Hyku Community Role Descriptions
Hyku Community Developer/Programmer
Role Description
Reporting administratively to the Sustaining the Hyku Repository Platform IMLS Grant Project Director and accountable to the community of Hyku users, the Hyku Community Developer/Programmer role adds development capacity to Hyku projects. Working in the core Hyku release, the developer will work on projects that support community-defined needs. Collaborating with the Hyku Tech Lead and Product Owner, the Community Developer will serve on a community maintenance group, providing programming support (in Ruby, JavaScript, etc.) for feature development, bug fixes, accessibility improvements, maintenance, testing, and code documentation. The goal is to add to the Hyku developer pool and strengthen the Hyku community’s ability to contribute on a technical level.
Time Commitment
10 hours per week, flexible. Funding for this position is secured through XX/XX. Through the grant, the project is working to develop sustainable funding models for possible extension beyond the grant-funded phase.
Qualifications
Minimum: Junior-level programming background
Prior training or experience in web and/or application development
Excellent communication skills, without hesitation in raising concerns and sharing issues in Slack, meetings, etc.
Organizational skills, including a proactive attitude regarding asking questions, seeking clarification, following up on open issues, and getting clarity on priorities and action items
Demonstrated working knowledge of Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, Docker, GitHub
Familiarity with a Javascript framework, preferably ReactJS (or another JS framework like Angular, Vue, or Polymer), PostgreSQL, code validation, such as RuboCop
Ability to contextualize new information and to pick up new concepts quickly
Intellectual curiosity and desire to constantly expand technical knowledge
Experience creating code documentation
Desired Skills (not required):
Prior experience working with open-source software communities
Experience with Hyku and/or other Samvera stacks, e.g., Hyrax
Experience writing function tests and general familiarity with test-driven development
Experience in an agile development environment
Expectations - Role and Responsibilities
Complete a series of training workshops specifically designed for working in the Samvera Community
Participate in community maintenance sprints (2 weeks on, followed by 2 weeks off)
Work on tickets related to feature development, bug fixes, accessibility improvements, maintenance, testing, and documentation.
Use established test implementations to test and review code changes.
Completing tickets and milestones as prioritized by the Product Owner, in consultation with the Tech Lead and Roadmaps Alignment Group
Participate in quarterly Samvera Community Sprints
Participate in weekly Samvera Tech Calls and monthly Hyku Interest Group meetings
Participate in the Samvera Community on Slack (particularly #dev, #Hyku, #community-sprints)
Hyku Product Owner
Role Description
The Hyku Product owner works with the Hyku Technical Lead to plan Hyku’s development strategy and represents Hyku on the Roadmaps Alignment Group. The Product Owner focuses on building efficiencies in the Hyku Roadmap by coordinating priorities of individual Hyku projects, building documentation, refining the backlog, prioritizing stories, creating milestones for Hyku maintenance, reducing duplication of effort across the various Hyku projects, and may facilitate or co-facilitate the Hyku Interest Group. In conjunction with the Samvera Community Manager and the Hyku User Community, the Hyku Product Owner facilitates responses to requests for information, demos, and outreach at conferences.
Time Commitment
10 hours per week, flexible. Ideally, the term for Hyku Product Owner is two years.
Resources
Issue reports with projects, milestones, and labels applied for organization and prioritization
Wiki with documentation contributed over time
Hyku product site - Information about Hyku for interested developers/managers
Test implementations maintained by Samvera community. Tech Lead has permission to make changes to the servers. Hosted on AWS.
Valkyrized Hyku on Postgres/Fedora 6, auto-deployed from Hyku “main” branch)
Last “stable” release. Needs to be manually deployed.
also Hyku Interest Group Google Shared Drive via Samvera (ask Community Manager for access)
Meetings
Hyku Interest Group (facilitator) - monthly
Samvera Roadmaps Alignment Group - biweekly
Samvera Tech Call (optional, Hyku Tech Lead attends) - weekly
Regular meetings with the Community Manager and Hyku Tech Lead - weekly
Community maintenance group standups – daily during sprints
May be asked to facilitate Community Sprints or themed sprints, which overlap with one week of the maintenance sprints, usually in January, May and October.
The Product Owner and Tech Lead typically present an update on Hyku at Samvera Connect and Virtual Connect. The Product Owner also presents an update on the Hyku Interest Group and maintenance working group at these meetings.
Other groups as assigned. The Product Owner may be asked to join other working or interest groups and partner meetings if needed.
Hyku Technical Lead
Last Updated: Apr 7, 2025
Role Description
The Hyku Technical Lead role leads the technical architecture and implementation of the vision for Hyku, serving as a key resource for the community maintenance group, addressing issues of technical design and architecture for issue fixes and code integrations in Hyku. The goal is to maintain and improve Hyku stability and incorporate contributed development work from the community maintenance group and the Samvera Community.
Time Commitment
20 hours per week, flexible
Ideally, the term for Hyku Tech Lead is two years.
Expectations
Participate in community maintenance sprints (2 weeks on, followed by 2 weeks off)
Work with Hyku Product Owner to plan sprint goals and activities
Coordinates the work of contributing developers
Work on development issues relevant to the maintenance and stability of Hyku engine
Serve as a key resource on issues of technical design and architecture for Hyku issue fixes and code integrations
Provide code review/pull request review
Use established test implementations to test and review code changes.
Manage packaging and releases of Hyku engine
Participate in quarterly Samvera Community Sprints
Participate in weekly Samvera Tech Calls and monthly Hyku Interest Group meetings
Participate in the Samvera Community on Slack (particularly #dev, #Hyku, #community-sprints)
Meet periodically with the Community Manager and Product Owner to identify issues or barriers that need to be brought to Partners or the Samvera Board
Work with Roadmaps Alignment Group and the developer community to establish development priorities
Measures of Success
An outline of development priorities in consultation with the Product Owner and Roadmaps Alignment Group
All maintenance sprints are planned in consultation with the Hyku Product Owner and have reasonable and measurable goals
Close coordination of communications with the Community Manager
Hyku feature sprint work is planned and offered at least twice during the year
Hyku Slack and tech list questions are triaged in a timely manner
Pull requests and code review requests are assigned and completed in a timely manner
Hyku releases and release notes are executed in accordance with goals