CMS Content Strategist - Contractor

SmartRecruiters, Inc.; El Paso (TX); On-site; USD 90,000 - 130,000; Part time

Job summary

RESPEC is seeking a Content Strategist to lead digital content strategy, taxonomy architecture, governance, migration planning, and staff enablement to ensure the GeoInfo web presence remains sustainable after launch. You will collaborate with the delivery team, program directors, subject matter experts, and product managers to establish standardized editorial policies and actionable training resources.

This role focuses on sitemap and taxonomy design, metadata schemas, and structured CMS

Qualifications

• 7–10 years of professional content strategy experience with governance and migration planning.
• Proven success delivering content strategies for large, content-rich websites or platforms.
• Advanced expertise in governance, editorial lifecycles, and decentralized publishing.
• Experience drafting taxonomies, metadata schemas, and modular content types for CMS.
• Ability to translate technical material into audience-focused content models and guidelines.
• Strong portfolio of governance artifacts, SOPs, playbooks, and staff documentation.

Responsibilities

• Establish comprehensive content standards for authors, reviews, tagging, and retirement.
• Diagram end-to-end editorial workflows from drafting to archiving.
• Design organizational taxonomies, vocabularies, metadata schemas, and CMS components.
• Author a Content Management Handbook / Playbook with SOPs and workflows.
• Create a phase-based Content Migration Plan including inventory and deduplication.
• Support content ingestion and mapping from legacy GeoInfo content to target systems.
• Guide content optimization for high-visibility landing pages and portals.
• Set up multi-tier editorial permissions and role matrices.
• Advise leadership on staffing models for post-launch governance.
• Develop a CMS Training Manual and deliver live training for authors/editors.

Skills

Content strategy

Editorial governance

Taxonomy/metadata architecture

Migration planning

CMS design (Drupal/Wagtail)

Editorial workflows

SOPs & playbooks

Stakeholder facilitation

Public-sector / higher ed experience

Tools

Drupal

Wagtail

Job description

If you’re someone who sees problems as opportunities, you’ll thrive here. RESPEC is 100% employee-owned, which means we take ownership of every challenge. Here, your ideas drive real solutions. Since 1969, we’ve tackled complex challenges in energy transition, infrastructure resilience, digital transformation, and sustainability.

At RESPEC, you’ll work alongside clients to take on critical problems. Depending on your expertise, you might design infrastructure in remote locations, develop renewable energy solutions for global projects, or apply data-driven technology to improve mining and water systems.

We bring deep technical knowledge, real-world experience, and a commitment to work that matters. If you're looking for a place where your contributions have real impact, you’ll fit right in.

We do not accept unsolicited resumes from third-party recruiters.

Job Description

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.

Qualifications

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.

Additional Information

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

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