Front End Developer

Information about the organization

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is a federally chartered, nonpartisan institution that was created by the US Congress to serve as America’s national memorial to the victims of the Holocaust and an educational institution dedicated to the history and lessons of the Holocaust. The Museum seeks to educate Americans from all 50 states and all walks of life as well as international audiences. The Museum has three areas of expertise: Holocaust remembrance, Holocaust scholarship and education, and genocide prevention. 

In carrying out its important memorial and educational mission, the Museum is guided by its institutional values for our workplace: Honor the memory of the victims; carry out our work with dignity, humility, integrity and respect for others; and strive for excellence through teamwork, rigor, and a culture of continuous learning. Consistent respect for others is the foundation for trust, collegiality and inclusion.

Information about the role

This position resides in the Museum Experience and Digital Media Division and partners with the Levine Institute. The position supports projects across the entire Museum, including Collections, Digital, Education, Exhibitions, Genocide Prevention, IT, Marketing, and Scholarship. 

The Museum seeks a Front-End Developer who is passionate about writing clean, well-documented code, incorporates accessibility standards into front-end development work, and embraces Web standards and the leading-edge capabilities of native HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. The ideal candidate is a detail-oriented professional with good communication skills and experience working on content-rich storytelling experiences. They are comfortable working in a collaborative environment as a creative problem-solver with designers, other developers, and content producers. The developer will translate high-fidelity wireframes to production-ready code, bridging the gap between interactive design and technical implementation. They will employ technical skills to help the Museum tell visually compelling stories of the Holocaust and other genocides, supporting projects across the entire Museum.

This is a full-time donated position (non-Federal) paid with the Museum’s private funds. Salary is commensurate with experience.

This position is located in Washington, DC and is hybrid telework eligible, within the local commuting area of the Museum worksite.

Duties, and Responsibilities for the role

• Write clean, maintainable, reusable, and performant code and libraries in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Experience with Vue and Nuxt would be beneficial but not necessary.
• Ensure compatibility with WCAG standards and advocate for enhanced accessibility of all digital products.
• Make proficient use of Git and GitHub for version control and collaboration with others.
• Work collaboratively on a small but growing team of designers and developers to iterate and refine new and existing products through wireframing and prototyping, coding, testing, launch, and maintenance. We work in two-week sprints with a design-build-test approach.
• Be a member of an Agile scrum team for content-focused new products; participate in sprint-planning meetings, stand-ups, project reviews, and retrospectives; assess progress against tasks and goals and through audience testing, and adjust as needed.
• Troubleshoot and resolve high-priority issues affecting live sites and applications that utilize a variety of frameworks and content management systems.
• Provide development support for marketing needs that integrate with Museum web properties

Minimum Qualifications for the role

• 5+ years of professional experience working as a front-end developer, with experience working on a team developing and delivering content-rich stories to visitors.
• 3+ years experience working in a scrum environment
• Demonstrated knowledge of leading-edge HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
• Demonstrated knowledge of front-end accessibility standards and site performance optimization and experience applying that knowledge in partnership with designers and full-stack developers.
• Experience building lightweight, responsive layouts in collaboration with UX Designers 
• An understanding of storing and using assets (e.g., photos, audio and video files) in digital products
• An understanding of asynchronous request handling and Single Page Application or Progressive Web Application architecture
• Knowledge of Git and comfort with basic command line tools
• Familiarity with JavaScript frameworks such as Vue, React, or Svelte.
• Experience using and troubleshooting dev-ops and build tools such as Docker, Vite, and Webpack.
• Familiarity with BrowserStack, Lighthouse, or similar tools and general communication tools such as Trello, Slack.
• Ability to troubleshoot cross-browser compatibility issues and test front-end code
• Demonstrated experience documenting work through code commenting and clear step-by-step documentation
• Adeptness for effective and patient collaboration in an environment that can require multiple reviews and matrixed communication with buy-in at many levels. Comfortable with some ambiguity and building new processes.
• Initiative and Critical Thinking: Demonstrates ongoing interest in learning and contributes to organizational goals by taking greater responsibility than expected. Gathers, evaluates, and synthesizes information from observation and experience, to identify issues, recognize opportunities, and produce innovative solutions.
• Delivery Excellence and Flexibility: Displays high productivity and delivers quality work, while maintaining a professional attitude, in order to meet stakeholder needs and advance Museum goals. Maintains flexibility amid new information, and adapts to changing priorities to carry out duties.
• Teamwork: Works cooperatively with others, inside and outside the team/Branch/Division/Office, to accomplish shared objectives. Actively listens to others and presents own ideas clearly, concisely, and accurately in written and oral form.

Interested applicants must provide a resume and cover letter. Applications without a cover letter will not be considered. 

The Museum is committed to cultivating and maintaining a culture of diversity, equity, accessibility and inclusion (DEAI). Please click here to view the Museum Statement on Diversity, Equity, Accessibility and Inclusion (PDF).

Benefits Highlights:

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum values employee wellness, work-life balance and the diversity of what this means for individual employees in life and work. We are proud to offer a comprehensive benefits package for benefits-eligible employees that includes generous paid leave benefits, health, dental, and vision insurance, flexible spending accounts, a health savings account with an employer contribution, 403(b) retirement plan with a generous employer match and contribution, group term and supplemental life insurance, short and long-term disability, commuter subsidy, access to two employee assistance programs, as well as voluntary critical illness and accident insurance coverage, long-term care and pet insurance options. Our policies also support telework and other flexible schedule options based on the job, work and team collaboration requirements.