Technology Director

The Pachamama Alliance, a non-profit, is rapidly developing into an organization that relies on distributed web-based systems to support local grass-roots activities world-wide.

With our commitment to the expansion of the organization's Awakening the Dreamer Initiative, we anticipate growing the number of participants to 25,000 by year-end 2007. The five-year business plan is to reach between 3 million to 25 million participants by year-end 2012. 

The current growth in 2007 has outstripped the existing expertise in the organization and our current technologies. We have a growing virtual community hungry for resources and support. The rapid implementation of core technologies will be required to meet our current year objectives, and to lay the foundation to meet our longer-term vision. The Pachamama Alliance is looking for a skilled, energetic, articulate, and socially aware technology wizard with a wide-variety of talents. The core competencies for this position are in three areas: integrating technologies, leveraging volunteer resources, anticipatory planning. 

Core Competencies 

The ideal candidate will be motivated by a commitment to the mission of the Pachamama Alliance, and have a hands-on background in web-based systems design and experience in managing teams in development projects, with heavy emphasis on open-source community building.  

We are looking for a systems visionary, a designer and project manager, a developer and a coordinator. The data will be traditional database (membership/participant management, fundraising management, event management), multimedia (video streaming) library management, content management systems (CMS) for documents, and community support (blogs, discussion boards, surveys, calendaring). 

An ability to leverage the expertise of volunteers for the planning, design, and development, and then to enlist and recruit volunteer help in testing and implementation will be a significant aid to the success of this position. This will require strong team-building, motivation, and communication skills. 

Specific Responsibilities 

Translate the organization's goals into a "Technology Plan", with emphasis on the successful expanded global reach of the Awakening the Dreamer Symposium and the community of active participants that this will generate. The plan will need to address current needs, while being a scalable foundation for the anticipated growth in coming years. 

* Advise managers of our organization in selection of tools and methods for accomplishing our objectives using open source internet technology, after careful risk assessment (e.g., integration, total cost of maintenance, external and internal support requirements, long-term viability).

* Bring together the technical and people resources, including volunteer teams, to accomplish the following:

- Design and implement new interface allowing members to create community through blogs, discussion groups, and networking.
- Continual updating of content on the website, setting up protocols for users to manage their own content revisions, using the Joomla CMS already implemented.
- Improve and enhance the Event Scheduling System just now being installed to add essential features.
- Train users to maintain a system of automatic email communications based on events and transactions, using our current database (Democracy In Action.)
- Implementation of a new look and feel for the website.
- Integration of the Donor Records system and the Symposium Participant Records System.
- Design and implementation of "front-end" systems of data collection and producing reports for users.
- Provide technical and business oversight to all projects within the group.
- Act as a Development Manager for technology staff and volunteers.

Experience Required: 

* 10+ years of related overall experience: Including at least 4 years successful experience with project estimation, staffing, resource allocation. Also including at least 2 years of successful experience as an architect in one of the three tracks while obtaining the following expertise.
* Track record of hiring and developing a performing team of software engineers
* 5+ years software development team management experience
* Leadership experience with server software development
* BS or MS in Computer Science or equivalent 
* Experience with online community needs 

* Skills Required:

- Systems design and development
- Database design using MYSQL and/or others online database software. 
- Familiar with content management software (CMS), especially JOOMLA
- Using open source software to create new systems
- Systems integration
- Project Management 
- Cross-platform (Mac, PC, Unix) 
- Keep current with object, component, database, and infrastructure methodology and technology (e.g., via technical journals, conferences, and personal research) 
* Strong team player
* Strong problem-solving skills; Able to work under pressure when there are issues
* Excellent written and verbal communication skills 
* Strong planning and project management skills
* Technical strengths must include networking, performance, high availability
* Effective follow-up 
* Strong process orientation
* Goal-oriented achiever 
* Flexible
* Hands-on
* Internationalization experience is a plus 

Desired Qualifications: 

* Able to technically provide strategic direction and oversight to multiple projects (Includes overall management for indirect and direct reports) 
* Acts as a Development Manager for technology staff and volunteers.
* Business Management and Administration: Demonstrated knowledge of project planning, staffing, and estimating in an iterative software development process.
* E-commerce: Working knowledge of the e-commerce business. Expert knowledge of the e-commerce domain.
* Application Architecture: Expert knowledge in software architecture principles. Expert knowledge in distributed object development. Working ability to identify architecturally significant requirements and their ramifications. Working ability to make engineering tradeoffs between conflicting architecturally significant requirements. Good knowledge of Web development. Good knowledge of multi-applications application architectures. Good working knowledge of developing application on multiple platforms. 
* Application Design: Mastery of object-oriented concepts (e.g., abstraction, encapsulation, inheritance, polymorphism). Good design skill at the application/component/package/module level. Able to design small system applications. Able to design medium-sized software applications. Expert ability to use analysis, design, and communications patterns.
* Application Technology: Expert knowledge of upperCASE tools (e.g., Modeling Tools, Configuration Management Tools). Expert knowledge of lowerCASE tools (e.g., compilers, debuggers). Expert knowledge of communication technology (e.g., CORBA, DCOM, RMI). 
* Database Technology: Basic ability to use an existing relational database. Basic ability to use an object database. 
* Infrastructure Technology: Working knowledge of hardware including client and server computers, routers, firewalls, and networks. Good working knowledge of systems infrastructure technologies.
* Programming: Expert in at least one language. A good working knowledge of multiple implementation languages. Expert on at least one platform. Good working knowledge of multiple platforms. 
* Configuration Management: Working knowledge of configuration identification, control, and auditing and associated tools. 
* Ability to work with a diverse group of participants, membership, and volunteers 
* Limitless self motivation to solve technical challenges and improve your team's effectiveness 

This could either be a full-time position or a contracted service, depending on the fit and circumstances.

Please email resume and cover letter by Friday, June 15, 2007. No phone calls please.