Director of Technology

Who We Are

The Water Project unlocks human potential by building and connecting global networks of local leaders, communities of generous supporters, and an informed public to provide sustainable water and sanitation programs to needlessly suffering communities in developing countries. We are committed to bringing people together to solve the problem of finding clean water. Whether it’s our local teams in the field, our international staff, our donors and fundraisers, or the communities we serve, we believe that people are the greatest solution to the water crisis.

At The Water Project, we prioritize the well-being of our team. We provide competitive salaries and excellent benefits, including fully covered medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401(k) match, and a generous vacation policy.

What The Role Is

This role is for a hands-on technology leader who will build, run, and improve the platforms that connect donors to communities, our staff to relevant data, and enable the fulfillment of our mission to bring clean water to those in need.

This is a builder's role with leadership responsibility. You'll spend a meaningful part of your week developing code, building or selecting technology solutions, integrating systems, and shipping features yourself, while leading a small team of 1–3 developers. You'll partner closely with Global Programs, Revenue (Philanthropy/Marketing), and Finance to decide what we build and why, and you'll be accountable for the reliability, security, and usefulness of everything we run.

The person who thrives here asks "who is this for?" before asking "is this done?" — and produces work that people on both sides of the mission, donor and community member alike, can trust and rely on. You bring genuine investment to the work, not just competence. Your follow-through is your reputation.

What You Will Own and Be Accountable For

Digital platforms

• Own the architecture, roadmap, and day-to-day health of our digital platforms (website, internal systems, etc), including donation flows, fundraising pages, sponsor dashboards, the project directory, and the live impact map.

• Build and maintain features across our PHP and React applications and our WordPress properties, from backend services to front-end HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

• Keep donor-facing experiences fast, accessible, mobile-friendly, and secure, with particular care for payment and personal data.

• Manage hosting, deployments, monitoring, backups, and third-party vendors and integrations.

• Work closely with Marketing to enhance and improve our methods for attracting, retaining, communicating progress to, and delighting our donors

Supporting the mission and The Water Promise

• Make sure the technology serves the people it exists for — on both ends of the mission.

• Work with our program team and in-country staff to surface data about water point health and maintenance for action

• Make sure every donor and sponsor can see an accurate, current picture of the communities they support.

• Build systems that don't just report progress — but help people believe in it.

Reporting and data

• Own our data architecture: how program, donor, and financial data flows between Salesforce, our web platforms, and our data and analytics tools.

• Enhance our trustworthy reporting and dashboards for leadership, the board, partners, and donors, including functionality rates, service levels, fundraising performance, and impact metrics.

• Set standards for data quality, governance, privacy, and retention, and document them so others can follow them.

• Turn data into information to enable our mission, surface opportunities, and highlight risks

AI and machine learning

• Identify and deliver practical uses of AI and ML that serve the mission, such as predicting water-point breakdowns from monitoring data, prioritizing maintenance, detecting anomalies in sensor feeds, and helping staff draft and personalize donor updates.

• Evaluate, integrate, and responsibly operate AI tools and models, with clear guardrails for accuracy, privacy, and the dignity of the communities we serve.

• Help staff across the organization use AI tools well in their daily work.

Salesforce and CRM

• Oversee our Salesforce consultant(s) as they fulfill org requests.

• Connect online giving, campaigns, and communications to a single, reliable view of each supporter.

Leadership and collaboration

• Lead with the same care you bring to the code.

• Lead, mentor, and manage 1–3 developers.  Set priorities, review code, and create an environment where people do their best work.

• Work as a peer with the other department heads to plan and deliver on The Water Promise, translating their goals into a realistic technology roadmap.

• Establish sensible engineering practices for a small team: version control, code review, testing, documentation, and incident response.

• Manage the IT budget, licenses, and vendor relationships, and oversee staff devices, accounts, and cybersecurity basics.

Who You Are

Required Qualifications

• 6+ years of hands-on software development, including at least 2 years leading developers or key technical projects.

• A genuine connection to our mission of reliable, lasting water access - someone whose belief in the work shows up in how they do it.

• Strong, current skills in PHP, React, and modern JavaScript, plus solid HTML and CSS with an ability to use AI tools to generate quality code.

• Experience building on and extending WordPress (custom themes, plugins, performance, and security).

• Good SQL and data modeling skills, and experience with data warehouses, ETL/ELT pipelines, and BI or dashboarding tools.

• Practical experience applying AI and machine learning in production: working with LLM APIs, building or fine-tuning models, and evaluating their output.

• Experience with cloud hosting, CI/CD, and securing systems that handle payments and personal data.

• The judgment to choose the simplest solution that works, and the discipline to maintain what you build.

• Clear communication with non-technical colleagues, donors, and partners.
  

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in a nonprofit, international development, or WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene) setting.

• Work with IoT or remote sensor data, GIS and mapping, or mobile data collection tools.

• Working experience with Salesforce, ideally Nonprofit Cloud or NPSP, including integrations via its APIs.

• BS in Computer Science (or related) or equivalent experience.