Senior Digital Specialist, Designer/Developer

Description

SUMMARY

The Online Media (OM) group is a team of creative thinkers and makers that designs, develops, and maintains the Exploratorium website, online experiences, and mobile applications that support the Exploratorium’s mission of igniting curiosity and inspiring creativity in people of all ages. As a member of this team, the Senior Digital Specialist is responsible for design and development of new projects and ongoing support for the Exploratorium’s website. Responsibilities include designing and developing educational web resources and web content. The candidate should have strong visual and UX design abilities, advanced web content development skills, and demonstrated proficiency with common web page markup languages. The Senior Digital Specialist position is located in the Online Media group within the Exhibits & Media Studio and reports directly to the Director of Online Media.

·       Execution:

o   Under minimal supervision, design, develop, and maintain digital experiences, resources, and software for online platforms including websites and applications, web publishing content management system customizations (Drupal & WordPress), and mobile applications.

o   Establish design principles, style guides, and best practices in technology and workflow.

·       Idea Generation: Contribute innovative ideas to a team creating diverse digital products.

·       Iteration: Incorporate feedback from visitors, evaluators, and other staff to improve products

·       Collaboration: Cooperatively and creatively work with scientists, artists, educators, researchers, writers, graphic designers, web developers, project managers, project directors, and other staff.

·       Creative problem-solving: Take an active role in addressing complex communication and information design challenges of online media.

·       Flexibility: Adapt to project constraints with proactive solutions; work comfortably and productively on a range of projects including grant-based work, research and development initiatives, institutional communications, marketing, and special exhibitions.

·       Judgement: Show strong creative discernment and good discipline in design and execution. Respond to internal collaborators’ needs while balancing UX considerations.

·       Project Management: Manage complex web projects involving multiple stakeholders.

·       Documentation: Document project/product development and designs, and create product user guides.

·       Mentorship: Mentor junior designer/developers.

·       Other duties as assigned.

·       Bachelor’s degree in conceptual design, interactive multimedia, user experience design, visual arts, or other related field, or equivalent experience.

·       Minimum 8 years’ experience designing and/or developing websites or applications, preferably in a museum or informal education environment.

·       Demonstrated proficiency developing web content including web pages and interactives with HTML5 and CSS3.

·       Experience with server-side programming languages (PHP).

·       Development experience with Drupal, Wordpress or other content management systems.

·       Experience with common open-source Javascript frameworks and tools.

·       Experience with user-centered design methods.

·       Proficiency working with commercial and open-source APIs and software libraries.

·       Proficiency with software development processes including analysis, design, prototyping, debugging, and testing.

·       Experience using source code control with Git and remote repository management.

·       Excellent knowledge of web browsers, cookie handling, and session management.

·       Proficiency working in a mixed platform environment with Macintosh, Windows, mobile browsers on the client side and Unix/Linux on the server side.

·       Experience using VPNs and secure file transfer protocols.

·       Excellent documentation creation / revision skills.

·       Excellent analytical abilities.

·       Talent for collaboration and effective teamwork, and demonstrated ability to work with people at all levels of an organization.

·       Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.

·       Ability to work on multiple projects and problems simultaneously with minimal supervision.

·       Willingness to learn new programming languages and tools.

ADDITIONAL DESIRED QUALIFICATIONS

·       Competency with SEO, web audience analytics and user survey data collection.

·       Experience developing mobile applications for iOS and/or Android.

·       Experience with dynamic data and interactive visualizations.

This position is open until filled

This is a regular, full-time (37.5 hours per week), exempt, union position that includes benefits. Please, no phone calls in regards to this job. To apply, please visit the Exploratorium job page.