Ventus Consultant (PHP & Symfony)

University’s Education Technology team seeks a Ventus Technical Consultant to augment existing staff and deliver targeted upgrades and enhancements to Ventus, the university’s centralized management system for coordinating and communicating academic accommodations for students with disabilities. Ventus supports classroom and assessment accommodations, integrates with institutional processes and data (including final exam scheduling via SOLUS/PeopleSoft SIS/ERP), and is relied upon by students, instructors, Queen’s Student Accessibility Services, and other campus partners.
This engagement focuses on delivering functionality that improves exam scheduling accuracy, reduces administrative workload, and lessens student confusion during the final exam period, and modernizing the platform stack, strengthening security and reliability. The Ventus platform’s underlying application framework (e.g., Symfony) and runtime (e.g., PHP) are out of date, with several dependencies near or beyond end-of-life (EoL). 
Working alongside Education Technology leadership, an Internal Developer (for permissions/onboarding), a Business Analyst, and Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) from Exams and Student Accessibility Services (QSAS), the consultant will lead technical upgrades, environment administration, secure deployments, non-production refreshes, and the design and implementation of Ventus features that address time/timing accommodations and rooming workflows. The consultant will also collaborate with central IT/Infrastructure/Security teams and product vendors as needed.
Under the direction of the Manager, Education Technology, the consultant will:
•     Provide technical leadership and hands-on expertise to deliver feature improvements tied to business outcomes and upgrade Ventus (framework, runtime, and dependencies).
Collaborate with an Internal Developer, Business Analyst, and QSAS/Exams SMEs to analyze requirements, design solutions, implement and test changes, and manage secure, low-risk deployments.
Implement and manage IT Service Delivery and DevSecOps practices (patching, vulnerability management, testing, CI/CD, and DR) for the Ventus ecosystem.
The role requires strong interest-holder engagement, product/feature delivery skills, architectural rigor, and operational experience to ensure Ventus is modern, secure, performant, and aligned with accessibility and privacy standards.

1. DELIVERABLES AND OBJECTIVES
   1. PROJECT OBJECTIVES

The Project includes but may not be limited to:

1. Business Functionality Enhancements
   1. Exam Schedule Visibility & Publishing Controls o      Implement an admin-controlled “publish/unpublish” workflow so students do not see evolving final exam schedules until finalized.
      • Provide configurable placeholder messaging to students when schedules are unpublished (e.g., “Your final exam schedule will be available on {DATE}”).
      • Acceptance Criteria (high level): 
        • Schedule visibility toggle at term/period and/or cohort granularity (TBD).
        • Student view shows single source of truth only when published.
        • Audit logs for publish events (who/when/what).
   2. Assessment Details Import for Final Exams o           Design and implement an import integration from the Exam Request Form (currently not connected to SOLUS/Ventus) to pre-populate assessment details (instructor contact, permissions, special instructions).
      • Acceptance Criteria: 
        • Validations and mapping to Ventus data model; error handling/reporting for incomplete/invalid rows.
        • Admin review/override UI prior to commit (TBD).
        • Provenance and change history captured.
   3. Expanded Time & Timing Accommodation Logic o    Extend scheduling engine to honor all time/timing-related accommodations, such as: “no more than one exam per day,” “no morning exams,” “no evening exams,” minimum gaps between exams, etc.
      • Acceptance Criteria: 
        • Constraint-aware scheduling with conflict detection and operator guidance.
        • Scenario simulation and what-if adjustments.
        • Documented edge cases and resolution workflow.
   4. Granular Auto-Rooming & Room Controls o            Add admin features to: 
      • • Block rooms globally or for specific dates/ranges (avoid double-booking).
        • Block automatic seating for certain students/exams.
        • Define exam types (e.g., paper-based, online in-person) and tie them to rooming rules so online in-person assessments route to suitable rooms.
        • Set room fill order and override priorities while preserving accommodation needs.
      • Acceptance Criteria: 
        • Configurable rules engine with audit trails of automated and manual assignments.
        • Constraint validation with user-friendly exception messaging.
2. Technical Modernization & Operations
   1. Dependency Modernization
      • Upgrade PHP, Symfony, and third-party libraries to supported versions; replace/retire deprecated packages; ensure composer.lock health and reproducibility.
      • Update build pipelines, base containers/images, and runtime configuration.
   2. Secure SDLC & Observability o      Introduce/strengthen SAST/DAST (tooling TBD), code quality metrics, and test automation coverage.
      • Implement centralized logging and metrics/alerts with runbooks.
   3. Performance, Scalability & DR o    Load/perf tests around peak periods (schedule publication, batch rooming, exam days).
      • Tune DB indices/queries, cache strategy, and job/queue throughput. o     Define RPO/RTO targets (TBD) and validate via DR drills.

1. 1. RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE ROLE

The Ventus Technical Consultant will perform, but not be limited to, the following responsibilities:
Environment Administration
Manage and maintain web/app servers (PHP runtime), framework (Symfony), job/queue services, and file/object storage used by Ventus.
Monitor performance and availability; implement observability (logging, metrics, alerting) to ensure reliability during peak periods (e.g., exam blocks).

• Enforce security hardening and best practices across all environments (dev/test/prod). Patching and Vulnerability Management
• Establish and execute a patch and dependency management strategy for PHP, Symfony, libraries, OS packages, and container/base images (where applicable).
• Conduct regular vulnerability assessments and remediations; track findings to closure.
• Align with university security standards; maintain records of patch cycles and outcomes.

Non-Production Environment Refreshes

• Plan and execute periodic dev/test/QA refreshes to maintain production fidelity.
• Orchestrate data extraction and anonymization/pseudonymization as required.
• Validate environment integrity and application functionality post-refresh.

Code Migrations / Deployments

• Define branching, promotion, and CI/CD pipelines for dev ? prev (test) ? prod.
• Enforce quality gates (automated tests, peer review, SAST/DAST as applicable).
• Troubleshoot and resolve migration/deployment issues. Framework/Runtime Upgrades (Symfony/PHP)
• Assess current versions and dependencies; propose a target upgrade path to modern LTS versions (Target Versions TBD in discovery).
• Refactor/rewrite deprecated components; update configuration, bundles, and integrations.
• Execute test plans (unit/integration/regression), performance testing, and post-upgrade stabilization.

Database Administration

• Manage and optimize the Ventus relational database (MySQL).
• Perform backups, indexing, query tuning, and scheduled maintenance.
• Define and test backup/restore and disaster recovery (DR) procedures (e.g., hot/warm standby or snapshot-based recovery), with periodic DR drills.

Security, Privacy & Accessibility

• Embed security-by-design (least privilege, secrets management, secure coding).
• Ensure compliance with AODA/WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility standards in UI changes (details TBD with QSAS).