Middle Seat is a full-service media and fundraising firm for progressive causes and candidates.
Whether it's AOC or the ACLU, MoveOn or the Movement for Black Lives, the Working Families Party or the Women's March, we work with progressive campaigns, nonprofits, advocacy organizations and causes that are on the front lines of important fights.
We also put a premium on honoring the authentic perspective of our clients, and support our clients taking principled stances even when that means pushing the envelope or shaking things up in the progressive space.
Our firm is values-driven. We are intentional with the decidedly left-of-center clients we work with — and we strive to make our work environment and benefits reflect that, including salary transparency, healthy work-life balance, and consistent employee feedback and communication. We're happy to talk more about our company culture with prospective applicants.
About the Role
We're looking for a Web Development Lead to manage our team of developers to efficiently deliver web development products that are high quality, on spec and on time.
This will involve managing personnel, projects and relevant client relationships, while also doing the business development and capacity-planning work to ensure the team is able to operate at full capacity on an ongoing basis.
While we do not expect the person in this role to spend a great deal of time coding, some coding ability is required (particularly proficiency in JavaScript, with WordPress, HTML, and CSS also being very helpful).
Are you a communicative and entrepreneurial person with a strong, client-facing background delivering web products who can do everything from running code review to scoping, pricing and pitching a project? Are you an effective team leader with great people skills and a track record of managing developers to deliver work on expedited timelines? Do you have a commitment to the visual integrity of your work and the ability to ensure pixel-perfect implementation of a design? If so, please read on.
Job Responsibilities
Client Work
- Oversee large-scale web and design projects – delivering work on time and of an exceptional quality
- Serve as escalation point for troubleshooting code issues or development tasks
- Conduct code review on a regular basis
- Establish and oversee best practices, systems, and processes for the development team to meet high standards for innovation, accessibility, communication, collaboration, and efficiency
- Ideate and create tools and features that satisfy common client or internal needs
- Create systems for iterating on Middle Seat's starter theme to improve features and functionality
- Build methods to document development best practices
- Provide direction to technical team members to ensure best practices are executed
- Incorporate emerging UI design and development best practices and help implement across Middle Seat teams
- Develop process for thorough functional and design quality assurance on all technical work, including website projects
- Maintain and direct a replicable, reliable system for managing web projects
- Dive into the code and contribute to the development work as needed
Team Management
- Supervise a team of web developers, taking responsibility for the performance of the team as a whole and the personnel management of the individual members of the team.
- Recruit, hire, train, and retain development team members, manage a team budget for overhead and staffing, and set goals for the team.
- Help Middle Seat grow its surge capacity by building a stable of contractors who can jump in quickly and cost effectively on client web projects
- Guide team members to identify and work toward professional development goals, including by providing periodic performance reviews for all staff
- Provide ongoing code review and performance management
- Guide the development team's ability to respond professionally to direction, constructive critique, and client feedback
- Manage development requests and client web project work
- Keep team informed about company-wide processes, policies, and priorities
- Act as the development team's ambassador to other teams
Capacity Planning
- Delegate development responsibilities across both internal and external work and monitor progress of all projects and requests
- Triage incoming client and internal requests, and ongoing development needs
- Develop system for visibility into team capacity for forecasting and sales awareness
Business Development
- Pitch prospective clients on development work
- Attend new business meetings to assess needs, budget, and fit for potential client engagements
- Develop strategies for packaging development services to clients
- Onboard new clients and provide team members with relevant information to execute new work
- Work collaboratively with leadership team members on full-service proposals when needed
- Ensure sales documents for development work are maintained in adherence with established company processes
Other responsibilities as requested
Qualifications
- At least 5-7 years experience in web development, with at least 1-2 years of experience managing client relationships and at least 1-2 years of experience managing developers
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills, ability to convey complex ideas in an accessible manner to both developers and non-developers
- Demonstrated aptitude for leading a team, managing direct reports, and working collaboratively with non-developers.
- Strong organizational and time management skills
- Excellent attention to detail
- Curiosity as it relates to UI design and development disciplines, as well as the work of our ads and emails teams
- Passion for progressive politics and social change
Strongly Preferred but Not Required
- Expertise with WordPress
- Experience with CRMs such as Blue State Digital, NGP VAN, ActionKit, Action Network, etc.
- Strong working knowledge of Adobe Creative Suite, Sketch, and Figma
- Expertise with JavaScript (jQuery), HTML, CSS, and PHP
- Experience with Git
- Experience with third-party hosting platforms like Pantheon or Flywheel
- Agency experience
- Experience working with political clients or organizations in the progressive space
Salary and Benefits
- Salary starts between $100,000-$125,000
- Commensurate with years and depth of experience
- Profit sharing plan: share in the growth and success of Middle Seat
- $50 mobile phone subsidy monthly
- 100% coverage for health, dental and vision
- Zero deductible health plan
- One Medical health service: video call or chat with doctors, no wait-time appointments
- Health Advocate: 24/7 assistance with navigating health benefits, finding providers through
- 5% employer match on your 401k retirement account
- 20 paid vacation days off, plus your birthday and May Day off
- Unlimited sick leave
- Commuter benefits for public transportation
- Work from home one day per week (after your first six months)
- 12 weeks of paid leave for new parents
This is a full-time, permanent role, and it can be based in DC or remotely within the US.
As a team member with hiring responsibilities, this role is not a part of the union bargaining unit.
Our clients are on the front lines of fights for racial justice and immigrant rights, and fights against patriarchy, transphobia and homophobia. We recognize that we're able to do our best work when our staff includes people who are directly impacted by these fights. Women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ individuals are strongly encouraged to apply.
Middle Seat is committed to providing equal employment opportunities to all individuals. All qualified applicants will be considered.
