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Why Innovation at Discover?

The Innovation Associate is part of the Innovation Office within the Business Technology organization and reports to the Head of Innovation, and works closely with the Innovation Office team. This role supports the Innovation Office’s initiatives in ARVRMR technology, industry assessments and experimentation with the ability to expand into other emerging technologies (ex. blockchain, artificial intelligence, internet of things, authentication). The role will obtain an understanding of Discover business needs and the strategic direction of the Business Technology organization, the Innovation Office, and the emerging technology marketplace. The Innovation Associate will provide support in maintaining effective collaboration across the internal- and external-innovation ecosystem and will contribute to the development of the ARVRMR experiments, understand and contribution to architectural discussions and tool assessments while supporting internal and external Innovation Office resources.

As Discover formulates and deploys the key strategies for continued growth and success of the company, we see a huge opportunity to extend and enhance the impact of key individuals in the area of emerging technology. Specifically, the development of Augmented / Virtual / Mixed Reality (AR/VR/MR) expertise, with the associated expectations and opportunities, is an ideal strategy that will produce significant results for Discover Financial Services (DFS), our team and our customers.

We are looking for an entry level associate who is passionate about unlocking AR/VR/MR to support all the verticals in our business at Discover (Card/Network/Bank/Analytics). You must enjoy working with a team in an intrapreneurial environment, influencing long-term direction of our solutions while working with a similar minded group of people.

The Innovation Associate will have responsibility for influencing the overall growth and performance of this Innovation Office area of focus. This includes contributing to the development of strategies, heavily leveraging the core internal services and philosophies of Discover that drive product development, marketing, recruiting, and execution

Responsibilities:

• Contribute to the AR/VR/MR roadmap/vision for the Innovation Office
• Hands on development of proof of concepts leveraging AR/VR/MR technologies
• Work with internal stakeholders from various business units to understand business problems and help design AR/VR/MR product use cases that align with their goals and objectives
• Work closely with external vendors and team members to help deliver, architect and design products and prototypes
• Maintain working knowledge of augmented and virtual reality software, hardware, and development tools, as well as latest trends in ARVRMR market through third party events and industry research
• Support general AR/VR/MR product strategies through coordinated events to showcase work, network relationships and promotion of AR/VR/MR cases within Discover
• Contribute to key strategic partnerships and relationships internal and external to Discover to help advance the AR/VR/MR roadmap
• Leverage technical expertise to support areas of emerging technology and front end development above and beyond the AR/VR/MR focus
• Prepares and installs solutions. Determines and designs system specifications, standards, and programs. Performs system analyses and recommends changes to policies and procedures.
• Determines operational feasibility by evaluating analyses, problem definitions, requirements, solution developments, and proposed solutions. Documents and demonstrates solutions by developing documentation, flowcharts, layouts, diagrams, charts, code comments, and clear codes.
• Obtains and licenses software. Tests and approves vendor products.
• Responsible for developing information systems. Designs, develops, and implements software solutions

• The internal Innovation team includes:
  • Business and Business Technology stakeholders, through the Innovation Council and through a broader network of business and BT colleagues
  • Innovation Team members

The external parties will (possibly) include:

• External consulting resources (market data, industry information, etc)
• Startups/entrepreneurs
• Universities
• Public institutions
• Research & development institutes
• Peer companies
• Customers

Minimum Qualifications

At a minimum, here’s what we need from you:

• Bachelor’s Degree
• 1+ years of experience in computer security, engineering, software development, or related field
• In lieu of a degree, 4+ years of experience in computer security, engineering, software development, or related field

If we had our say, we’d also look for:

• Passion and deep interest in AR/VR/MR technology and trends, follows latest trends in emerging tech for hardware, software and developer tools
• Experience in using industry standard AR/VR development tools and SDKs
• Unity, Vuforia, Apple AR Kit, Google ARCore, WebVR
• Experience with web front-end user interface development javascript libraries such as React, Angular or Vuejs
• Experience with middle tier and back-end technologies such as nodejs and java/spring is a plus
• Skilled in the use of AR/VR hardware such as Microsoft Hololens, Oculus, Google Daydream, Magic Leap. Comfortable demonstrating AR/VR applications and participating in internal and external demo days which showcase the use of the technology
• Interest in continued growth of technical expertise to support other areas of emerging technology above and beyond AR/VR/MR
• Proficient in MS Office (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint), general office products and bonus points for the following:- Familiar with cloud-based IaaS and PaaS solutions (AWS, Google Cloud, Cloud Foundry-Comfortable with modern file sharing and remote team working solutions; including remote demos of devices
• Analytical, interpersonal skills, with clear and confident verbal and written communication skills
• Presentation skills, capable of effectively presenting to all levels in the organization on AR/VR/MR trends and proof of concepts/prototypes
• Highly organized, capable of effectively managing competing priorities, and delivering results
• Self-sufficient, highly motivated and extremely focused to work in an unstructured intrapreneurial team environment

Discover Financial Services is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, protected veteran status, among other things, or as a qualified individual with a disability.