Education IT Consultant (1 FTE)

Are you an IT enthusiast who wants to rise above yourself, in both your profession and as a person? At the TU/e, scientists and students continuously create the unthinkable. The strength of TU/e’s IT landscape is their key to success and, hence, so are you as being an essential contributor to that landscape. These creative minds expect you to offer them a solution for tomorrow that doesn’t exist today. Together we are building the high-performance backbone that this epicenter of science and technology demands. Are you driven by taking ownership and do you have an entrepreneurial mindset? We like to get in touch with you!

Information
As an education IT consultant, you work in collaboration with teaching and support staff to develop sustainable IT products, services and workflows. You have a leading implementation role in setting up what is needed to reach this goal. You are in the proximity of the department and its IT landscape, and you are part of a multidisciplinary team in which you share and learn from each other’s knowledge and expertise. You work for a department which fosters diverse education and innovation, requiring highly specialized technology. With your broad range of interests, expertise and ability to oversee the complex landscape of interests and challenges, you’re enabled to take the lead on what’s needed, so that the teachers can focus on their most innovative work. You will also have the opportunity to build up an extensive network and to specialize in relevant educational areas. In this role, you will contribute to the ambition of the Beethoven program to educate top talent and strengthen research across the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). Functionally, you report to the IT business owner of M&CS.

How this looks like in practice? Read the following section for an impression:

A typical week of an Education IT consultant at M&CS
On Monday, you start the week together with your team of experts (“The Hub”), and review the current developments and your activities at M&CS. Together with the IT business owner, you align on priorities, discuss impediments and determine tactics for the best approach. In the afternoon, you visit a teacher who wants to provide their students sufficient compute resources and is looking for efficient allocation. You advise them on what resources could be suitable for this use case and optionally get them in contact with expert support on this topic. At the same time, you notice you receive this type of questions quite often, so you coordinate with the back-office to make sure we can support this type of requests in a sustainable way for the future.

On Tuesday, you work out a plan to facilitate in the IT requirements for an upcoming course, in alignment with the TU/e policies and frameworks. In particular, the exams need guidance and support in enabling a robust digital assessment process. In the afternoon, you investigate how students can easily access APIs for LLMs and what type of procedures ensures a responsible disclosure of them. As other scientific departments also might want to learn about this, you navigate through your network to offer your services proactively.

On Wednesday, you work at home and focus on developing and testing the various options for a configuration to enable student groups to operate a number of machines. You do this in collaboration with your expert colleague who knows all the relevant technical aspects. You maintain a close feedback loop with the teaching organization and make agreements on structural support of the prototype. In the afternoon, you receive a funding proposal for an innovative approach in education, and you advice in the feasibility of integration and the border conditions for implementation.

On Thursday, you meet the management during your regular check-in moment to report on the progress. Their ambition is to embed sustainable IT solutions in the department’s education, especially in the light of the growth of Beethoven. You have prepared your ideas in advance, based on input of your stakeholders (e.g., teaching staff of M&CS, the Educational Management Team, TU/e’s IT department LIS, TU/e’s education service department ESA), your current overview, user data and openings for improvements. Some actions are needed, for instance, some of the deployed products suffer from bus factor = 1, so it’s important that ICT strategy and implementation are aligned for any further measures. Fully equipped with support, you set out actions to lead the change.

On Friday, you work on an often mentioned frustration point of submitting grades in multiple systems and you analyze how to streamline this process better. Also you received a request to consult on a data management workflow how to handle digital exam data given the obligations within the accredited courses. You have a call with education advisors in the afternoon to work out the details and you contribute to the technical aspects of the workflow.

Responsibilities and core tasks

• Acquiring projects that contribute to supporting teaching staff of M&CS in their IT needs;
• Coordinating broader educational IT demand and (new) initiatives to sustainable solutions;
• Integrating (the functionalities of) existing educational tooling in courses and streamlining existing digital processes in collaboration with the relevant team(s);
• Hardening of the current education IT landscape (e.g., robust capacity, security and privacy aspects, product support);
• Helping teachers how to use IT in a responsible and effective way;
• M&CS-specific ambitions integration in the education IT landscape (e.g., explore ways of digitization of courses, how AI can reduce workload, developing BI insights, contribute to professionalizing in-house developed products)
• Perform stakeholder management while working with financial limitations and existing organizational frameworks;

Your impact extends beyond technology, it’s about empowering people and driving excellence.

Requirements

• You have a minimum education of a Master’s degree or PhD degree, preferably with a background in Computer Science, Data Science or any related field;
• Years of experience in higher education. You are able to effectively communicate with scientific staff. You empathize well with what moves the teaching staff and their primary processes;
• You are organizationally sensitive and service-oriented; you initiate and maintain relevant relationships with customers, (key) user groups, and suppliers;
• You have strong affinity, experience or expertise on what makes IT sustainable (e.g., secure, scalable fit-for-purpose);
• You are a pleasant collaboration partner and team player for both scientists and the IT back office, thereby mediating between organization and innovation;
• You initiate action to innovate existing products and services, based on the interest of the department you represent and you can operate independently within constraints of time and resources;
• You have experience with one or more of the following techniques: Remote computing (cloud and / or on premise), Research Data Management and processing, Software Engineering, Git and / or code repository management, Software Licensing, AI related topics, Internet of Things, Infrastructural Architecture;
• Experience with scripting and automating workflows, in particular in Linux OS, is a bonus;
• Strongly developed process- and project-oriented thinking;
• Excellent proficiency (speaking and writing) in English, and preferably Dutch.

If you are concerned that you don’t meet all the requirements sufficiently, but the job does excite you, then be sure to respond, we would love to look at your profile.

Contract terms

An exciting position within an international yet personal university. You are right in the middle of the students, on a green campus within walking distance of the central station. Besides beautiful architecture, you will find varied workplaces and excellent sports facilities.

We also offer you:

• Salary in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities , scale 11, ranging from € 4,925 to € 6,682 gross base salary per month (full-time), depending on your knowledge and experience.
• In addition to your base salary, you will receive an 8% holiday allowance and an 8.3% year-end bonus, both calculated based on your annual gross base salary.
• Generous leave options: a standard 29 days (based on a 38 hour working week) per year that you can increase to 41 days by working two hours more per week (flexible working hours). This is prorated if you work part-time.
• As a TU/e employee, you participate in the ABP pension scheme, providing retirement pension and pension benefits for surviving dependents and occupational disability. TU/e pays 70% of the pension premium, while employees contribute the remaining 30%.
• A favorable arrangement for more holidays or a sabbatical.
• A selection model for additional fringe benefits.
• Working hours in consultation for an optimal work-life balance.
• Unlimited access to the modern on‑campus TU/e Student Sports Center at an exceptionally affordable rate.
• We support your wellbeing with free 24/7 access to OpenUp, providing you and your family with mental health support, expert guidance, and online training.
• Scope for your talent with advancement prospects and excellent development opportunities such as mentoring, workshops and coaching.
• Partially paid parental leave and reimbursement for commuting expenses, working from home and the internet.

On our website you can discover even more information about our conditions of employment . Build on your career at TU/e!