Company Description

A best-in-class city that attracts best-in-class talent, Philadelphia is an incredible place to build a career. From our thriving arts scene and rich history to our culture of passion and grit, there are countless reasons to love living and working here. With a workforce of over 30,000 people, and more than 1,000 different job categories, the City of Philadelphia offers boundless opportunities to make an impact. 
As an employer, the City of Philadelphia values inclusion, integrity, innovation, empowerment, and hard work above all else. We offer a vibrant work environment, comprehensive health care and benefits, and the experience you need to grow and excel. If you’re interested in working with a passionate team of people who care about the future of Philadelphia, start here.

What We Offer:
•    Impact - The work you do here matters to millions. 
•    Growth - Philadelphia is growing, why not grow with it? 
•    Diversity & Inclusion - Find a career in a place where everyone belongs.
•    Benefits - We care about your well-being.
 

The Office of Innovation & Technology (OIT) is the central IT agency for the City of Philadelphia headed by the Chief Information Officer (CIO). OIT oversees all major information and communications technology initiatives for the City of Philadelphia - increasing the effectiveness of the information technology infrastructure, where the services provided are advanced, optimized, and responsive to the needs of the City of Philadelphia’s businesses, residents, and visitors. OIT responsibilities include: identifying the most effective approach for implementing new information technology directions throughout city government; improving the value of the city’s technology assets and the return on the city’s technology investments; ensuring data security continuity; planning for continuing operations in the event of disruption of information technology or communications services; and supporting accountable, efficient and effective government across every city department, board, commission and agency.

Job Description

As the central technology office in the 6th largest city in the nation, our portfolio includes critical applications that enable residents to pay taxes and fees online, look up a loved one in jail or prison, find after-school activities in their neighborhood, Philadelphia’s digital front door, phila.gov ,and our home-grown resident single sign on service, login.phila.gov. The majority of new applications and websites have been built on modern technology stacks and hosted in the cloud, but many older applications are running on legacy frameworks and on-premises servers. In this role, you will have oversight over the technical aspects of these major projects, including migration of legacy systems. 

You will oversee a team that:
•    Uses agile principles to ensure our software delivers value more rapidly to its users.
•    Employs devops tools and processes to improve software quality and enable us to increase the frequency of releases.
•    Creates a deep bench of expertise to better support applications and systems that are important to the daily operations of city government.
•    Collaborates closely with a cross-functional team of user experience strategists, content strategists, and designers in the Digital Services team to develop software that considers the people the technology supports through user-centered design principals. 

You’ll join a city government that has the largest GitHub organization among cities (github.com/CityOfPhiladelphia), works in the open, and leverages open-source tools and cloud infrastructure to improve the experience of interacting with City government online.

Essential Functions
As the Director of Software Engineering, you’ll continue this effort, expanding the team through new hires, existing staff and contractors. You’ll continue to grow a culture around agile principles and help introduce processes and tools to support working according to them. Your team will continue to modernize and support the City’s digital portfolio and make it easier for residents to interact with city government online.

As a director, you will:
•    Organize the team and help inform the growth of the engineering practice at the City.
•    Be accountable for project delivery.
•    Expand the effort to modernize our digital portfolio and reduce our maintenance burden through automation.
•    Interface with department clients, understanding their needs, and advocating for technical strategy.
•    Ensure processes, people, and cross-training are in place to troubleshoot outages, including off-hours when necessary and using modern monitoring tools.
•    Oversee changes to legacy applications when necessary.
•    Work with other leaders (data, design, etc.) to prioritize work, and share ideas and approaches.
•    Set city-wide development standards and collaborate to create policies supporting sound technical approaches to application development. 

As a change agent, you will:
•    Elevate existing staff with deep skills and experience through opportunities to work on projects in new ways.
•    Build an environment where team members feel comfortable prototyping, failing, and iterating.
•    Expand the use of modern software development best practices.
•    Coach department clients on agile project management practices to improve collaboration with our team.
•    Foster a culture of working in the open and cultivating public interest in our work.
•    Identify areas for improvement and take the lead on educating, building, and evangelizing good development practices. 

As an engineering lead, you will:
•    Provide oversight on technical decisions and software selection to ensure strategic fit.
•    Set standards of quality and excellence for the software development practice.
•    Mentor and coach other developers and help them grow.
•    Consult on projects outside your portfolio/team.
•    Support a community of developers in other departments to help standardize and expand shared services. 

