Sr Accessibility Engineer X4

Principal Digital Accessibility Engineer

Where is the work to be performed? Remote

Responsibilities

The Accessibility Center of Excellence (A11y CoE) seeks energetic, motivated and resourceful individuals to join our growing team. The A11y CoE serves the UnitedHealth Group enterprise (Optum and UnitedHealthcare), providing guidance, training and talent to product teams as they build solutions that ensure everyone can access and use Optum and UHC products. As a senior digital accessibility engineer, you will continue to progress skills learned and practiced as a digital accessibility engineer. In addition, you will collaborate with A11y CoE leadership to promote the need for accessible products and services across the enterprise. You will educate and train product teams on specific accessibility requirements and the use of tools that teams can use to incorporate accessibility early in the product development lifecycle. With the opportunity to serve as a member of the Accessibility Council, you will leverage prior experience to constantly evaluate and recommend improvements to the accessibility processes, our tools and training materials. You will actively contribute in one or more working groups for standards, research, tools development or other accessibility resources to help mature the practice of accessibility within the company and promote a culture of inclusive design, using best in class accessibility tools and techniques.

To be successful, you must show empathy towards people with disabilities, have a passion for helping to make products better for everyone, have a curious, inquisitive mind and self-awareness with an interest in continuing to improve your people and technical skills and be able to share your knowledge and talent with team members and clients by providing training and mentoring.

Please describe the team the candidate will be working with – how many members and what is the break-down of the team’s skill sets (ex: 1 PM, 4 Developers, etc.)? Accessibility Center of Excellence 37 team members

Under the guidance of Accessibility Center of Excellence leadership, collaborate with product teams across the enterprise to promote the need for accessible products and services. Serve as the lead on client projects, providing direction to and mentoring digital accessibility engineers and Grow Your Own program participants, reporting status updates to project team leadership and Accessibility Center of Excellence leadership, and handling any issues that arise regarding talent, timelines and deliverables. Participate on the Accessibility Council, researching and documenting best practices for usability and accessibility, documenting and sharing use cases to help promote accessibility best practices, helping to market the council and promote decisions made to peers and clients. Assess and validate Optum and UHC digital properties to ensure that they comply with WCAG. Perform accessibility assessments. May include web pages, desktop applications, mobile applications and documents, such as PDFs, PPTs, etc., with the (preferred) ability to assess and remediate PDF, Word and other documents so they confirm to current standards, including WCAG and PDF/UA. Document assessment results via available reporting templates and tools. Write Rally or Jira user stories based on the standard accessibility user story template and following guidelines in place. Present findings to internal product teams and external clients, educating teams on specific accessibility requirements and the use of available tools to proactively include accessibility early in the lifecycle. Identify accessibility issues of visual and interactive designs, promoting the use of accessible design pattern library components and use of tools to improve the accessibility of designs. Research and stay aware of new development frameworks for the purpose of assisting developers in creating accessible products. Support the A11y CoE by researching and writing posts for the Accessibility and A11y Forum sites on Hub Connect in partnership with A11y CoE team members. Write curriculum and lead accessibility training for peers and clients. Apply HTML, CSS, JavaScript and ARIA knowledge to digital properties as part of client engagements and governance processes. Identify new opportunities to support and contribute to the growth of the A11y CoE.

Qualifications

BA/BS in information technology, information design, computer science, human computer interaction (HCI), instructional design, quality assurance, assistive technology or related field, or equivalent industry training and experience. 8+ years working in a fast-paced and highly collaborative development environment with experience in large, complex software or web applications. 5+ years working as a digital accessibility engineer. Advanced knowledge of user-centered design principles and tools. Strong understanding of Agile development methodology. Advanced knowledge of HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Experience writing reusable frontend code for modern frameworks such as Angular, Backbone, etc.). Knowledge of Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) guidelines and specifications and Intermediate to advanced working knowledge of WCAG. Advanced understanding of how to use design pattern libraries for client products. Advanced knowledge of assistive technology and accessibility-related software, including JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver, ZoomText, Dragon NaturallySpeaking or other speech recognition software. Self-motivated with a desire to improve products for people with disabilities. Mastery of working collaboratively and productively both with diverse teams and independently. Advanced soft skills and mastery of working with teams who may not have any understanding of inclusive design or accessibility. Proven organizational and multi-tasking skills. Proven communication skills, both verbal and written, including the ability to sell ideas with strong negotiation skills. Proven presentation skills to peers, clients and executives and to external audiences at conferences, via webinars and for educational institutions. Proven ability to learn from and accept feedback from others.

What are the work hours? 8am-5pm in the candidate’s time zone.