazines available to print-disabled individuals in the U.S. and internationally. A significant award from the U.S. Department of Education mandates access to Bookshare's content and supporting assistive technology to all students in the United States for free (funded by the award). The Program also now encompasses three new projects: Route 66 Literacy, Bookaccess and the DIAGRAM Center for accessible images and graphics.

The position requires product management experience from within a company or organization doing software development.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Act as champion for the success of Literacy products and components, from product requirements specifications through general availability and beyond.
• Define and maintain aspects of the product roadmap through collaboration with engineering, Literacy senior staff, clients and volunteers.
• Define and document product requirements (PRD) and business logic for Literacy products. This includes integrating and tracking grant/award objectives, where appropriate.
• Coordinate with all groups to prioritize and drive product requirements forward.
• Work closely with the development team to insure successful delivery.
• Drive long and mid-range product-related projects. For example, kick off each release cycle and prioritize short-term bug fixes and new features while maintaining the long term roadmap.
• Design and analyze metrics to track progress against goals and objectives.
• Provide monthly and quarterly written and statistical reports on progress against goals.
• Work with external vendors to integrate their work with Benetech requirements and schedules.
• Act as a resource, educator and coach to other company staff members in terms of product functionality, capabilities and roadmap.

Qualifications

Required

• Minimum of a Bachelor's degree with at least 8 years related experience.
• Minimum 5 years enterprise software product management experience, with in-depth experience in writing PRDs. Proven track-record of guiding and leading software products.
• Understanding of enterprise technology platforms and how software meets user requirements.
• Experience with Agile development concepts and what goes into a software release cycle (e.g., versioning strategies).
• Hands on experience with aspects of User Interface Design, including wire frames and interaction design.
• Experience with collaborative documentation tools and with web-based bug and feature tracking systems.
• Excellent communication, negotiation, leadership, influence-management and problem-solving skills.
• Excellent organizational and writing skills.
• A personal belief in the mission of the Benetech organization.

Highly Desirable

• Experience in the field of software accessibility and assistive technology.
• Hands on experience with an object oriented programming model.
• Experience with librarianship and the management of book collection.
• Meaningful experience in a non-profit, educational or volunteer capacity.

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