Africa Check New Job Position Available

Africa Check is a non-profit organisation set up in 2012 to promote accuracy in public debate and the media in Africa. The goal of Africa Check’s work is to raise the quality of information available to society across the continent. Since 2012 they have fact-checked hundreds of claims on topics from crime and race in South Africa to population numbers in Nigeria and fake health cures in countries around Africa.

Job Title: Digital Manager/Developer
Job Location: Based in the Journalism Department of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg

To be responsible for routine web maintenance of our content-rich websites, trouble-shooting when problems arise, project-managing and developing new features in liaison with our digital support services, and managing the updating of static pages. The job also entails regularly monitoring of digital performance to make our websites as efficient as possible and being responsive to the requirements of our editorial teams.

Key responsibilities for this position include:

• Ongoing routine website maintenance & trouble-shooting, in liaison with support services
• Developing and implementing new features and functionality in accordance with overall plans
• Overseeing the updating of static pages – in liaison with relevant teams
• Conducting periodic reviews and making modifications as necessary to ensure efficiency of digital performance.
• Establishing and guiding the website’s architecture – in liaison with management and digital support services
• Ensuring high-performance and availability, and managing all technical aspects of the CMS, including testing and deployment
• Working with a non-technical team to conceptualise and develop projects – including the use and development of new fact-checking tools.
• Leading the planning and implementation of outsourced digital services
• Leading efforts in developing fact-checking tools
• Contributing to Africa Check projects by carrying out activities which may fall outside of the job description when required to do so

The Digital Manager/Developer must be able to demonstrate:

Experience in both back-end and front-end development is necessary. This position requires a combination of programming skills and aesthetics. The candidate should have a strong understanding of industry trends and content management systems particularly WordPress. Also essential is an understanding of the entire web development process, including design and development.

• Experience with responsive design is preferred.
• Minimum 5 years of relevant work experience preferably in a media environment
• Ability to work and communicate with a wide range of internal and external constituents
• Good research, analysis, design and project management skills
• Good understanding of front-end technologies
• Experience of developing search systems
• Experience building user interfaces for websites and/or web applications
• Experience designing and developing responsive design websites
• Experience working with debugging tools
• Ability to understand CSS changes and their ramifications to ensure consistent style across platforms and browsers
• Ability to convert comprehensive layout and wireframes into working HTML pages
• Strong understanding of PHP back-end development

View the full job description and application instructions on the Vacancies page at www.actionappointments.co.za and email your application by Monday 12th November 2018 to [email protected]