Front End Web Developer

Front End Web Developer Marketing & Communication

Openings
: 1

JOB SUMMARY: The Front End Web Developer is a key member of the Gustavus Adolphus College Marketing & Communications team, responsible for building and maintaining the digital experiences that shape how prospective students, current students, alumni and the broader public encounter the college online. Reporting to the Senior Director of Marketing, this role brings together technical expertise in Drupal development, a strong design sensibility and a working command of content strategy and SEO to ensure the college’s web presence is polished, performant and purposeful.

This role works in close, ongoing partnership with the Gustavus internal IT department (Gustavus Technology Services) on infrastructure, security, platform maintenance and technical standards. The ability to collaborate effectively across both teams is essential to the role.

This is a hybrid position with a flexible mix of on-campus and remote work. On-campus presence is expected for key team meetings, collaborative sprints and launch moments; remote flexibility supports focused development work.

Employment Status:
Full-Time (1.0 FTE), Exempt (Salaried), Benefits Eligible

Salary Range: $55, annually

*** Visa Sponsorship is not available for this position**

• Develop, maintain and improve the college’s Drupal-based website, including custom theme development (Twig), content type configuration, and front end component work.
• Serve as a primary CMS resource for content editors across campus; building intuitive templates and paragraph components, maintaining editorial workflows and providing training and documentation for non-technical users.
• Conduct regular content audits to identify outdated material, structural gaps and opportunities to improve clarity and findability across priority pages.
• Manage Drupal front end dependencies and ensure theme code is clean, well-documented and version-controlled via Git.
• Coordinate with Back End Developer and Gustavus Technology Services (GTS), the college’s internal IT department and/or external development partners on Drupal updates, security patches, hosting environments and performance optimization; serve as a consistent point of contact between Mar Com and GTS on web platform matters.
• Own the college’s on-site SEO program: keyword research, metadata strategy, heading hierarchy, internal linking and URL structure across priority pages.
• Implement and maintain technical SEO fundamentals; page speed, crawlability, mobile performance, structured data (schema markup) and XML sitemaps; within the Drupal environment.
• Conduct regular SEO audits using tools such as Google Search Console or Semrush and translate findings into prioritized action plans.
• Partner with content and communications colleagues to integrate SEO best practices into the content creation process, including meta descriptions, image alt text and editorial tagging.
• Track and report on organic search performance, making data-informed recommendations to improve visibility for key enrollment and institutional audiences.

• Translate brand guidelines and designer comps into accurate, responsive, accessible web experiences with close attention to typography, layout and visual consistency.
• Collaborate with the Creative Director/Senior Graphic Designer to develop and iterate on new page templates, landing pages and campaign microsites that align with institutional brand standards.
• Champion WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility compliance across all digital properties, conducting periodic audits and driving remediation.
• Maintain and evolve a shared front end component library that enables consistent, efficient digital production across the team.
• Bring a design-literate perspective to team reviews, surfacing opportunities to improve visual hierarchy, user flow and overall quality.

• Support implementation of Google Analytics 4 and Google Tag Manager to ensure accurate tracking of key web events and user behavior.
• Assist in interpreting site performance data and contribute to regular…