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.

The Software Engineering Manager position manages and oversees the design and development of software within the City’s content management system, WordPress. You will direct the work of a team of engineers to ensure best practices around software development, for the City’s digital front door, phila.gov. This role reports to the Director of Software Engineering.

You will:

• Oversee the day-to-day operations of the phila.gov engineering team
• Mentor and grow a team of engineers while keeping them engaged and focused on the Office of Innovation and Technology’s goals
• Be an advocate for consistency and cohesion for the phila.gov project from a technical perspective
• Enforce clean code and excellent coding practices by conducting thoughtful code reviews
• Help create a collaborative and inclusive environment where engineers are encouraged to ask questions and work in the open
• Coordinate team vision and roadmap setting with the Director of Software Engineering
• Continuously improve upon your team's process and best practices ensuring the effective delivery of high-quality software, while balancing the constraints of existing systems to improve the quality of digital services for residents of Philadelphia
• Direct the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) from a growth-forward perspective
• Manage ongoing development of features for the phila.gov product
• Support and maintain production systems used for critical City workloads

Essential Functions

Management

• Supports and expands a culture that is supportive of diversity, equity, and inclusion were employees from all backgrounds can succeed and thrive.
• Helps to project timelines and capacity for individual team members.
• Encourages new growth for employees within their preview
• Conducts performance reviews.
• Models best practices.

Operations

• Coordinates the development and implementation of major project timelines where appropriate.
• Follows effective relationship and project management processes in coordination with Digital Service (DS) team members and engagement managers at the City
• Unblocks team members from technical issues.

Relationship Building

• Develop and maintain strong partnerships with key members of the Digital Services team
• Coordinate and collaborate with partners in Digital Services, including User Experience and Content Strategy

Competencies, Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Proven track record managing complex projects.
• Ability to solve complex business problems and develop user/business-driven technology strategies and plans.
• Strong written and oral communication skills (including ability to present ideas in user-friendly, business-friendly and technical language) and interpersonal skills with a focus on rapport-building, listening and questioning skills.
• Proven analytical and problem-solving abilities, including ability to anticipate, identify, and solve critical problems.
• Exceptional customer service orientation.

While you won’t necessarily be working with these technologies every day, you should have a broad enough understanding of them to help support your team.

• Understanding of the modern web platform and common architectures
• Server-side programming languages such as PHP, .NET Core, or Node.js
• Understanding and support of content management systems (WordPress, Drupal, etc.)
• 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
• CI/CD pipelines
• API design and development

Especially strong candidates will have prior experience building new features in a Enterprise-level content management system with many active users.

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. The ideal candidate will have at least three to five years of supervisory, management, or project management experience.

Salary Not to Exceed: $105,000

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.

Did you know?
●    We are a Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program qualified employer
●    25% tuition discount program for City employees (and sometimes spouses and dependents as well) in partnership with area colleges and universities
●    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

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

Please note that effective September 1, 2021, the City of Philadelphia is requiring all new employees to present proof of vaccination against COVID-19. 

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