Kaplan, Inc., a subsidiary of The Washington Post Company (NYSE: WPO), is one of the world's leading providers of educational and career services for individuals, schools and businesses.

Kaplan has four main areas of focus:

• Kaplan Kids and Schools, which serves schools districts through Kaplan K12 Learning Services and provides after-school tutoring to children through Kaplan Tutoring.
• Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions, which offers test prep and admissions services worldwide.
• Kaplan Higher Education, which offers postsecondary certificate and degree programs online and through more than 70 campuses in the US and abroad.
• Kaplan Professional, which offers training and continuing education for the financial services and real estate-related industries.

Kaplan's mission is to help individuals achieve their educational and career goals. With 2008 revenues of more than $2.3 billion, Kaplan has locations all over the globe and our corporate office is located right in the heart of New York City.

Authoring Tools Lead Engineer - NY

Description:
Once a small test prep company, Kaplan has pioneered new territory in online higher education, K-12 services and professional training with innovation and imagination. Through new technologies and a personalized approach to learning, we are opening doors to educational opportunities and inspiring people to strive for their personal best. Throughout our 70-year history, we have helped students unlock their talent by providing student-centered, outcomes-driven educational programs that help individuals reach their goals. We succeed when our students succeed.

Four areas of focus

Our educational services span four major areas:

• Programs for kids and schools
  
• Test preparation
  
• Higher education
  
• Professional training
  

Fast facts about Kaplan

• Over 600 locations in more than 30 countries
  
• More than one million students each year
  
• 31,000+ employees worldwide
  
• Largest and fastest-growing division of our parent company, The Washington Post Company
  

Authoring Tools Tech Lead

Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions is looking for an extremely experienced engineer to design and drive how we create and structure the company's learning assets across a wide range of Kaplan products. We're looking for someone willing to take ownership of key areas, turn ambiguous goals into clear directions, mentor others, and have demonstrated success in their previous positions.

Responsibilities will include:

• Dive deeply into the assets that we collect today and new services/data sources while they're in the design phase. Analyze them, develop and document the appropriate authoring tools, environments, and quality assurance strategies and work with other technical leaders and architects, product teams, and partner teams to drive adoption.
  
• Provide technical leadership in support of the team that will be designing and developing the content for our e-learning products and services and their presentation on the web, in the classroom, and via alternate delivery methods such as portable devices.
  
• Work with KTPA Data Architect to create the data models and dictionaries to facilitate content authoring.
  
• Work with Subject Matter Experts, developers and architects to reach consensus on the content data model. Will be responsible for helping kick-start the initial development of XML-based models from existing enterprise reference models, as well as helping to define the infrastructure and tools required to support this into the future (schema repository registry, etc.).
  
• Work with other KTPA tech leads to define our roadmap for dealing with the creation and management of our rapidly-growing large volumes of digital assets, lesson and test data, and metadata.
  
• Work hands-on independently and with software developers, authoring tools developers, and business users to optimize systems scalability and performance.
  
• Explore new opportunities that add to the business value proposition or reduce costs.
  

Qualifications:
Required:

• 5+ years industry experience designing and implementing business-friendly, high-performance, high-availability authoring tools systems
  
• Experience in working with Web based content authoring tools
  
• Experience in working with enterprise-level Content Management Systems and integrating a CMS with the various authoring tools
  
• A good knowledge of e-learning methodology, Instructional Design theories, models and applications
  
• Experience managing technical content creation in an Enterprise XML Authoring Environment
  
• Must have proven experience in designing advanced schema definitions (restrictions, typing, external references, etc.) and XML transformation (XSLT/XQuery).
  
• Good knowledge and experience in creating content based on e-learning Standards such as SCORM, QTI, MathML and QML
  
• Excellent conceptualization, analytical, and logic skills enabling comprehension and development of complex technical and business issues, topics, and plans
  
• Ability to manage short-, medium-, and long-term planning horizons concurrently
  
• Ability to understand and relate product technology, strategy and direction with business needs
  
• Leader and role model comfortable working as an individual contributor and as a member of a team, across diverse organizations
  
• Ability to work independently and coordinate with multiple stakeholders to define solutions.
  
• Excellent communications skills, with the ability to work with business users as well as other members of the technical staff.
  
• Ability to partner with senior developers and to mentor junior developers
  
• Experience with large-scale production systems (i.e. scalability, high-availability), with the ability to optimize architecture and implementation across all layers of architecture
  
• Technical knowledge of XML, XMLSchema and DTDs, XSLT/XQuery/XPath, JavaScript, Web services
  

Additional:

• Experience with XML editing tools and DTD definitions
  Experienced with a wide range of technologies and standards, and experienced selecting the
• appropriate approaches for each application
  

Salary/Benefits: > $100,000
Full time employees enjoy these outstanding benefits:
*401(k) plan
*Comprehensive health, dental and short term disability & long
term disability plans
*Business casual dress code
*Sick days, personal days, holidays, and vacation days
*A friendly, team oriented environment

Job Location: New York, NY

Job Number: 10599BR

Company URL: http://www.kaplan.com

Company Profile:
Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions (www.kaptest.com), a division of Kaplan, Inc., is a premier provider of educational and career services for individuals, schools and businesses. Established in 1938, Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions is the world leader in the test prep industry and has served millions of students in nearly 70 years. With 3,000 classroom locations worldwide, a comprehensive menu of online offerings and a complete array of books and software, and private tutoring options, Kaplan offers preparation for more than 60 standardized tests in the U.S. and the U.K., including entrance exams for secondary school, college and graduate school, as well as English language and professional licensing exams. Kaplan also provides college and graduate admissions consulting services, as well as after-school learning programs for K-10 students through its SCORE! centers. Additionally, the division's K12 Learning Services unit is a leading nationwide provider of a broad range of academic intervention and support programs for school districts seeking to meet the demands of No Child Left Behind (NCLB).