Careers at Etraffic Solutions

• Software Developer
• New Media or Print Designer
• Project Management
• Business Development and Support Staff
• Subject Matter Experts

 

Co-op Positions

Etraffic frequently provides Computer Science and Business co-op students the opportunity to complete their work terms in our Software Development and Business Development departments. Candidates for this position are normally in third or fourth year programs.

We give each co-op student a peer mentor and an in-house project. This approach allows you time to get comfortable with our cultural and technical environment, and be sure of initial success.

Following the initial project, we will assign you to a production project or a project as a part of a team. Your mentor would continue to provide guidance and support until no longer required.

For software developer co-op, our technical platform is Open Source Web Applications yet some of our projects are large – well over 100,000 lines of code. Our methodology is Object Oriented. Reusability, interoperability and extensibility are very important in all of our work. Co-op students can expect their work to follow this approach.

 

Contractors & Outsourcing

Etraffic Solutions needs to be highly adaptable, resourceful and to respond to our customers’ needs in a timely manner. Helping us meet those challenges provides an opportunity for your company.

While the can-do attitude of our staff allows us to meet the demands of most new projects through innovative solutions, there are times when we need to partner with outside contractors or companies to meet project deadlines.

If you are an individual contractor or represent a company that could provide us resources on a contract basis, we would like to hear from you. We have in place a “Request For Qualifications” process which allows you to be pre-qualified. If we approve your qualifications, and add you to our list of approved vendors, you will be among the first companies that we contact when the need arises.

At this point we are only interested in skill sets, your portfolio and availability. Upon review of the outlined elements, we may wish to further explore a working relationship with your company. In that case, we will contact you directly to request a meeting to discuss specific business arrangements.

Please send an email to hr@etrafficsolutions.com with the following information:

Company Name

Company Address

Company Phone

Company URL

Contact Person Name

Contact Person Email

Executive overview of company

Management profiles

Portfolio

Company skill sets or services Etraffic may be interested in

Availability of resources

 

Pay & Benefits

Compensation

At Etraffic, we strive to do everything possible to provide our employees with an interesting and rewarding work environment. However, we also realize that you have financial and other responsibilities to fulfill whether you are living on your own or raising a young family. Etraffic is committed to being your “Employer of Choice.” We not only foster a culture where you’ll feel a part of the team but offer salary and benefits packages that are competitive in the local marketplace.

Salary

Although titles are important to our organization’s operation and communications systems, at Etraffic our salary levels are based on performance. By participating in salary surveys with a wide number of other local technology firms, we know our salaries are competitive in the marketplace.

Benefits Plan

Our health benefits plan is one of the most inclusive you will find. Rather than specific percentages, our plan is basically an expense account, where you will be able to apply the funds against almost any health related expense. If you are married the amount of coverage is greater than if you are single and if you have children the amount increases again.

Disability and Life Insurance Coverage

Our health benefits plan also includes disability coverage and a life insurance coverage policy.

Optional Life Insurance

You have the option to purchase additional life insurance coverage for your spouse and dependants.

 

Job Training

We tailor our training program to specific jobs. For some positions, there will be a period of training and orientation before beginning productive work. In others, the only kind of training that is realistic is learning by doing. Those who have experienced the latter have found that their fellow employees are supportive and committed to their success.

Once the orientation process is complete, staff at Etraffic may require additional training as their position evolves or to upgrade to technologies required by new projects. Our culture expects and supports this kind of growth.

 

Diversity and Equity

Etraffic employees represent a wide variety of backgrounds. In fact, since we produce material in many languages and many regions, continents and cultures of the world, cultural diversity is essential to our business!

Given the nature of our products (“multiplatform-multilingual-multimedia”), Etraffic necessarily employs staff with a broad spectrum of skills. Not only do we need an unusual diversity of skill sets, we need a variety of levels of expertise in those same skills in order to accomplish the volume of work. Valuing diversity is essential to our success.

 

Professional Learning

Etraffic consistently operates ahead of the curve. Our customers’ expectations are high. If they can envision it, they expect we can do it. We are committed to keeping our skills at a level to match their expectations.

Stepping up to these expectations requires we constantly improve our skills and knowledge. To that end, Etraffic has a generous professional learning program that includes allotting a percentage of time employees can spend at work on professional learning. Each staff member also gets a budgeted dollar amount that they may spend on any professional learning activities at or outside of the workplace.

In addition to the individual professional learning benefits we offer, Etraffic routinely provides other resources to enable our employees to learn and experiment with new technologies. We often purchase books, software, or hardware if it may be required for an upcoming project.

 

Evaluations

Every employee wants and deserves to know the answer to this question: how am I doing?

To be a supervisor or a manager is easy. To be a good supervisor or manager is a ton of work. Performance Evaluations take time and effort to complete. As our employee, we will work aggressively on your behalf to make sure that you get a meaningful review.

