At Forum One, our staff are our greatest asset. We prioritize effective hiring and talent development because we recognize that a high-quality team is the single most valuable tool we can provide to help our clients increase their impact. It’s impossible to showcase all our talent in one post, so we’re starting a blog series to introduce major work areas and show what happens behind the scenes. First up is our talented Tech team!

I’m Doug Stumberger, Interim CTO. I proudly steer some of Forum One’s most complex projects, including Colorado’s Department of Public Health and Environment’s WIC platform, Washington State’s All-Payer Claims Database, and Fujifilm’s Sonosite.

It’s my pleasure to introduce and highlight the extraordinary work of our team. 

What we do

Our clients hire us to increase their impact through digital ecosystem modernization. 

The Forum One Tech team helps mission-driven organizations plan ahead to solve technical challenges before they become major digital infrastructure problems. This help may include redesigning a website, integrating customer relationship management (CRM) tools, automating marketing approaches, or search engine optimization. All of the technical solutions we develop enable our clients to easily manage robust platforms. 

Meet the team

The tech team has several divisions that, working together, contribute the diversity of skills and techniques our clients need.

Our tech team comprises five focus areas:

Backend Development Team: Backend developers create integrated digital experiences and web applications using state-of-the-art open source technologies such as Drupal and WordPress content management systems. The backend team works closely with clients, deploying quality-focused engineering to produce a secure and scalable digital experience tailored to the digital strategy and editorial needs of the client. 

Frontend Development Team: Frontend developers implement the user interface of a digital experience—how the experience looks and how users interact with it. Working closely with Forum One’s design and UX teams, the frontend developer brings deep expertise in accessibility and responsive design. Every frontend project at Forum One uses modern standards and best practices, including the United States Web Design System, and features integration with state-of-the-art design system technologies.

JavaScript and Data Visualization Team: The JavaScript team creates powerful interactive and narrative visualizations of complex data structures using technologies such as NodeJS, React, TypeScript, and Leaflet. JavaScript team members are instrumental in Forum One’s ability to tailor the architecture of a digital experience to a client’s specific goals. JavaScript developers focus on site performance and accessibility to build compelling user journeys through complex data.  

Software Reliability, Hosting, and DevOps Team: The Software Reliability, Hosting, and DevOps team designs, builds, and maintains the cloud infrastructure necessary to efficiently host and deploy websites and web applications on behalf of clients. The engineers on this team work with a wide variety of software tools and platforms, and devise processes that increase quality and efficiency through automation and configuration management while providing “high-touch” customer service for hosted sites. 

Support Services Engineering Team: Support Engineers at Forum One are responsible for day-to-day problem-solving and website improvements. Their work involves responding to client requests to address website bugs, new feature requests, and ongoing security needs. They work closely with clients to recommend technical improvements, performance enhancements, and security standards. Working as partners, the Support team assumes the responsibility for digital properties alongside clients, to ensure our clients a worry-free site management experience.

What does it take to succeed on our Tech team? 

The strength of our team is in the diversity of our experiences. We’ve taken many different paths to this work—from computer scientists with a passion for mission-driven work, to artists who found a knack for digital design, and everything in between.  

We’ve also started at Forum One at different stages of our careers. Forum One’s investment in our team means we’ve had the opportunity to help staff grow, develop their talents, and build a career without leaving Forum One. It’s not uncommon to discover a team leader who started as an intern or in a non-technical role, but worked to pursue the training needed to contribute at the highest levels.

In closing, here is some great advice that many of our most successful technologists keep close to their hearts:

• Do the basics really well. Whatever your niche is, own it. Make sure you know the fundamentals. For developers, if you understand the fundamentals of programming, you can regularly learn new frameworks.

• Build all the things! Create as much as you can, no matter how small the scale. Tutorials can be instructive, but lessons may not “stick” if you don’t use them in a real-world scenario. Always focus on hands-on, practical creation to truly absorb a new skill. 

• Figure out how you like to learn. To succeed, you’ll need to keep learning. New tools and approaches emerge constantly. No one needs to master them all, but you’ll need to have techniques for fast adaptation and skills-building that work for you. In a dynamic field, your most important asset may be an appetite for learning.

The Forum One technology is growing and hiring! Take a look at our careers page to learn more.