Senior Web Applications Developer

Agency

Department

Our Commitment  

Texas A&M University is committed to enriching the learning and working environment by promoting a culture that respects all perspectives, talents & lived experiences.  Embracing varying opinions and perspectives strengthens our core values which are: Respect, Excellence, Leadership, Loyalty, Integrity, and Selfless Service. 

Who We Are 

The Division of Marketing & Communications tells the story of Texas A&M and promotes and protects the Texas A&M brand. We achieve our goals through: Messaging, Branding, and Brand Oversight. For more information, please visit us at https://marcomm.tamu.edu/ 

What We Want 

The Senior Web Applications Developer position in the Texas A&M Division of Marketing and Communications plays an important leadership role in the university's website development and web operations. This position requires expert-level ability in and understanding of programming, web technologies, APIs, and problem-solving.

Under direction, the Senior Web Applications Developer provides technical leadership, overseeing the development of enterprise-wide web and mobile products. They serve as a lead developer and guide the processes/approach on projects such as:

• Building the university’s mobile app.

• Developing custom search experiences for websites and mobile applications.

• Migrating complex data from websites and other sources to our enterprise web content management system (CMS).

• Dynamically updating information on websites using data from APIs, feeds, other websites and systems.

• Extracting content from webpages, transforming the data, and sending it to a CMS

• Automating processes and enhancing the CMS.

• Adding, enhancing, and testing website functionality, fixing bugs, and improving performance, reliability, user experience, accessibility and security.

• Building tools to empower and resource web professionals across the university, working on collaborative development efforts across teams to build community resources.

This position assists in web operations, including maintenance, administration and support for content management systems, web hosting platforms and supporting systems.

This role requires a strong understanding of web technologies and disciplines. The ideal candidate must be able to learn new technologies, troubleshoot complex problems, communicate effectively, work collaboratively with cross-functional teams and support web professionals and other colleagues across the university

What You Need to Know 

Salary: Commensurate on selected candidate's experience 

Responsibilities:

Web development

• Develops and enhances complex custom functionality for university websites by writing high-quality, secure and accessible code. Implements functionality and designs components, automates processes, and improves efficiency for university websites. Writes code for WordPress, Cascade CMS and future platforms using HTML, CSS, PHP, JavaScript, modern JS frameworks, and Velocity script.

• Develops, maintains, and supports tools and automation to empower other web professionals and web CMS users.

• Builds integrations between web systems using APIs.

• Tests websites to find and fix issues. Ensures that website components continue to function normally after modifications through testing.

• Uses software for version control, web accessibility, security and quality assurance testing, prototyping, and image editing.

• Writes documentation for code and tools. Acts as a liaison between designers and developers and between teams.

• Participates in professional development to stay current on industry best practices.

Supporting Colleagues, Leading Development and Collaboration Efforts

• Serves as a technical lead and oversees the development of back-end code on web projects.

• Coaches and trains other developers and vendors.

• Documents code and processes for other developers.

• Helps troubleshoot problems that others are unable to solve.

• Trains users and web staff in content management systems and other platforms that support university websites.

• Promotes best practices for web content, design, usability, accessibility, development and related disciplines. Coaches others to implement and maintain best practices.

Web Operations

• Provides maintenance, administration and support for web content management systems, web hosting platforms, and for related platforms such as website search, analytics and web forms.

• Collaborates with and supports colleagues on the web team and others in marketing, information technology, faculty, staff and vendors.

Qualifications

Required Education & Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Information Systems, Computer Science, or closely related field, or, an equivalent combination of education, training and experience.

• Eight years of experience in web development/programming with relational databases to produce dynamic web-based applications.

• Experience in consulting and/or strategy of web development/programming and in responsive web development.

Preferred Qualifications

Demonstrated knowledge, experience and ability in –

• Developing code for enterprise websites, web applications and mobile applications.

• Developing accessible websites following current Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

• Security principles for web development, CMS administration and web hosting.

• Integrating systems through APIs, RESTful web services, and data formats like JSON, XML or GraphQL.

• Leading web development projects or functional areas.

• Collaborative development projects as part of a team or community of developers.

• CMS theme and plugin development.

• Administration for enterprise technology products - especially websites, web content management systems, web search platforms, web applications and supporting products and services.

• Cloud platform configuration and administration (For example: AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, etc.).

• API-driven development and web integrations.

• PHP, JavaScript, Velocity, or modern web development languages and frameworks.

• Enterprise tools for web search or related products.

• Customer service, user support.

• Effective written and interpersonal communication.

• SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

• Relevant, industry-standard tools, software and technologies, including version control systems for source code, web quality assurance tools, web accessibility tools, code analysis tools, web application security tools, CI/CD platforms, website analytics, design systems, web component libraries, design, UI/UX prototyping, image and graphics editing, etc.

Why Texas A&M University?  

• We are a prestigious university with strong traditions, Core Values, and a community of caring and collaboration.  Amenities associated with a major university, such as sporting and cultural events, state-of-the-art recreation facilities, the Bush Library and Museum, and much more await you.  Experience all that a big city has to offer but with a reasonable cost-of-living and no long commutes.  

• Health, dental, vision, life and long-term disability insurance with Texas A&M contributing to employee health and basic life premiums 

• 12-15 days of annual paid holidays  

• Up to eight hours of paid sick leave and at least eight hours of paid vacation each month 

• Automatically enrollment in the Teacher Retirement System of Texas  

• Health and Wellness: Free exercise programs and release time 

• Professional Development: All employees have access to free LinkedIn Learning training, webinars, and limited financial support to attend conferences, workshops, and more  

• Employee Tuition Assistance and Educational Release time  for completing a degree while a Texas A&M employee 

All positions are security-sensitive. Applicants are subject to a criminal history investigation, and employment is contingent upon the institution’s verification of credentials and/or other information required by the institution’s procedures, including the completion of the criminal history check.

Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action/Veterans/Disability Employer.