As part of your orientation we will explain the evaluation process. You will receive your first evaluation three months after you start and every six months after that.

At Etraffic, we focus on the positive as much as possible. Our evaluations are as much a process of making sure that we are all on the same page as providing meaningful feedback to employees to help them succeed.

 

Pilot Math

 

Examples

	Concept Capsules Concept Capsules provide specific learning moments focused on individual math concepts. ( Sample Concept Capsule )
	Math Embedded Games / Interactives The math embedded games exclusive to Pilot Math provide students with more than 25 different arcade style games that have math quiz questions from the curriculum embedded as students earn their way to play. ( Play Swap a Smiley ) ( Word Search )
	Textbook and Workbooks For the textbook and workbook, there is a print copy for each student and an electronic copy that students can access from any computer with internet access.  (View a Textbook Unit ) ( View a Workbook )
	Animations The cartoon animations help to provide a fun and compelling way to introduce new concepts to students.  ( View an Animation )

 

SP SnapShot

 

Examples

	Scatterplots Graphs PHP queries the massive MySQL database which transforms the results into XML.  The XML feeds a Flash application that provides an intuitive and visually stunning scatterplot.  For instance, you can hover over a "dot" on the scatterplot and a menu pops up showing the student's name.  Click on a student name and you will transfer to a page with extensive details about that student. (Screenshot)
	Bar Graphs Bar graphs will display learning gains and any other type of test measure including summarizing achievement across different proficiency levels, seeing the score distribution of content subscores, and so on. (Screenshot)
	Trend Reports and Status Reports Status Reports show a one year summary for a school and Trend Reports show multi-year comparison of the schools' scores. Status Reports show average by grade, teacher and demographics, and Trend Reports show average by grade and demographics. (Screenshot)

 

StudyBUZZ

 

Examples

Quiz The Administration site and the auto-saving test engine use AJAX extensively.  As a student completes a quiz, it automatically saves the student’s answers.  If their browser crashes they can easily resume where they left off.  The navigation of the test is not linear.  They can easily jump to any question on the test.  As they answer questions, the question number turns green to indicate that they've answered them.  If they are stuck and want to return to a specific question, they can flag it, which turns the question number red.  They can then return to it later, unflag it, and answer it. (Screenshot)

Graphs and Personal Study Guide A MySQL database stores each student's exams.  PHP generates and caches the reports and graphs. (Screenshot)

 

Our Culture

Corporate Culture

While we expect the highest standards of conduct, we are a relaxed, people-oriented business.

Our policies necessarily reflect the needs and expectations of our customers – all senior professional educators, administrators or business managers – while offering a package that is flexible and considerate of the needs of our individual employees. Given the nature of our business, many members of our staff and management are education professionals.

Details regarding vacations and other leave, hours of work, etc., are contained in our employment policies, distributed to each new employee

Company Structure

Our company is project driven and organized around project management processes. All projects at Etraffic will assign a Project Coordinator. Our corporate Project Management Methodology guides our Project Coordinators and our departmental methodologies guide the work of other teams. As members of dynamic teams, Project Coordinators work closely with Etraffic’s production departments, including graphic design, content, and others.

Challenge

Working at Etraffic Solutions presents you with a challenging, dynamic environment where both complexity and the rate of change are high. As a company, we are seldom in our comfort zone for long. That’s just not our way.

We maintain mature products requiring reliable software, hardware and network infrastructures across international boundaries while constantly managing a portfolio of new projects in various stages of production.

Etraffic Solutions is first and foremost a business venture in a competitive, high-tech industry. The education marketplace in the new millennium demands speed, agility and adaptability while still insisting and maintaining traditional high standards of quality. A positive, “can-do” attitude in the face of these multiple challenges is essential to our success.

Recognition & Acknowledgement

Etraffic provides recognition and acknowledgement on an individual basis and in an appropriate manner. We encourage a positive, proactive and personal culture.

Employees receive feedback from co-workers, project stakeholders and managers on an ongoing basis, from a simple thank you to formal award presentations.

Growth & Advancement

Growth is both encouraged and facilitated at Etraffic. The company encourages employees to accept new technologies, standards or responsibilities. We facilitate this through our professional learning program. Etraffic also promotes an environment that will provide whatever equipment or materials you need to do the work in a way that meets our high standards for quality.

Performance will lead to advancement at Etraffic. We base promotions on a combination of personal qualities, experience, expertise, and a demonstrated attitude of leadership and responsibility. Salary increases are not automatic with each promotion. Our company awards these increases only when an individual demonstrates they are fulfilling the requirements of the new position.

