Senior Web Developer @ National Journal

National Journal is looking for a Senior Django/Python Web Developer to join our team to help us build compelling digital products for our Washington, DC audience. Our digital team creates new services and products to serve our members, works to refine our existing offerings, and helps colleagues on our product teams use technology to operate more effectively.

National Journal's digital platform is built around a rich set of election data, demographic information, editable slides, government directories, event listings, and decades of journalism. Our mission is to create great tools that assist our members in finding and using these resources with ease, at the right time and in the right form. We build with Django (using Python 3) and follow a frequent release cycle that lets us bring enhancements to our users in a matter of days. We're committed to using modern development tools and following good practices in software development and QA.

As a Senior Web Developer, you will:

Architect, build, test and deploy a wide range of web-based tools, developed in Django and Python, that National Journal's members use every day in their jobs as government affairs professionals and policy advocates
Help maintain large datasets in a variety of formats (PostgreSQL, MySQL, APIs) drawing from both internal and third-party content and data sources
Make improvements to Ada, the custom content management system we use internally
Tackle a full-stack mix of back-end and front-end tasks, with a focus on back-end work
Be well-informed about trends in software development tools, frameworks, programming languages, and workflow, and arrive with opinions you are eager to discuss
Collaborate with our systems engineering partners on DevOps matters, such as improving application performance
Be willing to learn a sophisticated technical stack and (eventually) demonstrate ownership of our codebase and infrastructure
Take part in conversations with product team colleagues about business requirements
Help train, mentor, and teach junior colleagues and non-technical coworkers alike. (Please note: This is not a management position.)

As a candidate:

You are a skilled web developer: You have at least 4 years of web development experience in a professional setting, including at least 1 year using Python (preferably with Django). You've worked with relational databases directly - not just through an abstraction layer - and know what makes databases perform well or poorly. You write clean HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, with front-end framework experience a plus. You know how to deploy applications to a live, hosted environment. Using Git is second nature to you.
Experience with some of the following technologies is a plus, but not required: Microsoft Azure, Linux systems administration, Vue.js, TypeScript, Elasticsearch, Docker, PostgreSQL, Chargify, Neo4j or other graph databases, Jenkins, New Relic, Salesforce, D3.js, Redis, Sentry, Marketo, Celery/RabbitMQ, or WordPress.
You're interested in government and elections: The idea of getting immersed in campaign finance data, election visualizations, and politics is compelling to you (rather than a turn-off). You don't have to be a wonk to be effective, but as keepers of the data, becoming experts in the minutiae is essential.
You have experience with large projects: You've created significant software projects from scratch, or at least large components of one, and demonstrated that you can do quality work under a deadline. You make decisions with the big picture in mind, have a point-of-view about good software architecture, and can guide other developers when needed. You can quickly find your way around a complex codebase.
You place an emphasis on quality: In your work, you demonstrate best practices for software development and reinforce good habits that promote quality as part of a team. You're accustomed to writing great documentation, doing peer code review, crafting automated tests, watching performance, and taking advantage of tools that maintain consistent code across team members. You are organized, focused, and detail-oriented.
You communicate and work well with others: You exhibit good communications skills and collaboration habits, both written and verbally, by providing accurate time and effort estimates, creating good requirements and documentation, and working to ensure the team meets agreed-upon deadlines. You are comfortable working with product and project managers to plan weekly sprints, capable of prioritizing and undertaking multiple projects at once, and experienced with Agile development methodologies. When needed, you are cool under pressure.
You demonstrate good judgment: Colleagues can count on you to apply critical thinking to tasks and find creative ways to solve problems. You consider both short-term and long-term implications when making decisions.
You'll bring something new to the team: We value having a team with diverse skills and experiences. Do you have a background in accessibility technologies, robotics, or AI-generated jokes? Are you active in a local user group, open source effort, or side project of your own? Passion for learning new things (whether technology-related or not) is most welcome.
You value a healthy work-life balance: You keep high standards and work hard, yet know when to take breaks, switch gears, and unplug, with the ability to manage your time effectively to preserve those boundaries.
Prodigious work ethic and spirit of generosity
A full course of the COVID-19 vaccination is required for employment at National Journal
Active contributor to a diverse and inclusive workplace

Employment Type: Full-time

Compensation: $130,000+, commensurate with experience

Location: Candidates available to work in-person in Washington, DC (currently 2 days per week in the office and 3 days remote) are preferred. Full-time telework/remote arrangements will also be considered

About Us

Across National Journal Group, generally, the firm looks for two “pillar gifts” in you, and everyone else. In all of us, these are more aspirational than actual, but they are central in our intentions –

Force of Ideas: At the center of National Journal Group work are the ideas within our writing. We believe that ideas – to the good and not – have consequences. Our highest work is bringing rigor, insight, intellectual honesty, to that ultimate purpose of separating the bad from the good, and giving voice to the latter.
Spirit of Generosity: National Journal Group seeks in its ranks a spirit of generosity – a natural disposition in each colleague toward service and selfless conduct. National Journal Group writing should be cut from the same cloth –critical on the merits but informed by charity and forbearance in measuring motive and personal character.

National Journal is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We do not discriminate against our applicants because of race, color, religion, sex (including gender identity, sexual orientation, and pregnancy), national origin, age, disability, veteran status, genetic information, or any other status protected by applicable law.