Director of Technology for Social Impact Design Firm (Remote)

Constructive, a leading social impact design firm based primarily in New York City and operating with a distributed US-based remote workforce, is searching for a new Director of Technology to help lead the growth and innovation of our thriving digital practice.

If you are a strategic and creative technologist with a leadership mindset that is hungry to collaborate with a close-knit team of senior strategic and creative experts to push boundaries, then we’d love to hear from you. And if you care deeply about the mark on the world you leave and share our deep commitment to making a positive impact on issues like climate change, social justice, healthcare, and education, then we think you’d love working with us and our clients.

A Bit About Us Constructive is a leading boutique brand strategy and experience design firm. For 20 years, we’ve partnered with organizations at the forefront of social change to envision and create brand experiences that help make progress towards overcoming the world’s most important challenges.

Constructive has a culture of ongoing reflection and improvement, and our team is united by core values: Start With Why, Stand for What’s Right, Have Empathy, Keep Learning, Maintain High Standards, and Put the Team First. We are also deeply committed to producing exceptional work, which you can explore here.

A Bit About the Role Constructive Directors are leaders and teachers who operate at the highest level, shaping the direction of their practice area, their team, and our company. They oversee the work of their team and play a hands-on role working with clients on our most important projects. As a Director, you will also be a key member of our Leadership Team, collaborating with other Directors and our founder to improve process and best practices, evaluate new business opportunities, and pitch new business.

We’re looking for one outstanding individual who loves a big challenge, is a collaborative problem solver, and who has a deep love for to creating exceptional, high-performing web experiences that make the world a better place.

What Your Key Responsibilities Will Be

• Lead a team of motivated developers by detailing roadmaps for their projects, supporting execution of their work, and guiding their professional development by teaching new concepts and best practices.
• Act as Constructive’s chief technical expert for our active digital project catalog.
• Conceptualize software development approaches and define execution plans for new website projects and existing projects.
• Develop software for internal projects and tooling and support hands-on development when expertise level or delivery/capacity demands call for it.
• Actively participate in business development—assessing opportunities, representing our technical expertise, scoping &estimating projects, contributing ideas to proposals, and pitching.
• Build the talent pool for our development practice, evaluating job applicants and auditing external partners to support company growth and expand development team capabilities.
• Oversee the work of external development partners to help conceptualize and oversee system enhancements and ensure quality standards, both in WordPress and Drupal.
• Co-design and implement internal processes and practices with Constructive’s leadership team that help us work smarter, faster, more profitably, and with ever-greater satisfaction.
• Work closely with the Director of Projects to forecast development needs and scheduling, outline project tasks, timeline and resources, identify risks or potential blockers and provide solutions.
• Partner with our UX and Design team to make the design/development process collaborative, efficient, and effective—strategizing approaches to common tasks and creating reusable components and libraries to reduce or eliminate redundant work.
• Live and lead our company culture and values by actively participating in team discussions, offer ideas for improvements and enhancements to all aspects of company operations, and assist in the inclusion of every staff member’s opinions and ideas, as well.
• Develop thought leadership such as articles and webinars, and attend events to strengthens Constructive position as a premium social justice design agency.
• Proactively “manage up” to Constructive’s Founder &Executive Director, elevating development team needs and technology-related opportunities, and discussing goals and initiatives

The Skills &Experience We’re Looking For

• 10+ years experience developing web software with deep expertise in architecting and building large, complex, and content/data-heavy open source websites.
• 5+ years of WordPress experience: in-depth knowledge of the underlying library and framework, the platform’s capabilities for backend customizations, extensions and overrides, and expertise introduce new custom functionality into the WordPress administration environment.
• 5+ years of managerial experience overseeing an in-house software development team, and additional experience overseeing external development teams.
• Deep expertise in PHP development including Object Oriented Programming, SOLID design principles, continuous integration and delivery, and testing automation.
• A deep focus on the user experience particularly through high-polish, exceptional front-end work that brings the vision of an organization’s brand to life online.
• Extremely strong communication skills and a collaborative spirit. You will be the voice of Constructive’s technology and team culture, both internally and externally.

Nice to Haves

• Accessibility expertise, specifically meeting WCAG compliance standards.
• Strong Drupal knowledge
• Experience with Salesforce integration
• Experience creating external libraries that act as pluggable feature libraries for WordPress to reduce development efforts for common requests.
• Preferably an East Coast/Central Time Zone so that you don’t have to be up so early.

Constructive’s Commitment to Diversity &Inclusion

Constructive is a diverse team and we believe strongly that diversity is one of our greatest strengths. The more perspectives we bring to the mix, the better we are as people and the better partner we are for our clients in advancing social good. When considering if Constructive is a good fit for you, know that all we care about is that you’re qualified to do the job, share our values, and want to be part of our team. These are the things we evaluate for every applicant. If you’re a fit there and also add to our diversity, we literally couldn’t be any happier.

What We Have to Offer Constructive is built on a strong, values-driven culture. While our expectations and standards are very high, we also prize work-life balance. Our compensation is a combination of competitive salary and a robust list of benefits and perks. Here are the additional primary benefits that come along with base salary:

• 401K plan with 4% company match
• Defined Profit Sharing Plan
• Health Insurance, Dental, and Vision
• 2 weeks paid vacation (+1 vacation day each year 3 weeks max)
• Paid week off between Christmas Eve &New Year’s
• 1 week paid personal/sick days
• Half-day Summer Fridays (~16)
• Flexible work schedules
• Home office snacks &supplies stipend
• Professional development stipend
• New client bonus (2.5% of largest contract in year 1 for any non-inbound client)
• The feeling of satisfaction from working with a team that helps make the world a better place

Interested? Great! Then please send an email titled “Director of Technology” to jobs@constructive.co with the following:

• Your résumé or CV
• A cover letter telling us a bit about yourself and why you’re interested in working with Constructive (applications without cover letters will not be considered).
• Answers to the following questions:
• What values drive you and how do they influence your work?
• What’s your approach to collaborating and communicating with non-technical clients?
• What do you like to do when you are not working?
• Links to your own website, websites you’ve worked on, github, whatever
• Desired compensation