Lead Email Systems Developer – Marketing Technology & Localization
Location: Remote, U.S. | PST hours preferred
Contract: 4-month W2 contract | September 1 – December 31, 2026
Schedule: Approximately 10 hours/week
Pay: $145–$160/hour
Portfolio Required: Website or PDF
Russell Tobin is partnering with a leading technology company to hire a Lead Email Systems Developer for a high-visibility marketing technology initiative supporting global communications.
This is not a traditional email production role. We’re looking for a senior, hands-on developer who can take ownership of an existing AI-enabled email development platform, improve its architecture, and build the systems needed to scale email production from hundreds to potentially millions of sends.
The ideal candidate combines deep HTML/CSS and MJML expertise with experience building reusable email systems, working within Iterable and/or HubSpot, and supporting internationalized email programs. Experience developing for Chinese, Japanese, or Korean (CJK) localization is particularly important.
What You’ll Do
Own & Scale the Email Development Platform
- Take technical ownership of an existing AI-enabled email development tool and help define its roadmap and architecture.
- Improve the platform’s scalability, production quality, and overall email development workflow.
- Build systems and tooling rather than solely responding to day-to-day email production requests.
- Balance immediate stakeholder needs with longer-term platform and infrastructure improvements.
- Identify opportunities to improve efficiency, standardization, and automation across the email development lifecycle.
Build Modular Email Architecture
- Partner with Marketing Technology, Design, and Engineering to build a production-ready system capable of translating Figma designs into email-ready HTML.
- Architect and maintain a modular email component library, including headers, footers, CTA blocks, image modules, and reusable content components.
- Develop primarily in MJML and HTML/CSS.
- Support multiple marketing automation platforms and templating frameworks, including:
- Iterable / Handlebars
- HubSpot / HubL and fields.json
- Establish scalable standards for email component usage and development.
Email Rendering, QA & Accessibility
- Ensure reliable rendering across major email clients, including:
- Gmail
- Apple Mail
- Outlook 2016–2021+
- iOS Mail
- Samsung Mail
- Build with Outlook-specific rendering limitations in mind.
- Implement and test dark mode experiences.
- Establish email QA workflows and rendering validation processes.
- Develop emails aligned with WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility standards, including semantic HTML, appropriate role attributes, and accessible design implementation.
Internationalization & Localization
- Build email systems that can scale across international markets.
- Support localized email experiences, particularly for Chinese, Japanese, and/or Korean markets.
- Account for CJK-specific font stacks, typography, line heights, character handling, and layout requirements.
- Build components that can accommodate translated copy, text expansion, dynamic content, images, and market-specific variations.
- Help establish localization QA and market-specific rendering workflows.
Documentation & Collaboration
- Create developer documentation and component usage guidelines.
- Work closely with Email Design, Production Design, Marketing Technology, and Engineering partners.
- Communicate technical decisions clearly in a highly asynchronous environment.
- Lead a team training session on the email development system and component library.
- Operate independently while managing competing priorities and stakeholders.
What We’re Looking For
Must-Haves
- 6–8+ years of professional email development experience.
- Advanced HTML and CSS expertise specifically within email development.
- Deep experience with MJML.
- Production experience with Iterable and/or HubSpot.
- Demonstrated experience building and maintaining email component libraries, design systems, or reusable email frameworks.
- Strong knowledge of rendering behavior across major email clients, particularly Microsoft Outlook.
- Hands-on experience implementing and troubleshooting dark mode email experiences.
- Experience supporting localized or international email programs, with meaningful exposure to Chinese, Japanese, and/or Korean (CJK) localization.
- Experience supporting high-volume email programs, ideally with work scaling from hundreds or thousands of sends to programs reaching millions of inboxes.
- Ability to independently own technical projects and deliver high-quality work against structured timelines.
- Strong written communication, technical documentation, and asynchronous collaboration skills.
- Experience operating effectively in fast-moving, ambiguous environments.
- Portfolio showcasing relevant email development work.
Nice to Have
- Tech, SaaS, or software industry experience.
- Experience working in both startup and large-company environments.
- Familiarity with Figma and design-to-code workflows.
- Experience with lifecycle marketing, product marketing, or large-scale customer communications.
- Experience with tools or workflows similar to Taxi or Movable Ink.
- Experience building or working alongside developers implementing AI-enabled tooling or automation within email development workflows.
- Experience leading technical initiatives or mentoring other developers.
- Experience with dynamic personalization and modular content systems.
The Ideal Candidate
You’re more than an email coder. You think about systems, scalability, maintainability, and workflow efficiency.
You can jump into a complex environment, understand an existing platform quickly, identify what needs to change, and make pragmatic decisions without requiring extensive direction. You’re equally comfortable troubleshooting Outlook rendering, architecting an MJML component library, collaborating with designers, and thinking through how an email system needs to behave when a campaign expands into Japanese, Chinese, or Korean markets.
You’ve supported email programs at meaningful scale and understand what changes when the work goes from producing individual campaigns to building infrastructure that supports communications reaching millions of inboxes.
Interview Process
- 30-minute Hiring Manager interview
- Two 30-minute second-round interviews
- 30-minute final interview
A portfolio (website or PDF) is required for consideration.
Russell Tobin offers eligible employee’s comprehensive healthcare coverage (medical, dental, and vision plans), supplemental coverage (accident insurance, critical illness insurance and hospital indemnity), 401(k)-retirement savings, life & disability insurance, an employee assistance program, legal support, auto, home insurance, pet insurance and employee discounts with preferred vendors.
Equal Employment OpportunityRussell Tobin is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of the race, religious creed, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, reproductive health decision making, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, sexual orientation, veteran or military status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.
Fair Chance EmploymentRussell Tobin is a Fair Chance employer. We consider all qualified applicants, including those with criminal histories, in a manner consistent with applicable state and local Fair Chance laws and ordinances, including, the California Fair Chance Act and all applicable local Fair Chance ordinances.
AccommodationsWe are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants and employees with disabilities. If you require a reasonable accommodation to participate in the application or interview process, or to perform the essential functions of this role, please contact us.
Only applicable for San Francisco Candidates: Under the San Francisco Lactation in the Workplace Ordinance, we will provide written notice of lactation accommodation rights, and this notice will automatically be given upon hiring, any inquiry of parental leave or lactation accommodation.
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