ABOUT ULI
The Urban Land Institute is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit research and education organization supported by its members. Founded in 1936, the Institute has more than 48,000 members worldwide representing the full spectrum of land use and real estate development disciplines across private enterprise and public service. ULI's mission is to shape the future of the built environment for transformative impact in communities worldwide.
ABOUT THE TEAM
ULI's Data & Digital Products team builds the data, apps, and web platforms that ULI members and staff use every day. It is a small, engineering-led team organized around three areas: data, applications, and web. This role leads the web side.
THE ROLE
ULI's web presence has grown to more than 100 sites, mostly on WordPress. Over the years it has become a tangle of microsites with inconsistent look and feel, dated navigation, and no shared design system, and the member experience has not kept pace. ULI is now rebuilding its web portfolio in phases, bringing uli.org and its many connected sites together into a single member experience. Instead of pages that link out and leave visitors to find their own way, the new site will guide each visitor to what they need.
The Lead Web Developer is the hands-on builder at the center of that work. During the rebuild, expect to spend the large majority of your time, around 85 to 90 percent, building and shipping: directing AI coding tools, reviewing and testing what they produce, prototyping, and writing code yourself where it matters. You won't be chasing stakeholders for requirements. ULI's in-house project management team handles requirements gathering and stakeholder alignment. They bring you the business objective, for example a dynamic homepage that serves members, non-members, and staff differently, and you decide how to deliver it: the technical approach, the architecture, the scope, and the timeline.
Alongside the rebuild, you will oversee the web services ticket queue with the support of one direct report, and become the primary developer on a growing set of digital products for members and staff. Much of the day-to-day site maintenance that ULI currently sends to outside contractors will come in-house through this role.
This role suits someone who enjoys taking a complicated system apart, working out how it really works, and putting it back together better. It also suits a creative developer: someone who both designs and builds, brings their own ideas to how a site looks, feels, and works, and can show us the results.
You'll use AI coding tools such as Claude Code, Cursor, or GitHub Copilot every day to plan, write, test, and refactor code, so a small team can deliver like a much larger one. What we need most is your judgment: knowing what good looks like, catching what the tools get wrong, and owning every line that ships, whoever or whatever wrote the first draft. ULI provides the AI tools you'll use.
WHAT YOU WILL DO
The uli.org rebuild
• Work out how uli.org and its connected sites function today, and lead the technical work to consolidate them into one site for members, non-members, and staff
• Turn business objectives from the project management team into technical solutions: recommend the approach, scope the work, estimate timelines, and design the architecture
• Build prototypes and present them to stakeholders to test ideas early
• Implement the information architecture and content models, and build the templates behind them
• Plan and run content migration, redirects, and search continuity so nothing is lost at launch
• Set up measurement for the new site, including GA4, Google Tag Manager, and Core Web Vitals targets
• Help ULI decide whether to move to a single CMS, including options such as Umbraco, and explain the trade-offs clearly
Hands-on web development
• Ship, review, and maintain production code across ULI's web properties, including custom templates, components, extensions, and integrations, using AI coding tools for speed and your own review for quality
• Build and maintain CMS implementations, including content types. taxonomies, editor experiences, and multisite setups
• Build integrations, including REST APIs, so web properties can read from and write back to ULI's databases and other systems, including netFORUM, working with ULI's data and software engineers
• Build to WCAG 2.2 AA accessibility standards as a default, not an afterthought
• Put version control, testing, code review, and documentation practices in place across ULI's web codebases, including accessibility and security check that run on every change
• Set the standards for AI-assisted development on ULI's web codebases, in line with ULI's AI governance: how work is specified for AI tools, how their output is reviewed and tested, and what never goes into a prompt, such as credentials or member data
Digital products
• Act as primary developer on digital products for members and staff, working from direction and scope set by your manager, with code review support
• Support the launch and hosting of new platforms, such as ULI's research and knowledge tools, and make sure they connect cleanly with uli.org, the member app, and other web properties
• Keep the look, feel, and flow consistent across ULI's digital products
Web services and team leadership
• Oversee the web services ticket queue, taking on the more complex requests and larger properties, from Google Analytics to website changes
• Bring ongoing site maintenance and updates in-house, reducing reliance on outside contractors
• Manage and mentor one direct report, the Senior Administrator, Web Services, and agree together how work is shared, including how AI tools can help them take on more of the queue
• Review work delivered by outside agencies and developers, and hold it to agreed standards
• Work closely with ULI's software, data, and project management colleagues on shared standards and delivery
WHAT ARE WE LOOKING FOR
We care more about what you can build than how many years you've been doing it. If you have the skills below and can show us your work, we want to hear from you, whatever stage of your career you're at.
