Culture and benefits at USC ICT - Learning Sciences Group

Our primary culture is continual improvement. Research breakthroughs and software technologies both change quickly, and it is common to find and shift to new approaches during the course of a single project. Particularly in a small to mid sized team, this means that we are often learning new approaches, supporting others on the team to learn them, and forming new templates that inform the next projects. These happen for the AI modules, the UI frameworks, the testing code, the IaaS, the agile development cycle, etc. Due to our goals to help on low-resource or underserved groups, we also need to build new technology for problems that were otherwise ignored (e.g., an personalized learning recommender that can work offline or online). At a team level, everyone is invested in helping their colleagues make to the next level of their skills, career, and quality of life. If you're an intern going onto the job market in 3 months, we'll try to make sure you are building in-demand skills. If you want to improve your with speaking in groups, we'll try to help you get the opportunities to build that skill. For a researcher like a postdoc, we're tracking that you get the contributions and time to publish your work. If you're a senior developer, we'll give you the autonomy and support you need to lead complex projects that are innovative and reliable, rather than having to regularly put out fires. The result is that the whole team is constantly growing, making better technology while also helping everyone build toward the next level.