Extra Help - Program Coordinator (Digital Accessibility Community Manager) - Technology Solutions

About the role

The University of Illinois Chicago Digital Accessibility Engineering team seeks an Extra Help Program Coordinator (Digital Accessibility Community Manager) to grow and steward the contributor community around Equalify, UIC's Open Source web accessibility platform.

The role exists to do one thing: convert outside developers into sustained contributors so that UIC's accessibility engineering work scales beyond internal staff capacity. The core outcome is to drive external contributions to 10% of all Equalify project contributions every six months, compounding over time.

Responsibilities

• Own the contribution rate. Drive external contributions to 10% every six months by building and continuously improving the funnel that moves developers from first awareness to first PR to sustained participation.
• Maintain documentation, good first issues, contribution guides, and fast code review responsiveness so new contributors can land a first contribution quickly and return for more.
• Report ROI. Track and report the community's return on investment to UIC leadership, quantifying external engineering capacity delivered against the cost of the role, alongside metrics like PRs merged, issues resolved, code reviews completed, contributor retention, and time to first contribution.
• First responder. Serve as the primary point of contact for community inquiries, triaging contributor questions, feature requests, and bugs, and routing deeper technical issues to UIC engineers to protect engineering time.
• Grow community leaders. Identify and nurture regular contributors, equipping them to onboard and mentor others so the pipeline becomes self-sustaining and load on UIC staff decreases as the community grows.
• Create the contributor-facing content that feeds the funnel, including contribution guides, release notes, blog posts, technical talks, and a community newsletter.
• Recruit and represent. Build UIC's reach by representing Equalify at Open Source conferences, accessibility events, and academic venues, and by building relationships with aligned projects, standards bodies, and partner institutions.
• Perform other related duties and participate in special projects as assigned.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree.
• A total of one (1) year (12 months) in education, training and/or work experience in the area of specialization inherent to the position. (Note: Master’s Degree in an area consistent with the duties of the position may be substituted for one (1) year of work experience.)
• Community experience. You have managed or grown a community of developers or contributors, or done developer relations or advocacy, ideally in Open Source.
• Open Source fluency. You know how contributions work, including Git, pull requests, issue tracking, and code review, well enough to sort and route incoming questions.
• Clear writing. You can produce documentation, contribution guides, and content that makes it easy for people to get involved.
• Metrics and reporting. You can set goals, track numbers, and explain results to leadership in terms of impact and ROI.
• Direct engagement. You are comfortable talking with developers in forums, issue trackers, chat, and in person.
• Self-direction. You can work independently and focus on what actually grows contributions.
• Accessibility knowledge. You know standards like WCAG and assistive technology, or you can pick them up fast.
• Early community growth. You have grown an Open Source community early on and increased outside contributions.
• Mission-driven background. You have worked in higher education, civic tech, or mission-driven Open Source.
• Relevant tech stack. You have worked with the WordPress ecosystem, or with PHP and JavaScript like Equalify's.
• Visibility and network. You have spoken at events and have connections in Open Source or accessibility circles.
• Grant-funded work. You understand the reporting that institutionally sponsored Open Source involves.