Merlin Project Coordinator

While position responsibilities vary, every member of our community is expected to foster a culture of belonging and a psychologically healthy work environment by communicating across differences; being cooperative, collaborative, open, and welcoming; showing respect, compassion, and empathy; engaging and supporting others regardless of background or perspective; speaking up when others are being excluded or treated inappropriately; and supporting work/life integration of oneself and others.

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology is seeking a mission-driven Merlin Project Coordinator to join the eBird and Macaulay Library team. This role will join a team that shares the mission of connecting people to nature and conservation through birds and birding. As part of a team of software engineers, outreach specialists, content creators, machine learning researchers, and conservation scientists this role will be key for delivering software that inspires a global community to watch birds, collect data, and participate in bird conservation activities.

The Merlin Project Coordinator will work closely with Technical Project Managers to achieve a monthly shipping cadence of the Merlin and eBird mobile apps and regular updates to eBird and Birds of the World websites. This position will help shape the project management processes around feature development, user testing, collating community feedback, and synchronize species content updates and translations to the release schedule.

This individual is an excellent project manager with close attention to details, has advanced knowledge of birds, is highly connected to birding community activities that inspire participation, passionate about bird conservation and connecting people to conservation through birds.

This role will contribute to the Merlin, eBird, and Macaulay Library in the following ways:

• Project Management for Public-facing Resources: Collaborate with Technical Project Managers, Software Engineers, Designers, and Content Managers to develop, test, and release software-based tools for the global community. Using project management expertise, coordinate monthly public releases of apps, focusing on from testing, translations, and incorporating internal and external feedback.

• Community Testing and Feedback: Manage the community of app alpha and beta testers, collating input for the Technical Project Managers, Designers and Software Engineers. Perform rigorous testing and troubleshooting activates to pinpoint issues in highly complex system of applications and data.

• Community Translation Management: Expand eBird and Merlin's ability to support conservation organizations at a global scale in multiple languages by building a community of volunteer translators. Build out framework for managing network of translators for software applications, bird identification content, help center documents, training material for community leaders, and common name languages for birds. Synchronize translations with product development and release processes.

• Community Support: Provide day-to-day support for community leaders who are using the Lab's resources. Facilitate communication across regions by connecting community leaders and offering training opportunities. Collate feedback from the community submitted through the Help Desk.

• Bachelor's degreeand 2 to 4 years relevant experience or equivalent combination.

• 2+ years' experience or equivalent working across cultures in conservation, ornithology, technology, or related field.

• Deep understanding of birds and the birding community is required.

• Experience watching birds and working on projects to advance birdwatching and bird conservation.

• Project management skills to coordinate multiple groups working towards the same deliverable and timeline for public launch.

• Strong attention to detail to manage dozens of tasks, deliverables, and dependencies for multiple projects.

• Familiarity with software development and testing processes.

• Strong communication skills to clearly articulate plans, and provide instruction effectively to all levels of management, staff, new partners, funding agencies, project participants, and visitors.

• Strong communication skills to communicate with users, international community leaders and external stakeholders.

• Ability to establish and maintain effective working relationships with all levels of management and staff internally and externally.

• Strong interpersonal skills to develop trust with external collaborators and encourage participation in projects.

• Provide high level of initiative to anticipate needs of the project and fulfill project objectives with very minimal supervision.

• Ability to prioritize activities and exercise sound judgement in discussions with external collaborators.

• Experience in and/or demonstrated commitment to supporting diversity, equity, access, inclusion, and wellbeing.

• Experience working directly with people from diverse racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds.

• Experience with Agile processes and project management software such as Jira.

• Experience with SQL, Python, and/or R data analysis tools.

• Experience leading software development teams and technical project management skills.

• Fluency in Spanish to communicate with communities in Latin America.

• At least five years of experience using eBird, Merlin, and other Lab resources.

• Knowledge of birds of the world.