Rob Kaufman is Hyrax and Hyku Technology Coordinator for 2026

We’re excited to welcome Rob Kaufman to the new role of Technical Coordinator for the Hyrax and Hyku platforms. This role provides essential technical leadership and coordination at a moment when many institutions are facing funding constraints, and reliance on Hyrax and Hyku infrastructure continues to grow.

Rob brings more than 22 years of development experience and a proven leadership track record. He is the former head of Notch8 and prior to this role served as the Hyku Technical Lead. His deep knowledge of Samvera’s ecosystem, combined with long-standing relationships across the community, uniquely positions him to help us strengthen technical continuity today while building sustainable processes for the future.

What Technical Coordination Will Do for Hyku and Hyrax

Hyrax and Hyku are critical infrastructure for many institutions. They support repositories, preservation, access, and discovery services that our organizations depend on every day. At the same time, institutional funding cuts have reduced the capacity of individual teams to carry coordination, maintenance, and strategic alignment on their own.

The Technical Coordinator role is contracted for 20 hours per month and designed to multiply community capacity by providing high-impact coordination, shared visibility, and continuity across projects so that no single institution has to carry this work alone.

Technical Coordinator Priorities & their Value to Hyrax and Hyku Institutions

1. Technical Triage & Support - 6 hours/month

Value to institutions: Your teams get expert guidance without hiring additional staff. Questions are answered more quickly, reducing blockers during implementation and upgrades.

2. Maintenance Coordination - 5 hours/month

Value to institutions: Proactive coordination helps prevent crisis situations. Shared planning reduces duplicated effort and makes better use of limited developer time across institutions.

3. Community Process & Communication - 4 hours/month

Value to institutions: Developers spend less time navigating processes and more time doing productive work. New contributors and staff onboard faster and more confidently.

4. Strategic Planning & Alignment - 3 hours/month

Value to institutions: You gain clearer insight into where the community is headed and how to align your local roadmap with shared priorities.

5. Documentation & Reporting - 2 hours/month

Value to institutions: Improved visibility into project health supports long-term planning and helps justify continued institutional investment.

What This Role Cannot Do (Given Current Constraints)

This role is scoped at 20 hours per month, and it does not include:

• Extensive hands-on development work

• Comprehensive documentation or training creation

• Detailed accessibility testing

• Ongoing community website maintenance beyond critical fixes

• Large-scale mentorship programs

These are all areas where the community could grow as funding stabilizes. The current focus is on high-impact coordination work that multiplies the effectiveness of community contributions.

Funding Shared Staffing for our Shared Responsibilities

This role exists because the Samvera Community recognizes that shared infrastructure requires shared staffing.

To sustain this position beyond 2026 and to further expand it to incorporate priorities like training and documentation, everyone who relies on Hyrax and Hyku for critical infrastructure must contribute to support this shared work. No single institution can carry this work alone. Shared funding enables shared leadership, reduces burnout, and protects the long-term health of the software we all depend on.

Supporting Samvera is not just an investment in code but in people, coordination, and continuity. We’ll have more information available in the coming weeks about how to support Samvera through financial contribution and Partnership.

We are grateful to Rob for stepping into this role. Please join us in welcoming Rob as Samvera’s Technical Coordinator, and in committing together to the shared responsibility that makes this work possible.

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