Committee for Children is on a mission to ensure that children everywhere can thrive. Since 1979, we've championed the cause of educating the whole child through advocacy, leadership in the field, and programs in social-emotional learning (SEL) and child safety.
In our pursuit of positively transforming the social-emotional well-being of 100 million children annually by 2028, Committee for Children is looking for an experienced Director, Software Engineering to join our Seattle based team (majority of staff is currently working remotely throughout Washington state due to Covid-19).
As the Director of Software Engineering you will guide the engineering practice and architectural direction of Committee for Children's digital content creation and delivery systems. In this role you are a proactive and proven technology leader who designs elegant architectures and leads teams from inception through delivery. You will communicate and collaborate effectively and efficiently within a fast-paced environment, taking an organized and methodical approach to your work and encouraging the same within your team. You will serve as the senior technologist and principal mentor helping develop other engineers of diverse backgrounds and levels of experience. Through your leadership style you set ambitious goals for your team and work diligently to produce results all while being engaged and responsive.
Primary Responsibilities Include
- Set technology direction by applying in-depth technical know-how to business goals
- Mentor and coach a team of software professionals through ongoing development
- Establish architectural patterns for multiple, cross-dependent Scrum teams
- Partner closely with the product management team to pragmatically translate business requirements into elegant software
- Direct implementation practices that produce a well-defined server architecture with well-formed API boundaries and contract to enable team velocity
- Communicate the technology vision with the development team and ensure quality execution by clearly defining and getting buy-in for the pathway to success
- Analyze and improve software quality, service scalability, production stability, and application security
- Periodically review code and direct systematic enhancements
- Stays current on emerging software technologies and solutions
- Help foster tangible development of culturally relevant products
Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or related field, or equivalent experience; Master's degree in related field preferred
- 8+ years of experience working in cloud-based, highly distributed environments
- 5+ years of direct leadership experience with proven experience hiring, motivating, coaching, and retaining a midsize engineering team
- Demonstrated ability with multiple organizations to produce social market-leading products on time and with quality
- Able to learn new technologies and tools rapidly
- Able to clearly document solutions and communicate effectively with stakeholders
- Able to manage multiple tasks simultaneously and work under time pressure
- Able to work a flexible schedule, including periods of high volume
- Able and willing to travel on occasion (less than 10 percent of position)
Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities
- Exceptional problem-solving, analytic, and diagnostic skills
- Highly communicative and collaborative with strategy and implementation
- Experience developing highly scalable and composable RESTful APIs between internal and external service layers using industry standards
- Experience in the digital content-management and -distribution domains, including ePub3, HTML5, CDNs, encryption, protection, multi-device delivery, etc.
- Knowledge of a variety of application, data persistence, and orchestration technologies:
- Familiarity with data persistence concepts, methodologies, and data constructs: relational and object, NoSQL, JSON, deployment topologies, caching layers, etc.
- Extensive experience in software development lifecycle and DevOps principles
- Broad exposure to key programming and scripting languages, including JavaScript, Node.js, C#/.NET
- Advocate for unit, integration, and performance testing best practices
- Knowledge of web frameworks, including React, Angular, Backbone.js, etc.
- Knowledge of authentication, authorization, and identity frameworks and protocols, including OAuth, OpenID, WS-Security, WS-Trust, and SAML 2.0
- Expert knowledge of developing solutions within cloud service architectures (Azure experience preferred)
- Champion for application security practices
- Deep exposure to data lifecycle management, especially with PII
- Experience with distributed-system diagnostic methods, monitoring, and instrumentation technologies
- Familiarity with e-learning protocols and standards such as Common Cartridge, LTI, QTI, APIP, CC , SCORM, xAPI, Caliper API , SIF is a plus (but not required)
Organization-wide Essential Functions
- Demonstrate a customer-service focus
- Demonstrate a commitment to Committee for Children values
- Demonstrate a commitment to ongoing growth and development and a willingness to actively participate in organization-wide learning, including a focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion
- Maintain regular and predictable attendance of set work schedule
Working Environment
- This position is in a general office environment (majority of staff is currently working remotely throughout Washington state due to Covid-19) with frequent computer use
- This position may require some flexibility in working hours
About Committee for Children
For more than 40 years, Committee for Children has been helping children learn, grow, and thrive by teaching them how to understand emotions, build meaningful relationships, and resolve conflicts. We believe that if you make a positive impact on enough children through social-emotional learning, then the ripples will help a family, a school, a community, and ultimately, the world. We call it the Empathy Effect, and it's what we've worked toward since 1979. We believe that successfully ensuring the safety and well-being of all children will require the involvement of our greatest thinkers. That's why we bring together diverse opinions and viewpoints—from educators, philanthropists, community activists, scientists and researchers, private-sector executives, and behavioral specialists. Come join the effort. And let's grow kinder together.
We have excellent employee tenure because we take great care of our most valued assets—our employees. This role will offer some amazing opportunities to add value, contribute, and make a difference while enjoying new challenges, a collaborative and diverse team, professional development opportunities, and work/life balance. Committee for Children offers competitive benefits including medical, dental, vision, life, and retirement with employer match. We also offer subsidies for commuting, wellness, and staff development.
Committee for Children is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to cultivating a workplace in which diverse perspectives and experiences are welcomed and respected. We encourage all qualified applicants to apply, without regard to race, color, age, disability, gender, marital status, national origin, genetics, religion, sexual orientation, gender expression, political affiliation, gender identity, veteran status, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.