Tech Lead

What to know

As a Tech Lead at Blue State, you’ll help build websites that empower leading nonprofits and progressive organizations to engage audiences and enact change. You’ll architect solutions with WordPress, Netlify, and other platforms, and serve as the senior technical voice and trusted advisor to Blue State practitioners and client stakeholders. Our Tech Leads are generalists who create connections between strategists and engineers, between analysts and designers, and between different client stakeholders when needed.

Outside of client engagements, you’ll partner with business and craft leaders at Blue State to hone our approach, upskill staff, and evolve our offerings. You’ll help land dream clients, coach staff, and position Blue State to deliver world-class work.

The company

Blue State is a purpose-driven agency. We partner with leading causes, brands, and campaigns and create real change. From Google and UNICEF to Amnesty International and Oxfam, we transform how brands and causes raise money, influence policy, build platforms, and grow communities of supporters. Led by the most creative and analytical minds from the political, nonprofit, and brand worlds, Blue State is a part of WPP Digital and has 150+ employees in the US and London.

In a typical week, you may

• Assess clients’ technology platforms and come up with and communicate solutions that help clients achieve their strategic objectives.
• Write high-level technical recommendations or requirements for client stakeholders and partners.
• Guide technical contributors through all phases, ensuring members of our in-house Tech Team, contractors, and partners are on task and project milestones are being hit. Manage backlogs and release schedules.
• Lead standups and other work sessions. Arbitrate technical discussions and make final decisions as needed.
• Participate in a project’s strategy phase by conducting product research and joining feature ideation and prioritization sessions.
• Drive Blue State’s overall tech practice forward by providing thought leadership, process improvement, upskilling, and mentoring. Stay current on discipline trends and best practices, finding opportunities to implement in our work.
• Contribute to our in-house tools, such as build scripts, CMS starter kits, and component libraries. Recommend investments in internal tools that would strengthen Blue State’s offerings.
• Work with the Partnerships team on opportunities, contributing to estimates and proposals and participating in pitches. Ensure that our proposals are technically sound and take advantage of Blue State’s unique skillset and point of view.

What we offer

• Unlimited time-off (inclusive of sick, personal, and vacation days)
• $1,000 annually in professional development funds
• Competitive health, dental, and vision insurance
• Flexible and health savings accounts
• 401K & employer match
• Generous paid holiday schedule
• 12-week fully-paid parental leave for all parents-to-be
• Short-term and long-term disability insurance
• Pre-tax commuter benefits
• Remote work flexibility

We approach in-office working with a hybrid model. On-site presence is strongly encouraged on Tuesdays and Wednesdays for US staff who are within commuting distance of the BK or DC office. Managers retain discretion to require in-person attendance for folks on their discipline or client teams as necessary, including for those whose roles require them to be in person. To enter our US offices or attend Blue State events, staff and visitors must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, including with a booster shot when eligible. Exceptions for protected grounds will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

The salary range for this position is $92,500-$121,500; compensation will be commensurate with experience.

The team

The Tech Team consists of 15-20 developers, tech leads, martech engineers, product managers, and QA engineers. We’re  veterans of presidential campaigns, agencies, nonprofits, and the tech world who want our work to matter, are passionate about technology, and aim to continually improve the work we do. We collaborate very closely remotely and, when safe, from our offices in New York, DC, Chicago, and London.

Some things we're looking for

• 5+ years of experience in website and product development, software architecture, tech consulting, or related roles.
• Experience with a range of web platforms including WordPress, our most commonly deployed CMS. You will not build a WordPress site yourself, but you will guide in-house and external developers’ approach and vet designs and feature requirements for feasibility.
• Familiarity with and interest in marketing platforms, including CRMs, and data and personalization technology used by organizations to engage and mobilize their supporters.
• Experience with CDNs, cloud hosting providers such as AWS, and other web server technologies.
• Basic facility with HTML, CSS, JS, and PHP. You will not need to write much code, but you will need to speak to the capabilities of common web technologies.
• Excellent communication skills. Ability to interact with technical and non-technical stakeholders alike.
• Strong collaborator and relationship builder. Colleagues know they can come to you for help working through issues or opportunities.
• Empathy, positivity, respect, and the ability to be a role model at Blue State.

At Blue State, diversity is a necessity, not a nice-to-have. We encourage those from underrepresented communities — women, people of color, LGBTQIA+, immigrants, those with disabilities and people at all the intersections in between — to apply. Even if you don’t think your current skill set checks every box below, but this role seems to align with your strengths, we want to hear from you.

Blue State is committed to creating an inclusive and accessible application and interview process. If you would like to request a reasonable accommodation for a disability, please contact us at [email protected] with the subject line: Accommodation Request to get started.