 

Location & Amenities

Redbrick Street area

Etraffic Solutions is located in the Redbrick Building at 710 Redbrick St., across the street from Mayfair Shopping Centre in Victoria, British Columbia. Our company occupies and owns the entire first floor of this building. In addition to the shopping centre, the area includes a Lifestyle Market (organic food and deli), a Canadian Tire store, Office Depot, Starbucks, Odyssey Fitness gym and a very large outdoor park with tennis courts all within two blocks. The Gorge Fitness Centre and access to the Galloping Goose Trail is just one block further on the Selkirk Waterfront.

Find out why Victoria is the best place for you and your family.

The Etraffic Office

The Etraffic office space includes a large kitchen and lunchroom with an outdoor patio area. As part of our effort to be a green company, we provide a secure bike lockup and shower facilities.

Etraffic employees include software developers, multimedia designers, subject matter experts, business representatives, data processing teams, and project management teams. Although each group is in its own area, because of our project-based management practices and organizational structure, it is necessary for all of us to work as a seamless team.

Etraffic is a busy, communications rich environment. Think of an advertising agency, software company, television channel, and publishing company all rolled into one. We always have upcoming deadlines for our projects and new production requests that need to be coordinated. Excellent and timely communications is critical. Stand up meetings, meetings at workstations, boardroom meetings, Messenger, email and file transfers are all a part of the mix.

Our office layout and corporate systems help facilitate the needs of our culture and our employees as much as possible. 

 

Social Activities

Etraffic likes to foster social activities inside and outside of the office.  We not only love what we do but we know there is more to a job than just work.      

Celebration lunches are routine, both in and out of the office, in regards to significant project milestones. Each month we have a brief celebration to honor those with birthdays or other personal successes in that month.

We also maintain a list of ideas for social activities contributed by employees. There are currently about forty items on that list. Our goal each month is to make two of those ideas a reality. Etraffic, of course, contributes significantly towards both the time and costs of these activities.

Here are a few social activities from our 2007 list!

• Wii party (four consoles)
• Golf Tourney and prizes at Monkey Tree
• Mini survivor
• Heritage potluck with cultural foods
• Snowboarding/ski trip
• Scavenger hunt
• BBQ
• Foosball tourney
• Climbing Night at Crag X climbing gym
• Line Dancing
• Pub Crawl
• Paintball
• Bingo
• Skating Party
• Gingerbread decorating
• Charity activity
• Picnic
• Movie night
• Horseshoes
• Croquet
• Basketball tourney

To see pictures from some of our activities please take a look at this PowerPoint highlighting our first year at Redbrick Street.

 

A Day in the Life

5:30am Some Business Development employees arrive as we have customers on the east coast, three hours ahead of Pacific Standard Time.

Between 5:30 and 9:00, the rest of the staff arrives. Some folks come in at seven, others at eight or eight thirty, some after they drop the kids off at school. If employees have a good reason, we are flexible on the time.

After good mornings all around to your fellow coworkers, you settle into your workstation wearing casual clothes and pop your headphones on, boot up Messenger and check your email. Ah, your Google Calendar, up on your second monitor, tells you that you have a meeting at 11am today. Ok, time to settle in to work.

How it goes from here depends on which of the many specialist groups we have here at Etraffic; software developers, multimedia designers, subject matter experts, systems administrators, business representatives and data processing and project management teams.

As the morning starts, the busy-ness and chatter ramps up. There is soon constant motion and conversation as people go from one workstation to another to talk in person. If you don’t have at least one meeting a day, that would be unusual. More senior staff often has several meetings every day.

You take your first break when it fits your schedule. Maybe you whip something up in our large kitchen and then take a break on the patio. Your laptop will work out there if you need to check your messages. Or maybe it’s just a trip to the microwave and a bite of breakfast at your desk while you catch up on some personal messages and tasks.

For your lunch break you might head across the street to the mall, pop over to Lifestyle Market or go for a walk down to the Selkirk waterfront. Or maybe you dive into your Second Life or Warcraft avatar for a few minutes.

Meanwhile the pace picks up. Most days at Etraffic are very busy, and include no small amount of change. The positive and flexible environment goes with a dynamic and charged workplace. We don’t just maintain our levels of productivity and revenue; we are constantly pushing those limits, constantly growing. If you want to grow as a person, a professional, or as a company, you must be out of your comfort zone fairly regularly. We are. Embracing innovative new ways of doing things and stepping up to new challenges and levels of performance, are standard practice at Etraffic.

We have a high trust culture, and though we provide you with the direction, information and support you need, we give you a great deal of freedom regarding how you accomplish your goals. The flexibility we offer in terms of how you get your job done comes with responsibility. We expect every employee at Etraffic to show initiative and leadership.

By around 1pm employees start to head home, mostly those who need to pick their kids up from school. If they have not put in eight hours they will finish that up at home. If you have needed to take some time off for personal reasons during the day or the week, you’ll do the same, making up the time before the end of the month. If you had to put in extra time to meet a deadline, you can take the earned time off at any time in the future. If you came in at 8:30, as most of our employees do, you’ll pack up and head out at five. Work is good. Life is good.