Django/Python Web Developer

National Journal is looking for a mid-level Django/Python Web Developer to join our team to help us build compelling digital products for our Washington, DC audience. Our digital team creates new services and products to serve our members, works to refine our existing offerings, and helps colleagues on our product teams use technology to operate more effectively.

National Journal's digital platform is built around a rich set of election data, demographic information, editable slides, government directories, event listings, and decades of journalism. Our mission is to create great tools that assist our members in finding and using these resources with ease, at the right time and in the right form. We build with Django (using Python 3) and follow a frequent release cycle that lets us bring enhancements to our users in a matter of days. We're committed to using modern development tools and following good practices in software development and QA, incorporating LLM-based coding and workflow tools to support productivity.

Full-time telework/remote arrangements are offered for U.S. candidates residing in the following locations: Washington DC, Maryland, Virginia, or California. Local candidates have the option to work in-person (currently 3 days per week) in Washington, DC.

National Journal is a premier research and insights company committed to helping organizations effectively navigate Washington. Best known as one of Washington’s most trusted media brands for nearly 50 years, our expertise is unmatched with teams of specialists dedicated to government affairs, communications, and political research, in addition to exceptional journalism. Our mission is to equip the thousands of government and business leaders in the nation’s capital with the intelligence, insights, and connections they need to save time, increase efficiency, and deliver success.

• Build, test and deploy a wide range of web-based tools, developed in Django and Python, that National Journal's members use every day in their jobs as government affairs professionals and policy advocates

• Support a digital platform that provides the data, tools, and news our audience will use to understand and navigate the 2026 U.S. elections

• Help maintain large datasets in a variety of formats (PostgreSQL, MySQL, APIs) drawing from both internal and third-party content and data sources

• Make improvements to Ada, the custom content management system we use internally

• Create and support tools that help other product teams automate their work, making use of AI when appropriate

• Tackle a full-stack mix of back-end and front-end tasks, with a focus on back-end work

• Be well-informed about trends in software development tools, frameworks, programming languages, AI coding assistants, and workflow, and arrive with opinions you are eager to discuss

• Be willing to learn a sophisticated technical stack

• You are an experienced web developer: You have at least 1 year of web development experience in a professional setting using Python (preferably with Django). You write clean HTML, CSS, and JavaScript even without an AI coding assistant, with front-end framework experience a plus. Using Git is second nature to you.

• Experience with one or more LLM-based coding assistants is strongly encouraged, such as: Claude Code, Codex, or Cursor

• Experience with some of the following technologies is a plus, but not required: Microsoft Azure, Linux systems administration, Vue.js, TypeScript, Elasticsearch, Docker, PostgreSQL, Jenkins, Salesforce, Sentry, HubSpot, or Celery/RabbitMQ.

• You have experience with government and elections: The idea of getting immersed in campaign finance data, election visualizations, and politics is compelling to you (rather than a turn-off). You don't have to be a wonk to be effective, but as keepers of the data, becoming experts in the minutiae is essential.

• You have experience with medium-sized to large projects: You've contributed to significant software projects, or at least significant components of one, and demonstrated that you can do quality work under a deadline. You have opinions about good software architecture and with some learning curve, can find your way around a complex codebase.

• You place an emphasis on quality: In your work, you demonstrate best practices for software development and reinforce good habits that promote quality as part of a team. You're familiar with writing documentation, doing peer code review, crafting automated tests, watching performance, and taking advantage of tools that maintain consistent code across team members. You are an opinionated user of AI coding assistants and readily push back on LLM suggestions when they’re off the mark. You are organized, focused, and detail-oriented.

• You communicate and work well with others: You exhibit good communications skills and collaboration habits, both written and verbally, by providing accurate time and effort estimates and working to ensure the team meets agreed-upon deadlines. You are comfortable working with product and project managers to plan weekly sprints, capable of prioritizing and undertaking multiple projects at once, and familiar with Agile development methodologies. When needed, you are cool under pressure.

• You demonstrate good judgment: Colleagues can count on you to apply critical thinking to tasks and find creative ways to solve problems. You appreciate both short-term and long-term implications when making decisions and act as a responsible gatekeeper when critiquing new code, whether hand-written or AI-suggested.

• You'll bring something new to the team: We value having a team with diverse skills and experiences. Do you have a background in accessibility technologies, robotics, or AI-generated jokes? Are you active in a local user group, open source effort, or side project of your own? Passion for learning new things (whether technology-related or not) is most welcome.

• You value a healthy work-life balance: You keep high standards and work hard, yet know when to take breaks, switch gears, and unplug, with the ability to manage your time effectively to preserve those boundaries.