Frontend Developer

Description

The Digital Public Library of America seeks a part-time Frontend Developer to support ongoing work on DPLA public-facing Web applications.

We are seeking a curious and enthusiastic individual who recognizes both their technical strengths and areas for growth, who can help us work effectively to further DPLA’s mission to empower people to learn, grow, and contribute to a diverse and better-functioning society by maximizing access to our shared history, culture, and knowledge. A belief in this mission, and the drive to accomplish it over time in a collaborative spirit within and beyond the organization, is essential.

Responsibilities

Reporting to the Director of Technology, the Developer:

• Builds out functionality on the DPLA website and internal tools, including tools related to search, content management, and community engagement
• Customizes and deploys open source software to suit organizational needs
• Performs other duties related to front-end development and participates in special projects as assigned

As a member of the DPLA technology team, the Developer:

• Contributes to design, development, testing, integration, support, and documentation of user-facing applications and back-end systems
• Supports content management policies, process, and workflows, and contributes to the development of new ones
• Maintains knowledge of emerging technologies to support the DPLA’s evolving services
• Embodies and promotes the philosophy of open source, shared, and community-built software and technologies

Requirements

• 2+ years professional experience in software development or a related discipline
• A proven ability to build websites and web applications targeted at the general public and that operate at public scale
• Experience with server and client webapp languages such as Ruby, Python, and Javascript and associated frameworks
• Ability to build user-centric, accessible websites that conform to responsive design principles and work across a variety of devices
• A passion for writing clean, performant, and testable code
• Understanding of the importance of continuous integration, automated testing and deployments, and static analysis of code quality
• Demonstrated experience working effectively in a team environment and the ability to interact well with stakeholders.
• Desire and enthusiasm about learning new toolsets, programming languages, or methods to support software development.

Preferred Qualifications

• A history of collaboration with open source projects
• Knowledge of client-side JS frameworks, particularly Next.js/React
• A history of work with data-centric applications and search-oriented architecture
• A successful history of working effectively in a geographically-distributed organization

Nice to Have

• Advanced knowledge of modern Javascript/Typescript
• Experience working with or in a library, museum, archive or other cultural heritage organization
• Experience working with multiple formats such as audio, video, ebooks, and newspapers in the browser environment

This position is part-time. DPLA is a geographically distributed organization.