The Director, Web Applications Development will be responsible for leading the engineering teams responsible for National Geographic Soceity’s digital products, including ngs.org. This new team member will help us further the Society’s mission by implementing engaging experiences to tell the story of the Society’s work and causes, as well as tools to deliver the mission itself through enabling our Explorers and Educators to help create a planet in balance.
- Lead the engineering development efforts for National Geographic Society digital products.
- Oversee the work of multiple development teams / pods / scrums, both on-shore and off-shore.
- Provide extensive technical and architectural leadership and direction.
- Collaborate with product management and development teams to identify and translate functional and non-functional requirements into user stories needed by engineering, QA, and operational staff.
- Work closely with partners to implement extraordinary programs of vast scope and scale.
- Analyze and select vendors and platforms to address a variety of business and technical needs.
- Work with product management to promote agile development best practices across cross-functional teams.
- Participate in planning processes to develop an annual product roadmap, in support of the product strategy and reflective of the goals, as well as objectives and core milestones of the business.
Minimum Years and Type of Experience
- 7+ years’ experience in software engineering, enterprise software architecture and team leadership of digital products.
Knowledge and Skills Required
- Leadership of on- and off-site teams to develop and launch excellent technical products.
- Collaboration with management, product management, producers, QA, operations and others to participate in all phases of the SDLC.
- Strong understanding of web architectural principles and best practices (including design patterns, code management, continuous integration, automated testing, constant or near-constant deployment, etc, etc, etc).
- Familiar with major web application servers, database platforms, operating systems, etc.
- Experience building highly interactive, media-intense platforms and web experiences.
- Experience with agile software development methodology and related tools (ex. Jira).
- Demonstrated success building highly scalable web products, including the use of cloud platforms like Amazon AWS or Google Cloud Platform.
- Adept in design and implementation of data integrations and migrations ranging from scripted periodic data feeds to the use of ETL frameworks to real-time API integrations.
- Background in building i18n, l10n, CRM-driven websites.
- Design expertise in internal and public-facing API frameworks.
- Extensive experience with the Python/Django framework.
- Understanding of web client delivery technologies, including major Javascript frameworks and their comparative strengths.
- Experience with mobile application development.
- Understanding of responsive layout and design principles.
- Mindful of security best practices and pitfalls.
- Demonstrated ability to troubleshoot issues across all layers of the stack.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills; able to converse effectively with both technical and non-technical audiences.
- Proven ability to influence cross-functional teams without formal authority.
- Major plusses: Experience with geographic visualization and cartographic tools.
- Other plusses: Experience with Salesforce, Learning Management Systems (LMS), online community platforms.
National Geographic's headquarters is located in the heart of Washington, D.C. In addition to a unique and dynamic work environment, National Geographic offers its employees a comprehensive benefits package, including health and dental benefits, generous vacation and leave time, a 401(k) plan, and flexible work options. National Geographic is an Equal Opportunity Employer