Application Management Lead – Learning Management Platform

The Application Management Lead will coordinate and manage the application development and operations of the Learning Experience Platform (LXP) for WHO's Academy. The role involves leading teams, managing vendors, ensuring compliance with standards, and driving innovation in learning technology to enhance global health education.

Responsibilities

• Coordinate the activities of internal team members and Managed Service Providers to deliver application-layer features that support business needs and enhance the learner experience.
• Manage the full lifecycle of application development for the Open edX platform, including custom XBlocks/plugins development and platform enhancements.
• Enforce application-level coding standards using Python (Django), Node.js, and modern JavaScript frameworks such as Vue.js, including performing code reviews and auditing deliverables to ensure compliance with WHO requirements.
• Ensure compliance with DevOps practices, including image management, secrets handling, automated testing, and adherence to WHO standards and policies.
• Develop and enforce runbooks, SOPs, and documentation standards.
• Manage software development processes from requirements gathering through service transition.
• Design and maintain integration patterns for APIs, identity systems, credentialing standards (LTI, SCORM, xAPI), and downstream WHO systems.
• Define and maintain data architecture, including conceptual, logical, and physical data models for Open edX and related services.
• Implement reliability engineering practices, including SLOs, SLIs, capacity thresholds, and error budgets.
• Oversee observability across all LXP layers, including APM, metrics, logs, traces, and microservices monitoring.
• Define and enforce both application-level and infrastructure-level security practices, including penetration testing follow-ups, secret management, and hardened images.
• Define and manage operational processes for services, including incident management, request fulfillment, and access management.
• Interface with Academy product leads and business owners to ensure user support and event management align with business needs.
• Oversee the reliability of the application layer to support high availability (≥99.95%) for up to 10 million users.
• Lead the design and operation of open-source learning products based on Open edX, while contributing back to the open-source community.
• Collaborate with external providers, UN agencies, and academic institutions to advocate for and mobilize resources in learning technology initiatives.
• Stay updated on emerging e-learning trends, including the integration of AI/ML technologies (CNNs, RNNs) and data analytics within learning platforms.

Requirements

• Master's degree or equivalent in Computer Science, Information Technology, Software Engineering, or a related field relevant to the position with 7 years of relevant experience, OR Bachelor's degree or equivalent in the above-mentioned areas or related fields with 9 years of relevant experience.
• Certifications in Agile Project Management or SCRUM are desired.
• Certification related to enterprise information technology architecture, such as TOGAF (The Open Group Architecture Framework) is desired.
• Technical certifications related to Microsoft Azure, RedHat OpenShift, or MongoDB are desired.
• Relevant experience in software architecture and development is required.
• Experience in large-scale, cloud-native OpenEdx platforms is required.
• Experience in security, compliance, or data governance in enterprise environments is required.
• Experience in microservices, containerization (Kubernetes/OpenShift), and CI/CD automation is desired.
• Experience with Python (Django), Node.js, FastAPI, Celery, and modern JavaScript frameworks (Vue.js) is desired.
• Proven track record with relational and NoSQL databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB), search/analytics (Elasticsearch, ClickHouse), and caching (Redis) is desired.
• Familiarity with event streaming (Kafka), workflow orchestration (Airflow), and LTI/SCORM/xAPI standards is desired.
• Experience in EdTech or large-scale learning platforms is desired.
• Certifications in Azure, Kubernetes/OpenShift, or TOGAF are desired.
• Fluent English is required.
• Basic French is desirable.

Skills

• Agile Project Management
• Scrum
• Enterprise IT Architecture
• TOGAF
• Microsoft Azure
• RedHat OpenShift
• MongoDB
• Software Architecture
• Software Development
• Cloud-native OpenEdx
• Security Compliance
• Data Governance
• Microservices Architecture
• Containerization Technologies
• Kubernetes
• CI/CD
• Python Django Framework
• Node.js
• FastAPI
• Celery
• JavaScript Frameworks
• Vue.js
• Relational Databases
• NoSQL Databases
• PostgreSQL
• MySQL
• ElasticSearch
• ClickHouse
• Redis
• Event Streaming
• Kafka
• Process Orchestration
• Airflow
• LTI Standards
• SCORM Compliance
• xAPI
• EdTech Platforms
• Learning Management System

Languages

English, French