Description
The Brand Experience team within VP Communications & Community Engagement is currently seeking a Full-time Staff Limited Term Senior Specialist, Content Operations & Projects for approximately 1 year.
We're seeking a collaborative, systems-minded Sr. Specialist, Content Operations & Projects to bring structure and momentum to our growing Digital Content Team. This role reports to the Manager, Digital Content and focuses on improving how we plan, design and deliver content by combining operational leadership with practical experience in content, UX, or design. This role will bring the discipline of agile to content design¿so we spend less time figuring out how to work, and more time focused on what to create.
Applying a blend of agile and traditional project methodologies, you'll keep the team aligned with its roadmap while balancing day-to-day operational needs. You'll coordinate people, processes, and tools to streamline, automate, and improve how content is managed across its lifecycle. This includes designing and managing intake workflows and systems that support quality assurance and ensure efficient deployment. You'll create and maintain documentation, support the consistent application of standards, and monitor performance to drive continuous improvement. Through structured collaboration, clear communication and scalable systems, you'll enable the team to work more efficiently and deliver greater impact.
The primary purpose of this position is to lead the operational infrastructure that enables the Digital Content Team and our partners across the organization to work efficiently, consistently and collaboratively. This role focuses on designing and managing the workflows, tools, and processes that support content planning, production, quality assurance and deployment. By managing intake, tracking work, facilitating cross-functional collaboration, conducting quality assurance and overseeing operational tools, the Sr. Content Operations Specialist ensures that content moves smoothly through its lifecycle and aligns with institutional priorities. This person supports the team with the management of complex projects and initiatives, scoping work and resourcing, and determining the right approach. This position plays a critical role in enabling scalable, high-quality delivery across a broad digital ecosystem.
Summary of Key Responsibilities (job functions include but are not limited to):
Agile, waterfall and hybrid delivery (40%)
- Use waterfall-style project planning at the beginning of an initiative to define scope, timelines, deliverables, roles, and stakeholder expectations.
- Break work down into sprints for delivery, enabling iterative progress, flexibility, and incremental delivery of value.
- Develop and manage detailed project plans (when appropriate) tracking progress against key milestones, budgets, and resource allocations.
- Write clear user stories and actionable tickets that support task execution, cross-team alignment, and effective sprint planning.
- Lead backlog grooming across initiatives to keep tasks prioritized, estimated, and aligned with evolving strategic goals.
- Develop, manage, and report on roadmaps in coordination with digital, IT, and cross-functional partners.
- Identify dependencies, assess risks, and establish escalation paths to support proactive project and stakeholder management.
Workflow integration and process efficiency (40%)
- Design and document scalable workflows that guide how content is requested, created, reviewed, approved, published, and maintained across its full lifecycle.
- Develop and refine operational processes to reduce manual effort, improve consistency, and ensure content moves efficiently through each phase.
- Define responsibilities and approval paths to clarify ownership, reduce bottlenecks, and ensure accountability.
- Monitor and analyze content performance and process efficiency, using insights to support continuous improvement and iteration.
- Ensure workflows are well-integrated with tools such as Asana, Jira, SharePoint, and publishing platforms, enabling traceability and visibility.
- Explore opportunities to integrate AI and other tools into intake, content quality checks, and performance monitoring to increase efficiency and scalability.
Communications and collaboration (20%)
- Support team meetings as needed, including design reviews, retrospectives, workshops, sprint planning, and team retreats.
- Collaborate across teams¿content, UX, development, governance, and digital operations¿to align workflows with broader systems and digital strategy.
- Coordinate meetings and working sessions for communities of practice, governance councils, and other stakeholder groups.
- Draft and manage communications such as meeting notifications, updates, and announcements for internal and external stakeholders.
- Maintain and evolve documentation, onboarding guides, and training materials to support long-term sustainability and knowledge sharing.
- Ensure communication tools (e.g. Teams, SharePoint, Slack, Confluence) are organized, accessible, and support efficient information flow.
Qualifications / Requirements:
- 5-7 years of experience in design, content, UX, content operations, design operations or digital transformation.
- Strong understanding of agile and hybrid delivery models, including sprint planning and backlog grooming.
- Proven ability to manage enterprise-wide projects and initiatives with significant stakeholder engagement and change management implications as well as dependencies with cross-functional teams.
- Proven ability to design, document, and improve workflows for intake, quality assurance and
- Solid understanding of content strategy, content design, UX design and/or design systems.
- Skilled in tools such as Asana, Jira, SharePoint, and other workflow or documentation platforms.
- Experience writing user stories, managing tickets, test plans and maintaining operational documentation.
- Ability to manage intake channels, triage requests, and coordinate cross-functional work including user acceptance testing.
- Ability to design processes that content lifecycle management and quality assurance across complex
- Strong communication and facilitation skills with experience leading meetings, workshops, and collaborative planning sessions.
- Knowledge of AI for content workflow automation including prompt engineering and AI training.
Application Deadline: August 25, 2025.
We would like to thank all applicants in advance for submitting their resumes. Please note, only those candidates chosen to continue on through the selection process will be contacted.
This position is part of the AUPE bargaining unit, and falls under the Technical Job Family, Phase 3.
For a listing of all management and staff opportunities at the University of Calgary, view our Management and Staff Careers website.
About the University of Calgary
UCalgary is Canada's entrepreneurial university, located in Canada's most enterprising city. It is a top research university and one of the highest-ranked universities of its age. Founded in 1966, its 36,000 students experience an innovative learning environment, made rich by research, hands-on experiences and entrepreneurial thinking. It is Canada's leader in the creation of start-ups. Start something today at the University of Calgary. For more information, visit ucalgary.ca.
The University of Calgary has launched an institution-wide Indigenous Strategy committing to creating a rich, vibrant, and culturally competent campus that welcomes and supports Indigenous Peoples, encourages Indigenous community partnerships, is inclusive of Indigenous perspectives in all that we do.
As an equitable and inclusive employer, the University of Calgary recognizes that a diverse staff/faculty benefits and enriches the work, learning and research experiences of the entire campus and greater community. We are committed to removing barriers that have been historically encountered by some people in our society. We strive to recruit individuals who will further enhance our diversity and will support their academic and professional success while they are here. In particular, we encourage members of the designated groups (women, Indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities, members of visible/racialized minorities, and diverse sexual orientation and gender identities) to apply. To ensure a fair and equitable assessment, we offer accommodation at any stage during the recruitment process to applicants with disabilities. Questions regarding [diversity] EDI at UCalgary can be sent to the Office of Institutional Commitments (equity@ucalgary.ca) and requests for accommodations can be sent to Human Resources (hrhire@ucalgary.ca).
Do you have most but not all the qualifications? Research show that women, racialized and visible minorities, and persons with disabilities are less likely to apply for jobs unless they meet every single qualification. At UCalgary we are committed to achieving equitable, diverse, inclusive and accessible employment practices and workplaces and encourage you to apply if you believe you are right for this role.
We encourage all qualified applicants to apply, however preference will be given to Canadian citizens and permanent residents of Canada.
