Call for applicants for a Django Executive Director

The Django Software Foundation is calling for applicants for an Executive Director. The role is the operational leader of the Foundation, a paid position that reports to the Board of Directors. The person hired will set strategic direction for the Foundation and turn that direction into day-to-day action.

The Executive Director manages Foundation operations and acts as the main connector between the Board, staff, community, and sponsors. That spans governance and execution: board policy on one side, staff work, community engagement, and sponsor relationships on the other. The Foundation itself is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, so the role sits inside nonprofit governance and fiduciary constraints rather than a commercial product org.

For engineers and builders who ship on Django, the Executive Director shapes how the Foundation funds work, supports contributors, and coordinates with sponsors. Strategy that reaches operations can affect release support, community programs, events, and the continuity of infrastructure that keep the project usable for production teams.

Among open-source foundations, a dedicated paid Executive Director is a common way to move past volunteer-only coordination when a project has board oversight, staff, and sponsor obligations. For Django, that model keeps the Board focused on direction while one operational lead owns execution and the links between internal teams and external funders.

What to watch next is who applies and who the Board selects, plus how the new Executive Director prioritizes strategy versus day-to-day operations and how they handle the Board–staff–community–sponsor loop. Those choices will show up in Foundation programs, sponsor relations, and how reliably community needs turn into funded work.