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Junior Backend Developer

The Refugee Law Lab is looking for a part-time junior backend developer to assist with an open source legal analytics application that we are building.

The backend developer will help us connect our application’s frontend visualizations with our relational database by writing efficient SQL and/or GraphQL queries to compute various metrics and analytics.

The position is open to current students or recently graduated students.

Core Requirements:

  • Degree in progress or recently completed degree in computer science, engineering, or related fields
  • Programming skills in NodeJS, GraphQL, and SQL
  • Experience with relational databases such as PostgreSQL
  • Experience with implementing and documenting API endpoints
  • Experience with a Version Control System such as Git
  • Current legal authorization to work in Canada

Assets, but not required:

  • Experience in data engineering/backend development roles is an asset
  • Lived experience with forced migration and/or being a member of an equity seeking group are assets

Time commitment: 5-7 hours per week for Fall Term 2022, with the possibility of additional work in the Winter Term.

Salary: $35/hr for undergraduate students, $45/hr for recent graduates

Application Deadline: Position open until filled

Application Process: Apply online with a CV, electronic copy of unofficial transcripts, and a brief cover note describing your interest in the position.

Context: The Refugee Law Lab, based at York University’s Centre for Refugee Studies and Osgoode Hall Law School, is devoted to research and advocacy related to new legal technologies and their impact on refugees, other displaced communities, and people on the move. We develop datasets and legal analytics that enhance transparency in refugee law processes. We study and critique the use of artificial intelligence and other technologies by governments and private actors in the migration field. And we produce legal technology that advances the rights and interests of refugees and other marginalized people on the move.  We are committed to social justice, to interdisciplinarity, to evidence-informed policy, and to ensuring that the data, research and technologies that we produce are freely accessible to the public. We strive to work from a community-based perspective, foregrounding the lived experiences of people on the move and their interactions with technology. We have secured funding to build a free open-source legal analytics application in the refugee law field. The application uses data about Canada’s refugee determination process scraped from online sources, applies various NLP tools to extract useful information from that data, and then presents analysis of that data to assist refugee lawyers appearing before the Immigration and Refugee Board and the Federal Court.