CDOT projects employ students as Research Assistants (RAs) for co-op placements, summer jobs, and part-time work while studying at Seneca.
What You Should Know about Working at CDOT
CDOT Research Assistants are hired in four categories:
- Students Co-Ops - Full-time employment as part of the Seneca Student Co-op program.
- Summer Students - Full-time employment during the summer semester (May-August).
- Part-time - Part-time employment (up to 24 hours/week depending on study workload) while studying at Seneca or after graduation.
- Graduate Time-Certain Contracts - Full-time non-renewable contracts, up to one year in duration, for positions requiring very specific skills. Graduate time-certain contract positions are generally filled from recent Seneca graduates who have previously worked in CDOT.
Research Assistant contracts are aligned with Seneca semesters:
- Winter: January - April
- Summer: May - August
- Fall: September - December
Each Research Assistant works on a specific applied research project, and requires a specific skill set. RAs work in teams under the technical direction of a faculty lead, and are funded by specific applied research grants and/or industry partners. There are typically 12-40 Research Assistants working in CDOT at any one time; the largest number of RAs is usually hired during the summer semester.
Because there is a limited number of CDOT Research Assistant positions available, competition for these positions is high, and CDOT hires applicants with strong skills. We also recommend that all applicants for Research Assistant positions:
Hiring Process
The CDOT hiring process follows general industry practices:
- CDOT periodically posts job opportunities (see below)
- Applicants submit a resume and cover letter
- CDOT selects applicants for an interview
- Applicants and CDOT staff meet for one (or more) face-to-face interview(s)
- CDOT makes a job offer to the selected applicant(s)
- Upon acceptance of the job offer, the employee starts work at CDOT on the specified date and time
All CDOT employees must be eligible to work in Canada and must have a Canadian Social Insurance Number (SIN).
Preparing to Work at CDOT
If you are considering working in CDOT in a future semester, it is a good idea to develop some experience, open source community connections, and a portfolio of your work. You should be able to demonstrate that you solve problems creatively, work effectively in and with an open source community, have self-initiative, and that you learn new skills and knowledge as necessary.
In order to do this, you will need to go beyond what you can do in the classroom: augment your studies with personal experimentation.
Here are some ideas:
- Create a mobile app and the matching server software. Implement the software in a cloud service (Google or Amazon, for example).
- Set up your own network of servers, configuring the network and services to interoperate. Use a variety of operating systems and software versions. Set up a multi-tier system with some combination of a web server, application server, database server, file server, and/or print server. Experiment with orchestration software (Ansible/Puppet/Chef), set up redundancy (server failover), try to break into your own systems, or optimize the systems for highest performance. You can buy cheap used computers or create virtual machines on your PC to do this virtually.
- Contribute bug fixes or feature improvements to an open source project.
- Write documentation for an open source project.
- Create a kernel module for a new device.
What to Include in an Application to Work at CDOT
In addition to information normally included in a resume and cover sheet (education, experience, contact information, which job you are applying for, and so forth), we suggest that you include the following information:
- If you are a student:
- Which program you are enrolled in;
- Which semester you are in within that program;
- Whether you will be graduating from the program before you start work at CDOT, or continuing as a student. This information is important to determine which hiring categories may apply to you;
- Which courses you have taken that deal with open source code and technologies; and
- Which courses you have taken that are related to the position for which you are applying.
- If you are applying for a co-op position:
- How many semesters of co-op you could work (1, 2, or 3)
- If you are applying for part-time work:
- Your availability, if known; and
- Your course workload (number of courses you will be taking while working at CDOT)
- Projects that you have done:
- In courses, that you have particularly enjoyed and are proud of; and
- Outside school, whether for your own personal interest, learning, as part of a job, or as a freelancer or consultant.
- Your knowledge of and interest in technologies:
- Rank your knowledge of all of the languages and technologies you know. Be realistic. You could say something like "Elementary skills in python (short scripts); moderate skills in JavaScript (including experience with JQuery and FooLib); and advanced skills in C++, including debugging with gdb, profiling with gprof and operf, and optimization" or "Very experienced with Apache configuration and tuning; very experienced using Git/GitHub (see my repo at http://github.com/...); elementary experience with Node.JS".
- Which technologies you enjoy using the most, and the types of problems you enjoy solving.
- What you would most like to learn while at CDOT - the technologies you want to use and the types of problems you'd like to solve.
Please note that most RA positions in CDOT require independent creative problem solving skills, self-directed learning, and personal initiative. It is strongly recommended that your application include projects which go above and beyond your classwork.
Job Opportunities
Winter 2016+ (Starting January)
Full or Part-Time Research Asssistant(s) - OSTEP Team - LEAP Project
We are seeking:
- a highly-qualified recent graduate research assistant, or
- a Co-Op research assistant, or
- part-time (20-24 hours/week) research assistants
This position is for the OSTEP team - LEAP project, and is focused on building, improving, testing, and tuning software for emerging 64-bit ARM enterprise computer systems.
For the purpose of continuity, preference will be given to candidates who could be available for at least two semesters/eight months.
The successful candidate will have:
- basic programming skills in C, C++, Python, or Bash
- good communication and teamwork skills
- strong creative problem solving skills
In addition, any of these skills will be considered an asset:
- system administration
- working with open source communities
- Git
- benchmarking
- software packaging (RPM)
- configuration management and orchestration (Ansible, Puppet, Chef)
- deployment management (OpenStack, Docker, Vagrant)
- multi threaded programming
- GPGPU programming (OpenCV)
- machine learning
- assembly language programming
- kernel programming
- boot software and standards (uEFI, ACPI, smbios)
To apply:
- Co-op: see the Seneca co-op job posting
- Other: Email your resume with cover letter to: Chris Tyler <chris.tyler@senecacollege.ca> by November 27, 2015.
Full or Part-Time Research Asssistant(s) - OSTEP Team - DevOps Project
We are seeking:
- a Co-Op research assistant, or
- part-time (20-24 hours/week) research assistants
This position is for the OSTEP team - DevOps project, and is focused on automated QA and rapid software release cycle infrastructure. One of the current projects involves a fault-injecting testing framework, used to test the impact of network faults, server failures, and memory and CPU pressure on a multi-server application environment.
The successful candidate will have:
- Java software development skills
- familiarity with both Windows and Linux platforms
In addition, any of these skills will be considered an asset:
- system administration
- working with open source communities
- Git
- configuration management and orchestration (Ansible, Puppet, Chef)
- deployment management (OpenStack, Docker, Vagrant)
To apply:
- Co-op: see the Seneca co-op job posting
- Other: Email your resume with cover letter to: Chris Tyler <chris.tyler@senecacollege.ca> by November 27, 2015.
Future Opportunities
Watch for CDOT job postings:
- In the Seneca Co-op listings, and
- On this web page.
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