Backend Software Developer

  • Full-time

Company Description

With a workforce of over 30,000 people, and opportunities in more than 1,000 different job categories, the City of Philadelphia is the fifth largest city in the United States and one of the largest employers in Southeastern Pennsylvania. As an employer, the City of Philadelphia operates through the guiding principles of service, integrity, respect, accountability, collaboration, diversity and inclusion. Through these principles, we strive to effectively deliver services, to resolve the challenges facing our city, and to make Philadelphia a place where all of our residents have the opportunity to reach their potential. 


Agency Description

The Office of the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) is a new section of government tasked with bringing innovation to key enabling functions of city government. The CAO supervises and coordinates the operations of eleven City departments and functions, including the Office of Open Data and Digital Transformation.


The Office of Open Data and Digital Transformation (ODDT) believes in a City government that understands the needs of its people and empowers them through transparent, efficient, and effective services. ODDT’s approach is two-fold: 1) help departments publish open data; and 2) collaborate with departments, the public, and other stakeholders—employing human-centered design methods—to create digital services that support the success and well-being of all Philadelphians.



Job Description

4.7 million people visit the City of Philadelphia’s website, phila.gov, every year. Whether they’re looking for information on the Philadelphia Marathon, checking whether trash pickup is on-schedule, looking for after school activities, or applying for public assistance programs, for many Philadelphians, their experience on phila.gov represents the image they have of government. We understand that the current phila.gov isn’t easy to use. So we’re in the process of creating a new site from the ground up—with simple, mobile-friendly designs, more intuitive organization, and clearer content. You can see the progress so far at beta.phila.gov.

As a Backend Software Developer in the Office of Open Data & Digital Transformation, you'll work closely with other members of ODDT (specialists in design, data, engineering, and content) to develop new web applications and the infrastructure to support them.

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

Essential Functions

  • Be a part of the conversations that determine how and when to address the needs of users and department stakeholders through platform features on beta.phila.gov

  • Develop web applications and the infrastructure to support them

  • Help support the cloud infrastructure that hosts beta.phila.gov, including troubleshooting issues or outages outside of business hours when necessary (this is rare and you’ll share this responsibility).

  • Work with the team to enhance the infrastructure for beta.phila.gov to support its graduation to phila.gov

  • Work closely with other developers to improve deployment and development workflow

  • Help manage the transition of beta.phila.gov to phila.gov

  • Develop and help support ETL/data automation pipelines

Competencies, Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

Competencies:

  • Adaptable. Perhaps you’ll need to augment a tool with bash when you really want to rewrite it in Python, but we’ve got more pressing priorities. Or perhaps timelines shift and we have to cut features from a release. We expect you’ll be able to professionally deal with changing environments.

  • 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.

  • Systems-thinker. You can envision how a particular feature may affect other, unrelated parts of the project.

  • Excellent communicator. You can communicate technical nuances in plain language with partners of varying technical background and write documentation clearly enough that someone who’s never met you could use it.

  • Initiative taker. You take action to improve a situation without waiting for explicit instructions, and you seek new and improved techniques/technology to work better.

  • Collaborative. You recognize the importance of other people being able to work with what you create - and wanting to and avoid building in a silo.

Knowledge of:

  • Server-side programming languages such as PHP, Python, or Node.js

  • Shell scripting languages like Bash

  • Linux security concerns and ways to mitigate them

  • Git, or similar version control systems

  • SQL, and relational database usage

  • Knowledge of Amazon Web Services

  • Linux server administration

  • Deploying code to production servers

  • API design and development

  • Unit testing

  • Web fundamentals - Javascript, HTML, and CSS

Enthusiasm for:

  • “Clean code” and readability

  • Open source

  • Tinkering with new technologies, and keeping up with the industry

Qualifications

Candidates should have at least 3 years experience developing and maintaining software including:

  • Server-side programming languages such as PHP, Python, or Node.js

  • Linux server administration

  • Cloud infrastructure setup and maintenance

Bonus:

  • Interest or experience with infrastructure as code like Terraform or Cloudformation

Additional Information

When applying, please include:

  • A cover letter explaining why you’re passionate about participating in the redesign of the City of Philadelphia’s website (please no form letters; we read every one of them!)

  • Work samples (such as a GitHub profile with relevant repositories or a portfolio) if you have them.

A successful candidate must be a City resident within six months of hire.

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 pchr@ phila.gov. For more information, go to: Human Relations Website: http://www.phila.gov/humanrelations/Pages/default.aspx