Technical Director

Pappas Group is an award-winning, full service, creative agency that builds brand experiences people love. With offices in Washington DC and San Francisco, Pappas brings together creative, strategy, technology, media and marketing expertise to create big ideas and thoughtful experiences that connect brands and people. This experience-led approach, combined with an intense focus on delivering bottom line business results has earned Pappas Group numerous accolades, continuous growth and strong relationships with brands big and small.

Job Description

The Technical Director's (TD) primary focus is to keep us on track with emerging web and mobile technologies. S/he is at the forefront of technology, using a detailed understanding of these technologies to counsel clients on best practices and inspire her/his team to deliver BIG.

Our TD takes ownership of all things technical during the creation of our campaigns, from business development and support to the mentoring of the technical team. The TD will participate in meetings and presentations to define the solutions that meet our clients' needs; architect the technical plan for meeting the deliverable; work with the technical team to establish the tech specs; and actively manage the technical progress and quality of development through delivery.

Responsibilites

Our TD is ultimately responsible for the technical build-out of all websites, mobile apps and other development projects undertaken by the agency, as well as establishing best practices for our technical team. Detailed responsibilities are listed below:

The Client Side:

  • Stay current with emerging technologies to contribute to the overall development of the client project and the agency
  • Work with clients to develop and implement sound technical innovations
  • Demonstrate a good understanding of standard and emerging web technologies and the security concerns for web applications
  • Counsel clients on issues, crisis management, plans and activities; put practical measures in place to implement recommendations
  • Participate in new business efforts by researching and proposing recommendations to solve clients' business goals, strategies and needs
  • Estimate development needs on projects with accuracy to ensure our ability to deliver proposed concepts and designs

The Team Side:

  • Supervise the management of the development team and provide hands-on support as needed
  • Promote technical excellence through the standardization of development procedures
  • Define coding standards and disseminate best practices within the team
  • Oversee the developers during code reviews; manage the QA phase of development
  • Recommend new processes to improve team performance
  • Identify and implement improvements to enhance the effectiveness of our deliverables
  • Offer strong leadership, coaching, and guidance to developers; facilitate on-the-job training and mentoring of developers
  • Manage third party vendors and subcontractors to ensure development standards and objectives are met
  • Work with the team to help translate client business requirements into clear technical specs
  • Provide leadership throughout the implementation, build, integrations and QA for all web and mobile technology development

Skills and Experience

  • 3+ years technology management experience in a digital agency environment with aggressive deadlines working on a variety of web applications
  • 4+ years hands on experience with a broad range of technologies: XHTML/CSS, Javacript; solid experience with Drupal, Wordpress and other CMS; social media experience is a plus
  • Show a solid familiarity with standard and emerging back-end technologies, including databases, development languages (java, asp, etc.), networking, and web hosting technologies
  • Possess a solid understanding of servers and databases and how they affect our development work
  • Demonstrate a familiarity with SEO, personalization, web analytics and search trends

To be considered for this position, please send your resume to resume@pappasgroup.com; include the title "Technical Director" in the subject line. We'd also like to see links to projects you've developed, or have been responsible for the development of, during your career. No phone calls please.

Pappas Group is an EOE encouraging diversity in the workplace.