Organization Overview

Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research in the areas of U.S. politics and policy views; media and journalism; internet and technology; science and society; religion and public life; Hispanic trends; global attitudes and U.S. social and demographic trends. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts. The Center’s work is carried out by a staff of about 140.

Position Summary

The Web Developer will be a member of a small in-house team that develops data tools based on center research. The primary focus of this position will be building the front-end for a custom data management and analysis tool being developed in-house by the Pew Research data team. This position reports to the Lead Web Developer.

Primary Responsibilities

• Collaborate with data architects, research, design and digital staff to develop the front-end of an internal software tool for managing a 20-year archive of survey data, using PHP, MySQL, JavaScript/jQuery, JSON/XML.
• Collaborate on the development of a public-facing interface for a subset of the data, as well as digital tools, graphics, visualizations and interactives based on the archive.
• Develop and manage a set of internal and external APIs that will drive public-facing features and tools.
• Ensure that all code is error-free, maintainable, scales for high traffic and is search engine optimized.
• Provide quality assurance and testing of other team members’ code.
• Maintain comprehensive technical documentation and contribute to style guides.
• Work with IT Systems and Network Engineer to ensure application security and stability.

Education/Training/Experience

• Bachelor’s degree.
• Three to five years professional experience developing web, mobile and other digital projects, preferably at a news organization, think-tank or non-profit organization.
• Experience developing APIs, and managing data from external APIs.
• Experience developing custom, scalable web applications JavaScript/jQuery, MySQL, JSON/XML, etc. preferably in a LAMP environment
• Experience with React, Angular, other Javascript MVC’s.
• Experience with a data visualization product (Highcharts, D3.js, etc.).
• Experience reviewing designs/wireframes and pointing out potential development concerns.
• Experience managing a shared codebase with other developers using Git, Subversion (SVN) or other version control system.
• WordPress experience a plus.
• Polymer experience a plus.
• Firebase or other similar datastore experience a plus.

Knowledge and Skill Requirements

• Expert knowledge of semantic HTML, CSS, and JavaScript and ability to separate content, presentation and behavior.
• Advanced knowledge of JavaScript MVC’s such as Angular or React.
• Intermediate knowledge of PHP or other development language and MySQL or other RDBMS.
• Demonstrated understanding of web standards, usability and human-user interaction philosophies and their application to web and mobile development, navigation, information architecture and content hierarchy. Experience with Responsive Design principles and coding (including media queries) a plus.
• Strong customer service orientation and ability to build and maintain strong relationships with project stakeholders.
• Ability to be creative and innovative, set priorities, organize time and identify resources for projects.
• Ability to work both independently and in a team environment.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills. Ability to clearly explain complex technical problems to less technical users.
• Ability to write and maintain user and system documentation for applications and processes.

Application Procedure

Applicants should email a complete resume, cover letter (indicating where you learned of the opening), work samples (as emails or link to online portfolio), and salary expectation to careers@pewresearch.org.

Responses can also be mailed to:

Human Resources
Pew Research Center
1615 L Street, NW Suite 700
Washington, DC 20036

We are an equal opportunity employer.