Principal Rails Developer

Title: Principal Rails Developer

Reports to: Intelligence Director (Intel & Metrics)

Position type, duration: Full-Time

Location: Remote, US

Exempt or Non-Exempt (Salaried or Hourly): Exempt

Compensation Range: $90k-$110k

Benefits: paid vacation, paid personal days, paid sick days, paid holidays, health benefits, access to 401k plan, flexible work week

Applications due: Sunday, January 17, 2021

Interviews: First 2 weeks in February 2021

Start Date: March 1, 2021

The Solutions Journalism Network, a growing national non-profit organization, is catalyzing critical reporting about responses to social problems. Solutions journalism provides a framework, grounded in journalistic ethics and informed by today’s professional challenges, that enables journalists to cover society more comprehensively, revealing possibilities for civic agency and connection.

 

In SJN’s seven years, solutions journalism has become a credible reporting practice recognized for driving meaningful impact in society.  Over 14,000 journalists have been exposed to our curriculum. More than 400 news organizations have engaged SJN to produce staff workshops, develop reporting projects, and consult on audience or community engagement activities.

Our web platform is central to our curriculum, network-building, and dissemination strategies. We have a searchable database of over 10,000 examples of solutions journalism from hundreds of news organizations (Solutions Story Tracker: https://storytracker.solutionsjournalism.org/). We also have a suite of online courses to train journalists and educators in solutions reporting (Learning Lab: https://learninglab.solutionsjournalism.org/).

Under the hood, we have a minimal stack comprised of a Ruby on Rails application (Rails 4; jQuery/SASS) with a PostgresSQL database, deployed via Heroku. We also utilize a few auxiliary services: AWS S3 for file uploads, Cloudinary for image hosting, Solr for search, Scout for system monitoring and Airbrake for exception monitoring. The application has a few other minor integrations as well, including with Google Analytics, Salesforce, Mailchimp, Click & Pledge, and Rebrandly.

We’re at a point now where iterative testing has become part of our DNA. We are constantly improving our online products, launching new features or initiatives, and exploring new technologies to reach our core audiences of journalists, educators, other social impact organizations and networks, and a general audience of news consumers. We need a developer who can dream with us, building upon our existing web infrastructure.

We’re looking for an experienced, entrepreneurial Rails developer to serve as the key strategic leader for envisioning our website strategy. This is a vital operational role and a position requiring thoughtful decision-making and leadership.

As the sole developer on staff, the Principal Developer will work within the Data, Intel & Analysis team, reporting to the Intelligence Director. They will work closely with the Director of Data Governance + Analysis, Operations Associates, the Database Manager and Data Architect to oversee, scale and improve SJN’s online infrastructure. 

The Principal Developer will also be responsible for building relationships with program/product managers across the entirety of the organization: to scope and prototype new features, to identify areas for improvement, and to design and lead projects of their own. 

The goal of this role? To ensure that SJN’s website (including our various online tools, resources, and larger products) continues to accurately represent the entirety of our work, engage our key audiences, and creatively explore new ways of connecting and communicating our mission.

You will play a key, central role within our operations team, and as the sole developer on staff, you will have daily support from and interaction with your colleagues in related administrative and data-related roles. More broadly, we envision you as an active member of the SJN team, building relationships across all sectors of the organization to inform your work.

Does this sound like your calling? We hope so: We’re an energetic, ambitious, and fun bunch, and we want great people to join us. We need folks who know how to solve problems, with an appetite for experimentation and an appreciation for ambiguity. 

Diversity and inclusion at SJN means a workplace where individual differences are recognized, appreciated, respected and responded to in ways that fully develop and utilize each person’s talents and strengths. Diversity of perspective, identity, and experience is important to us: We want to reflect and serve the whole of society. As a result we encourage applicants from diverse backgrounds to seek employment, and we make all employment decisions without regard to race, age, gender, sexual orientation, or any other factors protected by federal, state or local law. To request reasonable accommodation, contact Elizabeth Tompkins at elizabeth@solutionsjournalism.org.

Do you have skills or experiences that we haven’t thought of that you can bring to this job? Tell us how you can see this role benefit from your own individual experiences.