Company Description
KIPP Public Schools is a national network of public charter schools that prepares students with the skills and confidence to create the future they want for themselves, their communities, and us all. We are a network of 270 schools, nearly 10,000 educators, and more than 160,000 students and alumni.
Our mission: Together with families and communities, we create joyful, academically excellent schools that prepare students with the skills and confidence to pursue the paths they choose—college, career, and beyond—so they can lead fulfilling lives and build a more just world.
Our vision: Every child grows up free to create the future they want for themselves and their communities.
The KIPP Foundation is a nonprofit organization that supports KIPP schools across the country. The KIPP Foundation trains and develops outstanding educators to lead KIPP public schools; provides tools, resources and training for excellent teaching and learning; promotes innovation; and facilitates the exchange of insights and ideas across KIPP and other public schools and organizations.
Job Description
Position Overview
Technology solutions play a critical role in powering KIPP’s continued growth and equipping our network to better support our students on their journeys to pursue their path in life – college, career and beyond. Technology brings together our thousands of KIPP teammates nationwide, helping us work smarter, share ideas and resources, track performance and leverage data to make the right decisions.
The Application Development team at KIPP is responsible for development and support of custom-built applications, as well as integration of products/solutions developed by external vendors. The Senior Manager, Application Development will serve as the leader for overall application strategy and execution. This individual will be the primary liaison to KIPP’s Product Managers and other business leaders / subject matter experts who manage and rely upon a variety of applications, primarily Salesforce, as well as WordPress, .NET, and other Microsoft Technologies.
Examples of past projects include:
- Development of a national Talent Data Application on Salesforce
- Updates to existing external facing WordPress websites with new features
- Leveraging API to update students’ college application
The Senior Manager, Application Development will report to the Senior Director of Technology and Technology Innovation. This is a highly technical, hands-on role; approximately 30% team leadership and 70% individual technical work. The Senior Manager will be oversee a team of two individual contributors, as well as implementation partners and other consultants, with opportunities to expand the team in the future.
Key Responsibilities and Duties
Application Development Leadership
- Work with product managers, project managers and IT teammates to establish KIPP development methodology on key projects, including written requirements/design documents, comprehensive testing, and release management.
- Provide technical oversight during the design and development of new applications and updates to existing applications.
- Assist internal developers and external consultants to ensure successful project execution.
- Develop the information architecture to integrate various systems at KIPP Foundation and schools to create long term sustainable solutions.
- Work closely with vendors to address integration issues in order to provide KIPP staff with an integrated application framework as appropriate.
- Provide technical leadership and guidance as teams explore opportunities to improve systems and processes.
Application Design and Development
- Design and develop customizations and enhancements to applications built on a variety of technology platforms.
- Take responsibility for comprehensive unit testing and participate in the user acceptance testing process.
Application Support and Infrastructure
- Serve as Tier II support on application issues not resolved by the Helpdesk.
- Provide technical guidance and mentorship to other members of the IT Team.
- Work with the IT Operations team to ensure applications are patched and upgraded during maintenance windows.
- In collaboration with the IT Operations team, develop processes to ensure security of data, high availability of applications and an appropriate disaster recovery strategy.
Team Leadership
- Manage and develop a team of two individual contributors
- Oversee and review technical designs and code developed by consultants
- Create and track team plans to ensure projects are resourced sufficiently without oversubscribing individual contributors.
Qualifications
- Passion for education equity and KIPP’s mission and values (sense of purpose, results, respect, constant learning & humility, and diversity & inclusivity)
- A proactive cultural leader and team player who thrives on collaboration and learning
- Cultural competence in collaborating with teammates across lines of difference
- Strong people development and management experience, with demonstrated ability to balance delegation and control and hold teams accountable for results by creating a culture of ownership
- Excellent relationship management skills and the ability to motivate and educate both internal and external resources
- Strong work ethic and commitment to high standards of excellence coupled with an enthusiastic and passionate approach to one’s work.
- Rigorous attention to detail with an ability to move from big picture to the minutia of execution with ease and composure.
- Strong oral and written communication with both technical and non-technical audiences.
- Excellent project and time management skills needed to balance multiple priorities and ensure timely delivery of high-quality products; exceptional ability to backwards plan and contingency plan
- Self-directed and results-oriented, demonstrating initiative and follow-through and ability to adapt to changing circumstances. Resourceful.
- Willingness to seek feedback, adapt practices and continuously learn and evolve.
Experience
- Proven experience in the architecture, design and development of complex solutions using KIPP’s technology platforms.
- Ability to convert business requirements into technical design specifications and technical documentation skills.
- Proven ability to provide hands-on technical leadership to development and integration projects with internal and external/vendor teams.
- Hands-on experience designing and developing user-friendly applications based on multiple technology platforms.
- Experience developing custom applications within Salesforce platform strongly preferred, including writing APEX triggers/classes and working with Salesforce Flows.
- Experience with .NET and/or WordPress preferred.
- Familiarity with the HTML, JavaScript, CSS, DHTML, SQL, LDAP and XML.
- Strong database skills, including data modeling and standard data retrieval, insertion and updates required.
Additional Information
Work Conditions
Location
It is preferred, but not mandatory for this role to be based out of a KIPP Foundation office. This role also has the option of working from a remote office full time. KIPP Foundation office is in New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington DC.
Compensation and Benefits
KIPP offers competitive salary commensurate with experience. A comprehensive benefits package, generous vacation and PTO, 401k retirement plan with both pre- and post-tax options, as well as gym reimbursement, flexible spending account (FSA), and cell phone reimbursement are also offered by KIPP.