Lead Software Engineer (SEO)

Summary:

We’d love you to join our growing product development team whose mission is to create people-centric software experiences that empower our local news and digital partners. True to our purpose, we help small teams play big! Be part of a digital media landscape amid rapid change; our team is at the center of a new content, marketing, operations, and revenue-sustainable experience that puts product, people and performance first. You will be the technical leader in SEO working across our newsroom and product teams to optimize our website and web applications for search engines and performance, ensuring a fast, efficient, and engaging user experience. This will improve our search presence and content relevancy across the many US media markets in our portfolio such as the Chicago Tribune, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, the New York Daily News, the Denver Post, the San Jose Mercury News, and the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

As a technical leader and member of the broader Product Development team, you will contribute to a culture that prioritizes continuous learning, autonomous decision making, agility, and pragmatism. Accelerate your career at a company that offers substantial personal and professional growth opportunities via a hands-on learning approach and a flexible working style. 

You'll be a technical leader, driving SEO improvements and mentoring other engineers to enhance our search presence in diverse US media markets. Candidates must possess a strong understanding of SEO principles, Core Web Vitals and be able to identify technical SEO deficiencies using standard analytics tools. The candidate should be an expert on front-end development technologies with a proven track record of driving website performance improvements. They will be able to identify, plan, prioritize, and execute technical SEO recommendations with the product development and analytics team, within an Agile framework. 

This is a remote role, however candidates must reside in CO, FL, MA, MN, OH, PA, or TX

What you will do:

• Establish a comprehensive technical approach and strategy to securing best-in-class search results

• Provide technical guidance and mentorship to other engineers on SEO and web performance best practices

• Collaborate with developers, designers, and content creators to ensure website projects adhere to SEO and performance standards

• Participate in code reviews and provide constructive feedback to ensure code quality and performance

• Conduct comprehensive SEO audits to identify technical issues, content gaps, and opportunities for improvement

• Create user stories, code and prototypes that improve and enhance content, page structures, rank and other drivers of search performance. Implement performance optimization techniques, such as code splitting, lazy loading, image optimization, and caching

• Analyze and optimize Core Web Vitals performance using tools like Google PageSpeed Insights, Lighthouse, and Chrome DevTools. Utilize SEO tools (e.g., Google Search Console, Ahrefs, SEMrush) to monitor website performance and identify areas for improvement

• Contribute to the development and implementation of website performance monitoring and reporting processes

• Keep the organization up to date on the latest SEO trends, algorithms, and best practices

• Proactively identify and troubleshoot website performance issues

• Document solutions, processes, and best practices related to SEO and web performance

• Contribute to the development and maintenance of internal documentation and knowledge bases

What you will bring:

• 5+ years of experience in web development with a focus on SEO and performance optimization

• BS in Computer Science/Engineering, completion of an intense software engineering curriculum (bootcamp)

• Strong understanding of front-end technologies, including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and React

• Experience with PHP and WordPress development

• Proficiency in using Git for version control

• Familiarity with server-side performance optimization techniques

• Experience with SEO and CWV analysis tools

• Excellent communication and collaboration skills; able to influence without authority and build enthusiasm for a shared vision

• Proven ability to mentor other engineers

• Ability to clearly articulate technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences

• Proactive and solution-oriented approach to problem-solving

• Ability to identify and diagnose performance bottlenecks

• Experience working with Jira or similar project management tools

• Ability to manage multipl