Company Description

Merkle is a leading data-driven, technology-enabled, global performance marketing agency that specializes in the delivery of unique, personalized customer experiences across platforms and devices. For more than 30 years, Fortune 1000 companies and leading nonprofit organizations have partnered with Merkle to maximize the value of their customer portfolios. The agency's heritage in data, technology, and analytics forms the foundation for its unmatched skills in understanding consumer insights that drive people-based marketing strategies. Its combined strengths in performance media, customer experience, customer relationship management, loyalty, and enterprise marketing technology drive improved marketing results and competitive advantage. With 9,600 employees, Merkle is headquartered in Columbia, Maryland, with 24 additional offices in the US and 29 offices in Europe and APAC. In 2016, the agency joined the Dentsu Aegis Network.

We are champions for meaningful progress and we strive to be a force for good—for our people, for our clients, for the industry and for our society. We keep our people at the center, creating space for growth, understanding and learning so they can thrive. We embed diversity, in our mindset, in our solutions and in our teams to empower an inclusive, equitable and culturally fluent environment. Building this culture within our teams makes us better collaborators with each other and with our clients, driving better outcomes for all. Merkle CXM is an agency of dentsu.

Job Description

Merkle is seeking a Lead Interactive Developer with proven experience leading and developing enterprise applications utilizing the latest front-end technologies. Candidates will take direction from managers and architects while communicating issues, provding estimates and helping to envision creative solutions to technical problems. Lead Interactive Developers must identify project risks, raise concerns with project leadership, and provide alternatives to handling risks by working with creative, experience, and development team members to identify and resolve issues.

The ideal candidate will have experience interfacing with various back-end technologies as well as frameworks and services. Lead Interactive Developers at Merkle must demonstrate the ability to master new / emerging technologies, stay up-to-date with relevant technologies, and proactively suggest architecture changes and new coding practices. They must also take initiative to offer technical direction and creative solutions, including leading code reviews and mentoring junior and senior developers on the team and help influence the direction of our frontend team and our clients’ frontend strategies.

The candidate must have consulting experience, be a team player with a positive attitude, and possess excellent written and verbal communication skills.

Responsibilities and essential job functions include but not limited to the following:

• Work with discipline architects/managers and the client to help design the architecture of the code
• Optimize existing code for maintainability and testability
• Prioritize requests and work intake to help the team focus their time on the most important work
• Initiate, organize and drive development efforts for a team of engineers over a shared codebase
• Drive solution design discussions with external teams while representing the client perspective and desires

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in software development with at least 2+ years in a technical lead role
• Expert with web technologies, including HTML5, CSS3, SASS, vanilla JavaScript with EcmaScript6+, JavaScript frameworks (e.g., React.js, jQuery, Angular.js), Redux and JSON, and awareness of inherent pros and cons of different JS frameworks
•  Experience in working with React Flux, and Redux architecture using complex object-oriented concepts in improving the performance of websites.
• Strong knowledge JavaScript objects, prototypes, closures, callback functions and promise.
• Familiar with data modeling and the relationship between front-end development and back-end data sources
• Experience implementing a given layout into a functioning interactive design that is responsive, compatible across multiple web and mobile browsers and troubleshooting issues.
• Solid knowledge of common creational, structural, and behavioral design patterns and programming models
• Solid knowledge of the concepts and advantages of using compression and other optimization techniques (sprites, etc.) to improve front-end performance
•  Able to develop against common, open APIs (Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, Twitter, etc.)
• Familiar with at least one tool to analyze performance within a system (e.g., Java profilers, DB profilers, etc.)
• Able to design and implement modules of code, leveraging best practices as examples for junior and senior developers
• Ability to troubleshoot, debug, performance-tune, and optimize a module of code
• Working knowledge of front-end optimization tools (e.g., Rhino or YUI for JS Compression) and web server gzip compression
• Familiarity with Tag Management tools (e.g., GTM/Optimost/Adobe Launch/etc.)
•  Experience with source code management tools (e.g., Git, SVN, Ant, Maven)
• Ability to lead client facing conversations and produce quality design documents acceptable for client consumption
• Able to help set up and configure a local development environment and build process, including leveraging build systems (e.g., Gulp, Grunt, Webpack) and unit testing
• Familiar with Scrum or other Agile methodologies
• Ability to document solutions using proven methods (UML, flow charting, ER diagrams)

Additional Information

Perks:

• Great compensation package
• Comprehensive healthcare plans
• 401(k) with employer match
• Flexible time-off
• 16 weeks paid parental leave

Employees from diverse or underrepresented backgrounds encouraged to apply.
Dentsu (the "Company") is committed to a policy of Equal Employment Opportunity and will not discriminate against an applicant or employee of the Company, on the basis of age, sex, sexual orientation, race, color, creed, religion, ethnicity, national origin, alienage or citizenship, disability, marital status, veteran or military status, genetic information, or any other legally-recognized protected basis under federal, state or local laws, regulations or ordinances. Applicants with disabilities may be entitled to reasonable accommodation under the terms of the Americans with Disabilities Act and/or certain state or local laws. A reasonable accommodation is a change in the way things are normally done that will ensure an equal employment opportunity without imposing an undue hardship on the Company. Please contact [email protected] if you need assistance completing any forms or to otherwise participate in the application process or to request or discuss an accommodation in connection with a job at the Company to which you are applying.