Community Assistant

The role entails

• Collaborate proactively with a distributed team
• Write high quality content to promote and support community initiatives
• Discuss ideas and collaborate on finding good solutions to community problems
• Work from home with global travel 2 to 4 weeks for internal and external events
• Potential opportunity to travel more if you wish
• Nurture community contributions to Ubuntu
• Engage with the Ubuntu community through AskUbuntu, IRC, social media, conferences, etc
• Represent Ubuntu via speaking engagements at events and conferences.

What We Are Looking For In You

• Passion for technology and working with brilliant people
• You are curious, flexible, articulate, and accountable
• You value soft skills and are passionate, enterprising, thoughtful, and self-motivated
• You have experience with developer tools and open source projects
• You have a clear public record of accomplishments (talks, blog posts, GitHub, Twitter, etc)
• You have interest and experience with two or more of the following: Ubuntu Linux - kernel or userspace, DevOps, software development, testing and QA, package management, container technology
• You can work autonomously and assume full ownership of objectives as needed
• You can be flexible with your time and enjoy working with new technology in a fast-paced environment
• You are experienced working with open source communities and understand the workflow of volunteer contributors.

Nice-to-have Skills

• Experience with community management
• Experience with Developer advocacy
• Experience as a software developer
• Examples of contributions to the Ubuntu Community
• Experience with contributing to open source projects

1. Community Engagement

• Building Relationships: Act as the face of the engineering team, engaging with community members (developers, users, customers, etc.) through forums, online platforms, social media, and events.
• User Advocacy: Understand the needs and concerns of the community and act as their voice within the organization, ensuring that their feedback is relayed to the product and engineering teams.
• Troubleshooting & Support: Provide technical support and troubleshooting assistance for users facing issues with the product, often answering questions in forums, chat channels (like Slack, Discord, etc.), or on platforms like Stack Overflow, GitHub, etc.

2. Technical Content Creation

• Documentation: Write and maintain technical documentation, including user guides, FAQs, and troubleshooting articles that help the community use the product more effectively.
• Tutorials and Blog Posts: Create helpful tutorials, walkthroughs, and blog posts that teach users how to leverage the product’s features, solve common problems, and integrate the product into their workflows.
• Webinars and Workshops: Organize and participate in live webinars, virtual workshops, or in-person events (like meetups or conferences) to educate and engage the community.

3. Product Feedback Loop

• Feature Requests and Bug Reporting: Collect feedback from the community regarding desired features, bugs, or usability improvements and relay this information to product management and engineering teams.
• Beta Testing: Manage or facilitate beta testing programs by recruiting community members to test new features or releases, gathering feedback, and working with engineers to resolve any issues.
• Enhancement Proposals: Work with the product and engineering teams to ensure that community-driven feature proposals are considered and integrated into the development roadmap.

4. Community Growth and Management

• Community Building: Help grow the community by engaging with existing members and attracting new users, whether through targeted outreach or participation in relevant forums, conferences, and social media.
• Moderation and Conflict Resolution: Moderate discussions within the community, ensuring that conversations remain productive and respectful. Resolve conflicts or technical issues raised by users in an empathetic and professional manner.
• Metrics & Reporting: Track the growth of the community, including metrics such as engagement levels, participation in discussions, content consumption, etc., and provide regular reports to leadership on community health and engagement.

5. Open Source Contributions (if applicable)

• Contributing to Code: In open-source environments, the Community Engineer may contribute code, fix bugs, and submit patches, especially if the community relies on open-source tools or platforms.
• Code Reviews and Mentoring: Help community contributors by reviewing pull requests, offering feedback, and mentoring them through their contributions to the project.
• Open Source Evangelism: Advocate for the open-source project in the broader developer community, spreading awareness and encouraging contributions.