The Water Institute is seeking an experienced Full-Stack Software Engineer to join our Applied Technology team. As a Full-Stack Engineer, you will be responsible for working as part of a team to build and maintain stable, resilient web applications that support client projects developed by The Water Institute. Your work will have a significant impact on end-users' experience and satisfaction, and your work will directly contribute to expanding the impact of The Water Institute’s cutting-edge science. We expect this role to be heavily focused on frontend work for at least the first 6-12 months after hiring, because the near-term features in our roadmaps will require significant frontend work and this is the area where we have the least coverage among existing staff.

Anticipated start date is January 2026. We want to find the right person for this role; if you think you would be great at this job, even if you don’t exactly meet the qualifications below, please apply. If there are projects or experiences you would like to highlight beyond what is included in your resume, please add that to your cover letter. Cover letters are required to be considered for this posting.

The two client-sponsored web applications to which this position is initially most likely to contribute are:

1.     EnDMC: Environmental Data & Model Catalog (EnDMC) is a web-based information system designed to simplify management and discovery of environmental data and models and utilizes a newly developed metadata specification developed by The Water Institute specifically for numerical models. EnDMC is a key component in the Louisiana Watershed Initiative- learn more here. 
2. Avian Monitoring Portal: The Avian Data Monitoring Portal (https://avianmonitoring.com) is a geospatial platform providing access to aggregated colonial waterbird data and more than 300,000 photographic aerial survey images collected since 2010 to inform and visualize colonial waterbird benefits generated in association with Deepwater Horizon restoration activities throughout Louisiana and the broader northern Gulf.

Roles and Responsibilities:

• Work on cross-functional teams to architect, build, deploy, and maintain web applications that advance The Water Institute’s mission. • Make significant hands-on code contributions to all components of our web applications, including infrastructure, database / storage layer, CI/CD, API, frontend Javascript, and HTML/CSS. We expect this role to be heavily focused on frontend work for at least the first 6-12 months after hiring because the near-term features in our roadmaps will require significant frontend work and this is the area where we have the least coverage among existing staff. • Work with the team to troubleshoot and debug web applications across the entire stack to ensure smooth and error-free operation. • Write code reviews that maintain or improve software engineering practices at The Water Institute and which contribute to team members’ learning. • Pragmatically implement and maintain testing processes when helpful, including unit tests, integration tests, and end-to-end tests. • Adhere to coding standards and best practices and contribute to the improvement of these standards over time. • Make thoughtful and pragmatic technical decisions, both individually and as part of a group, consistently identifying risks and tradeoffs.

Requirements: • At least 5 years of experience building web applications. • Some experience working on web applications that incorporate geospatial and/or hydrological data. • Proficiency with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. • Strong proficiency with a modern frontend framework such as React, Vue, etc. • Significant experience building APIs and database-backed web applications. • No specific degree is required for this role. • You must be located, and eligible to work, in the United States.

Nice-to-haves: • Significant experience working with geospatial or hydrological data will be helpful. • Aside from those mentioned above, no particular technology is required for this role, but the applications we currently maintain use the following technologies (among others), and having strong knowledge of at least some of them will be very helpful: AWS (S3, ECS, Cloudformation, AKS), Kubernetes, Terraform, Docker, Python, Flask, MongoDB, PostgreSQL, jQuery, OpenLayers, Leaflet, GDAL.