Competencies, Knowledge, Skills and Abilities
Competencies:
•    Self-directed. Given broad direction, you can prioritize your work and allocate your time and resources effectively. Just as important, you know when to ask for help and aren’t afraid to do so.
•    Excellent communicator. Ability to communicate technical nuances and jargon, and explain the logic behind technical decisions, tailored for audiences of varying technical background.
•    Delivery-oriented. You appreciate the value of “minimum viable product” and know how to dig yourself out of “rabbit holes” to meet goals and deadlines.
•    Relationship-builder. Ability to work laterally and accomplish things through others, despite the formal reporting structure.
•    Listener. Ability to practice active listening and to ask questions to get at the root of a problem.
•    Organized. Demonstrated ability to manage multiple projects, estimate timelines, rework a project approach based on unforeseen challenges, work well under pressure, and set/meet reasonable deadlines.
•    Broad spectrum. Knows enough about design, content strategy, and other disciplines to collaborate effectively.
•    Resilient. Ability to have a sense of humor, learn from mistakes, and/or return to work after experiencing a setback.
•    Amplifier. Ability to amplify others’ strengths and successes and operate beyond ego and self-interest.
•    Lifelong learner. Curiosity gets the better of you, but to positive ends. You ask impactful questions and are always trying new things.

Technical knowledge:
While you won’t necessarily be working hands-on with these technologies and concepts day-to-day, your staff will, and you’ll need to know enough about them to understand their benefits and when they’re appropriate.
•    Deep understanding of the modern web platform and common architectural solutions
•    Server-side programming languages such as Python, Ruby, .NET Core, and/or Node.js
•    Command line and shell scripts
•    Web application security concerns and ways to mitigate them
•    Git, or similar version control systems
•    SQL, and usage of relational databases such as PostgreSQL, Oracle, MSSQL
•    Amazon Web Services (or other cloud computing services)
•    Server administration
•    Containerization 
•    API design and development
•    Automated test/deployment pipelines and CI/CD
Enthusiasm for:
•    “Clean code” and readability
•    Open-source software and interoperable data
•    Tinkering with new technologies, and keeping up with the industry
•    Diving into and understanding legacy systems of various age and technology

Qualifications

We care more about what you can do than where you learned how to do it.  That said, a bachelor’s degree is a good foundation for the work, and job-related experience around the competencies above is acceptable as well.  
You should have at least 5 years of experience in software development, including:
•    At least 3 of the years personally developing software on a team, and
•    At least 2 of the years managing people.
Especially strong candidates will have:
•    Experience building web applications. 
•    Experience building and growing teams of various sizes.
•    Experience maintaining various software projects over several years while simultaneously building new ones.

Additional Information

Salary Not to Exceed: $131,000

Important: To apply, candidates must provide a cover letter and resume.

All applications should include the following: 
•    A one-page cover letter clarifying your interest and qualifications for the role. It really helps us understand why you’re interested in this position. We read every single one!
•    Your resume or curriculum vitae. 
•    Optionally, an online professional portfolio or public GitHub account.

We won’t accept or review incomplete applications.
 

Work Setting: in-person (onsite)

Discover the Perks of Being a City of Philadelphia Employee:
•    We offer Comprehensive health coverage for employees and their eligible dependents
•    Our wellness program offers eligibility into the discounted medical plan
•    Employees receive paid vacation, sick leave, and holidays
•    Generous retirement savings options are available
•    Pay off your student loans faster - As a qualifying employer, City of Philadelphia employees are eligible to participate in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. Join the ranks of hundreds of employees who have already benefited from this program and achieved student loan forgiveness.
•    Enjoy a Free Commute on SEPTA - Starting September 1, 2023, eligible City employees will no longer have to worry about paying for SEPTA public transportation. Whether you're a full-time, part-time, or provisional employee, you can seize the opportunity to sign up for the SEPTA Key Advantage Program and receive free Key cards for free rides on SEPTA buses, trains, trolleys, and regional rails.
•    Unlock Tuition Discounts and Scholarships - The City of Philadelphia has forged partnerships with over a dozen esteemed colleges and universities in the area, ensuring that our employees have access to a wide range of tuition discounts and scholarships. Experience savings of 10% to 40% on your educational expenses, extending not only to City employees but in some cases, spouse and dependents too!
Join the City of Philadelphia team today and seize these incredible benefits designed to enhance your financial well-being and personal growth!

*The successful candidate must be a city of Philadelphia resident within six months of hire

Effective May 22, 2023, vaccinations are no longer required for new employees that work in non-medical, non-emergency or patient facing positions with the City of Philadelphia. As a result, only employees in positions providing services that are patient-facing medical care (ex: Nurses, doctors, emergency medical personnel), must be fully vaccinated.

The City of Philadelphia is an Equal Opportunity employer and does not permit discrimination based on race, ethnicity, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, national origin, ancestry, age, disability, marital status, source of income, familial status, genetic information or domestic or sexual violence victim status. If you believe you were discriminated against, call the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations at 215-686-4670 or send an email to faqpchr@phila.gov.