Product Development Director, School Performance Save

Position Summary: As part of the Department of Education’s (DOE) Office of the First Deputy Chancellor, the Office of School Performance (OSP) produces important reports and data tools to help educators and administrators to best serve New York City’s population of 1 million students and 80,000+ teachers across 1600+ schools.

The Director of the Product Development team will lead a team of web developers, data developers, and product development managers in a collaborative, mission-driven environment to develop data tools that will help educators and administrators analyze school performance. This leader will also coordinate with designers, analysts, and senior leaders to direct the future of accountability and data tools for schools. The team utilizes many tools – SAS, SQL, Python, Flask, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and more - and collaborates with multiple outside offices and divisions within NYCDOE. Our culture is relaxed but demanding. The Director will oversee an agile management environment, will have team building skills, and have the ability to generate and test ideas and learn from mistakes so they can lead the team in arriving at successful solutions. This role will be responsible for managing and directing a team in a complex leadership environment.  

OSP’s commitment to developing innovative, interactive, and data rich tools for educators and staff that support them requires a Development Director who will lead application programming, computer systems development, service development, development operations management, and other core platform services. The Development Director will be responsible for team-building and managing the development of team members. Performs related work.

Reports to: Executive Director, School Performance

Direct Reports: Product Development Mangers, Data developers, Web developers, and project-based consultant(s)

Key Relationships: Works in close partnership with web developers, database engineers, and other staff from the Office of  Policy and Evaluation, including the Director of Policy and Analysis, data managers, data and policy analysts, user experience analysts, and product designers. Will also liaise closely with DIIT partners and other teams across the NYC DOE.

Responsibilities

• Plan and direct all IT-related aspects of the Office of School Performance interactive web reporting platform:
• creating and implementing policies for teams of developers and database managers to build scalable, secure, and dynamic web tools for all members of the NYCDOE, including back-end and front-end infrastructure, planning, testing, systems programming, and team process management;
• leading partnerships with DIIT and OSP teams, create long-term value, manage solution architecture, and ensure compliance with all standards, laws, and protocols; and
• setting standards and best practices for ensuring site stability and managing the technical execution of enhancements to the School Performance productivity suite which include the local accountability reporting tools (i.e., School Quality Reports) which communicate numerous school performance metrics to schools.
• support strategic planning for continuous improvement of existing web applications for state accountability (i.e., State Accountability Reporting Tool) and enabling migration of static and/or manual data reporting resources.
• Plan and direct the development, deployment, and technical support for new interactive web tools. This includes:
• applying best practices to ensure that languages such as JavaScript, Python, HTML, CSS, and Vue.js are being used to maximize user experience for schools;
• developing and managing protocols and processes across teams of developers to manage code deployment, code review, and systems stability; and
• Direct the creation of the NYC DOE School Quality Reports, including the School Quality Snapshot, School Quality Guide, School Quality Dashboard, and School Quality Student Workbooks.
• Manage and maintain the School Performance Reporting Internal (SPR_INT) Database.
• In collaboration with other teams across Office of Policy and Evaluation, improve and maintain the Insight Data System that provides real-time detailed student performance data to school staff, superintendent staff, and central staff.
• Oversee data quality and governance for the SPR_INT database in collaboration with offices across the NYC DOE including the Division of School Leadership, the Office of Postsecondary Readiness, the Office of Charter Partnerships, the Division of Early Childhood Education, the Office of Student Enrollment, and others.
• Directly or indirectly manage all developers on the OSP Product Development team. This includes managing consultants, junior developers, and mid-level managers. Oversee their work, professional development, and performance management.
• Direct teamwork and team culture on the Product Development team
• Contribute to the teamwork and team culture of the teams that the Product Development team is a part of including the Office of School Performance, the Office of Policy and Evaluation, the Office of the First Deputy Chancellor, and the NYC DOE as a whole.
• Direct the use of agile project management strategies including using the Jira software for managing workflow and GitHub code repositor.
• Determine strategic direction for the technical development of all Office of School Performance products including proposals to DOE senior leaders about improvement and maintenance of all the products we make.
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Qualification Requirements:

Minimum

1. A master's degree in computer science from an accredited college and three years of progressively more responsible, full-time, satisfactory experience using information technology in computer applications programming, systems programming, computer systems development, data telecommunications, database administration, planning of data/information processing, user services, or area networks; at least 18 months of this experience must have been in an administrative, managerial or executive capacity in the areas of computer applications programming, systems programming, computer systems development, data telecommunications, data base administration, or planning of data processing or in the supervision of staff performing these duties; or
2. A baccalaureate degree from an accredited college and four years of experience as described in "1" above; or
3. A four-year high school diploma or its educational equivalent approved by a State’s department of education or recognized accrediting organization and six years of experience as described in "1" above; or
4. A satisfactory combination of education and experience equivalent to "1", "2" or "3" above. However, all candidates must have at least a four-year high school diploma or its educational equivalent approved by a State’s department of education or recognized accrediting organization and must possess at least three years of experience as described in "1" above, including the 18 months of administrative, managerial, executive or supervisory experience as described in "1" above.

Note:  The following types of experience are not acceptable: superficial use of preprogrammed software without complex programming, design, implementation or management of the product; use of word processing packages; use of a handheld calculator; primarily the entering or updating of data in a system; the operation of data processing hardware or consoles.

Plus

• Demonstrated success in facilitating teamwork leading a collaborative development team.
• Experience with principles of Software Engineering management including Agile and Scrum.
• Experience using and maintaining git or hg repositories, including using GitHub or equivalent software.
• Experience using JIRA or equivalent software for agile project management.
• Experience using the latest web technologies.

Technical Skills (direct experience or experience closely managing others):

• Experience in JavaScript, Python/Flask, PHP or other server-side languages.
• Experience in HTML5 and CSS.
• Experience with API development and integration.
• Experience managing web servers (Windows Server / IIS) for deploying web applications. Experience working with databases (MS SQL Server, SQL), including designing tables and ETL processes
• Experience in SAS, SQL, Python, or R for data processing.

Preferred

• Experience collaborating with dedicated UX specialists and developers.
• Experience presenting proposals to senior managers of a large organization.
• Experience with technical writing.
• Knowledge of mobile technology and accessibility standards and testing.
• Knowledge of principles of web security.
• Experience using regular code reviews and collaboratively reviewing pull request across a team.
• Exceptional people management skills in collegial, collaborative work environment.
• A background in the provision of technical support or customer service.
• Experience with technical writing.
• Comfort presenting technical information to a non-technical audience.
• Enjoys helping others solve technical problems.
• A quick learner; self-directed; excellent problem-solving skills.
• Ability to quickly and efficiently switch focus among multiple concurrent tasks.
• Passion for learning and understanding user needs.

Salary: $110,419 - $126,500

(Internal candidates who are selected for this position and who currently hold comparable or less senior positions within the DOE will not earn less than their current salary.)

Please include a resume and cover letter with your application.

NOTE: The filling of all positions is subject to budget availability and/or grant funding.