The Director of Development at SmartBug Media leads and mentors a front-end development team, overseeing technical architecture, ensuring best practices, managing project scoping, and maintaining client satisfaction with HubSpot CMS projects.
SmartBug Media is the most decorated HubSpot agency, recognized as a leader in crafting digital solutions that empower organizations to thrive across the entire customer lifecycle. From marketing and sales to revenue operations, customer success, and e-commerce, we combine sound strategies, cutting-edge AI, and digital innovation to deliver solutions that de-risk the future and drive sustainable growth.
With a fully remote team of over 250 professionals, we excel at creating intelligent web and digital ecosystems—from corporate websites to complex web applications—seamlessly integrated with AI-powered solutions. By aligning SmartBug's expertise with our clients' unique business realities, we build scalable, innovative tools that become engines for growth, setting the course for long-term success.
The Development Lead is a key leadership and strategic role, responsible for leading and mentoring the team of developers and acting as a senior technical liaison for the business. This role involves significant time (estimated 50-70%) dedicated to people leadership, technical scoping, sales collaboration, and resource planning. The remainder (30-50%) is focused on senior-level development tasks, technical architecture oversight, and hands-on resolution of urgent, complex client issues. This
leader will ensure technical excellence, developer growth, and alignment between technical execution and business objectives, primarily within the HubSpot CMS (Content Hub).
Responsibilities
- Leadership & People Management: - Lead, manage, and mentor a team of front-end developers, fostering a culture of technical excellence and continuous improvement. - Conduct performance reviews, manage professional development plans, and support the career growth of team members. - Serve as the primary people leader for the development team, ensuring morale, motivation, and team effectiveness. Create forward thinking development training plan for any future state coding languages, themes or platforms that the team intends to support. Keeps pulse on the market to know what is coming in HubSpot development.
- Scoping & Business Collaboration: - Partner with the Sales team on new business and new upsell opportunities, providing expert technical scoping, estimates, and solution design for complex projects. Collaborate closely with the Program Management team to manage project resourcing, timelines, and technical debt. Manage the translation of business requirements and sales proposals into actionable technical plans and resource allocations.
- Technical Leadership & Oversight: - Act as the final escalation point for urgent, senior-level client development issues and technical challenges, providing hands-on resolution when necessary. Define and enforce best practices, coding standards, and architectural patterns for HubSpot CMS themes, templates, and React-based custom modules. Oversee code reviews, ensuring all developed assets are optimized for maximum speed, scalability, cross-browse compatibility, and accessibility. Stay current with HubSpot CMS updates, new front-end technologies, and make recommendations for adoption. Infrequent support for urgent (site down or conversion broken) requests on Pacific Time hours will be required if the broader team is not available.
Supervisory Responsibilities
- This position holds direct supervisory and people leadership responsibilities for the development team, including managing performance, career development, and daily team guidance.
Qualifications
- Proven People Leadership Skills: Demonstrated success in leading, mentoring, and managing a team of developers.
- Excellent Business Communication: Ability to clearly communicate technical concepts and implications to both the development team, non-technical stakeholders, and the Sales team for effective scoping and collaboration.
- Expertise in HubSpot CMS development, including HubSpot Design Manager, dynamic pages, blogs, and landing pages. Membership portal and custom coded workflow experience a major plus.
- Proficiency in React and modern JavaScript/ES6+.
- Demonstrated ability to manage scoping, estimate effort accurately, and align development resources with project needs.
- Strong organization and time management skills with a high degree of attention to detail.
- Deep understanding of responsive design principles and mobile-first development.
Education & Experience
- Minimum of 7+ years of professional front-end development experience.
- Minimum of 2+ years of formal or informal technical leadership or management experience.
- 3+ years of hands-on experience developing within the HubSpot CMS.
- Proven experience partnering with cross-functional teams (e.g., strategy, creative, sales, program management). - A Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or relevant equivalent experience is required.
Computer / Software Skills
- Expert-level proficiency in HTML5, CSS3, React, and modern JavaScript/ES6+.
- Deep experience with version control (Git) and command-line tools.
- Experience with build tools (e.g., Webpack, Babel).
- Knowledge of HubSpot APIs and integrations.
- Back-end development experience (e.g., React, HubSpot UI Extensions, Serverless Functions Node.js, Python, PHP) is a significant plus.
- Proficiency in Google Suite is a plus.
Certifications
- HubSpot CMS Developer Certification is required.
- Other relevant front-end development certifications (e.g., React Specialist) are a plus
Other Qualifications
- Experience with both Agile development (Scrum/Kanban) and Waterfall methodologies.
- Experience with B2B and B2C website marketing and optimization.
- A portfolio of live HubSpot CMS projects is highly desirable.
- Knowledge of quality assurance and cross-browser testing processes
Top Skills
Babel
CSS3
Git
Google Suite
HTML5
Hubspot Apis
Hubspot Cms
JavaScript
Node.js
PHP
Python
React
Webpack
SmartBug Media Newport Beach, California, USA Office
4533 MacArthur Blvd, Newport Beach, California , United States, 92660
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