Required
• Production web work you built and can show us (portfolio, GitHub, or live sites), ideally including design and feature rich work that shows your creativity and the ability to walk us through how you built it, including where AI tools helped and where you overrode them
• Hands on experience customizing a major CMS, such as WordPress, Drupal, Umbraco, or a headless platform (templates, content models, or extensions)
• Daily, hands-on use of AI coding tools such as Claude Code, Cursor, or GitHub Copilot to plan, build, test, and refactor real projects
• Strong code review judgment: you catch security flaws, accessibility gaps, performance problems, and hard-to-maintain code, whether an AI tool, an agency, or a colleague wrote it
• Solid web fundamentals (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Git, and how HTTP, caching, and DNS work) and the ability to pick up an unfamiliar stack quickly; ULI's web estate spans PHP (WordPress) and .NET (Umbraco)
• Working knowledge of web accessibility (WCAG) and the habit of building it in from the start
• The ability to explain technical options, trade-offs, and risks clearly to non-technical colleagues
Preferred
• Experience deploying websites or web applications to the cloud (Azure, AWS, or Google Cloud)
• Experience designing and consuming REST APIs and building integrations between systems
• Experience setting up AI-assisted development practices for a team, such as review standards, automated tests, or agent workflows
• Experience leading or working on a CMS migration from one platform to another, not just an upgrade
• Experience consolidating many websites into a single platform
• Experience mentoring technical staff or managing outside agencies and contractors
• Familiarity with association management or CRM systems such as netFORUM or iMIS
• Experience with headless or decoupled CMS implementations
• Association, membership organization, or nonprofit experience
The interview process includes a technical assessment that reflects how the job is done. You'll use AI tools you normally use to build or extend a small feature, then walk us through your choices. We'll also ask you to review a short piece of AI-generated code and tell us what you would change before it ships.
WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE
In your first 90 days, you will have got to grips with how uli.org and its connected sites work today and started to untangle them. You'll have a clear view of what's technically possible, and you'll be scoping the work and sharing early prototypes with stakeholders. You'll also be learning how staff use ULI's web properties through the ticket queue and helping to resolve their requests.
By six months, the rebuild is moving at full speed with your technical direction behind it, and you're starting to contribute to ULI's other digital products. Your AI-assisted workflow, with automated tests and review checks, is in place and steadily reducing the work ULI sends to contractors.
Looking further ahead, success is a fully rebuilt web portfolio, delivered in phases: one consolidated uli.org that is faster, more secure, accessible, and easier for members to use, with ongoing maintenance handled in-house rather than by contractors.
COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS
The salary range for this position is $120,281 to $140,000. Actual compensation will be based on experience, education, skills, and other job-related factors.
ULI offers a comprehensive benefits package including health, dental, and life insurance; generous vacation leave; and retirement plan with employer match.
WORKING CONDITIONS
The Urban Land Institute (ULI) is committed to shaping the future of the built environment for transformative impact in communities worldwide, and we embrace our core values of integrity, collaboration, inclusion, and excellence in service to our members. In alignment with the Board of Directors' strong commitment to in-person collaboration, our roles require regular on-site presence to foster teamwork, innovation, and organizational effectiveness. ULI's primary workplace remains its offices, where in-person collaboration supports our mission and service to members.
ULI is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion/creed, sex, national origin, disability, genetic information, pregnancy, veteran or active military status, non-citizenship or citizenship status, arrest or conviction record, credit history, caregiver status, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital or partnership status, familial status, unemployment status, or any other status protected by applicable law.