CMS Content Strategist - Contractor

RESPEC is seeking a Content Strategist that will spearhead the digital content strategy, taxonomy architecture, governance frameworks, migration planning, and staff enablement initiatives required to ensure the new GeoInfo web presence is operationally sustainable for the agency long after initial launch. Operating at the intersection of business goals and technical execution, this role collaborates closely with RESPEC’s delivery team, the agency’s program directors, scientific subject matter experts, and product managers to establish standardized editorial policies, repeatable content models, and actionable training resources.

This role is strategically front-loaded to align the sitemap, taxonomy hierarchies, structured content schemas (supporting Drupal and Wagtail paradigms), metadata taxonomies, and migration criteria prior to active development. While RESPEC provides foundational governance frameworks and tagging methodologies, the Content Strategist works side-by-side with the agency’s program personnel to empower them to classify, refine, and maintain their specialized domain content effectively.

Responsibilities:

• Establish comprehensive, institutional content standards governing how web assets are authored, peer-reviewed, maintained, classified, tagged, and retired across departments.
• Define and diagram end-to-end editorial workflows, establishing distinct stages for drafting, review, compliance approval, publication, periodic revision, and archiving.
• Direct the planning and structural design of organizational taxonomies, controlled vocabularies, metadata schemas, and structured CMS component types.
• Author a practical, modular Content Management Handbook / Playbook that incorporates role-based standard operating procedures (SOPs) and clear, illustrated workflow diagrams.
• Develop an actionable, phase-based Content Migration Plan outlining content inventory criteria, deduplication, semantic cleanup, static asset mapping, and specialized Centennial milestone planning.
• Support data ingestion and inventory audits to map legacy GeoInfo content, legacy databases, and document libraries smoothly into the target system architecture.
• Guide hands-on content optimization and structural rewriting for high-visibility landing destinations, including the main homepage, core research portals, and Centennial celebration features.
• Establish multi-tier editorial permission structures and role matrices tailored to the agency’s operational divisions and research groups.
• Advise executive and technical leadership on ongoing operational staffing models, resource allocation, and organizational capacity required for post-launch content governance.
• Produce a comprehensive, user-friendly CMS Training Manual and plan, conduct, and record a live training curriculum for the agency’s content authors and editors.

Time Required

This is structured as a part-time engagement with significant front-loaded allocation during the initial discovery, architecture, and governance phases (November 2026 – March 2027). Involvement transitions to a steady advisory and enablement posture in later implementation cycles to provide migration oversight, review newly modeled content, conduct training sessions, and validate launch readiness.

Requirements:

• 7–10 years of professional content strategy experience, including demonstrated leadership in content governance, editorial operations, taxonomy/metadata architecture, and large-scale migration planning for enterprise digital ecosystems.
• Proven success crafting comprehensive digital content strategies for large, content-rich, multi-layered websites or distributed institutional platforms.
• Advanced expertise in content governance modeling, editorial lifecycle design, granular permissions structures, and decentralized publishing operations.
• Extensive experience conducting quantitative and qualitative content audits, formulating structured migration plans, developing taxonomies, and designing modular content types for modern CMS platforms (such as Drupal or Wagtail).
• Demonstrated ability to translate dense, scientific, or highly technical subject matter into streamlined, audience-focused digital content models and practical editorial guidelines.
• Strong portfolio of authoring polished, user-centered governance artifacts, including operational playbooks, SOPs, editorial style guides, and staff-facing documentation.
• Exceptional facilitation, interview, and interpersonal communication skills, with a track record of bridging technical developers, product owners, and academic/scientific subject matter experts.
• Prior experience supporting public-sector, higher education, scientific research, data-intensive, or state/federal agency web transformation projects is preferred.

Preferred:

• New Mexico residents willing to travel on-site to Socorro, NM, up to 2 times during the project lifecycle.
• Direct experience working within Higher Education, state agencies, or scientific/engineering research institutions.

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.