Technical Team Lead, Institutional Services

The New York Public Library•New York, NY

7d•Hybrid

About The Position

NYPL Digital is the department responsible for the digital transformation of the Library in order to facilitate delivery of core patron-facing services through digital platforms. NYPL is hiring a Technical Team Leader in our Institutional Services group to lead a full-stack engineering team building and maintaining our digital platforms, and pushing forward our unified patron experience vision across multiple applications and databases. The role will be responsible for supporting several codebases (Python, React, Java, XML) focused on providing access to digital library resources for NYPL patrons, researchers, educators, and students around the country. This involves maintaining legacy codebases and developing new applications to help patrons access NYPL’s collections. This role will also contribute to the technical leadership of NYPL Digital by helping set standards for best practices in application development, database management, people management, and other technical areas. It will also have the opportunity to contribute to other catalog-based projects at NYPL, with a focus on increasing the adoption of Python as a standard language in the department. The Technical Team Lead role requires a mix of people management and hands-on technical contributions.

Requirements

Bachelor’s Degree -OR- Equivalent 7+ years of hands-on development experience on relevant tech stack
1+ years of experience in people management
Strong leadership, mentoring, coaching and decision-making skills
Excellent written and verbal communication skills
Demonstrated ability to level up individual engineers and engineering teams
Track record of leading major technical initiatives to solve complex technical problems
Knowledge of non-technical strategies for solving team, culture and process problems
Experience establishing documentation standards and practices
Expertise in Python application development and system design, including production experience with Python web frameworks
Strong understanding of system architecture and design patterns as well as cloud infrastructure
Strong understanding of DevOps practices and their impact on implementation approaches
Proficiency in SQL and relational databases such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, etc.
Experience with Node.js and React ecosystem
Experience with Next.js.
Experience with multiple component libraries.
Experience with front-end integration testing
Knowledge of accessibility principles.
Proficiency with version control systems and git
Experience with CI/CD tools like GitHub Actions, TravisCI, etc.
Familiarity with agile methodologies such as Scrum & Kanban
Familiarity with Single Sign On is a plus
Understanding or experience managing a single sign on infrastructure like Shibboleth is a plus
Production experience working with data stores, including ElasticSearch and/or Solr, at scale a plus

Nice To Haves

Prior experience building a component library is a plus
Prior experience working on an accessible front-end is a plus
Familiarity with Single Sign On is a plus
Understanding or experience managing a single sign on infrastructure like Shibboleth is a plus
Production experience working with data stores, including ElasticSearch and/or Solr, at scale a plus

Responsibilities

Understand NYPL technical needs to define system specifications
Design and implement scalable, optimized, and maintainable APIs and other applications
Collaborate with multiple teams working on platforms to build innovative and forward-looking applications for our patrons
Build software following industry best practices and NYPL values (https://github.com/NYPL/engineering-general)
Work with product/project managers on estimating the feasibility and complexity of new products/features
Mentor and coach junior developers on best practices and career growth
Communicate priorities and system requirements to software development teams
Manage a small team of 2-4 full-stack engineers
Motivate staff and create spaces where they can ask questions and voice their concerns
Be transparent with the team about challenges, failures, and successes
Research and recommend solutions based on cost benefit analysis and embracing automation and efficiency.
Ask questions to ascertain the feasibility of the technical approach and guide the team if not
Support small team of 2+ engineers in their day-to-day work
Report on status of team projects, including progress and any issues encountered
Coach team members on both hard and soft skills
Provide feedback on team performance and motivate team to deliver on project goals