ABOUT THE JOB
Are you a talented WordPress developer who wants to step away from the daily grind of the site build process? Are you an experienced WordPress technical (or development) lead wanting to spend less time putting out fires and solving short-term tactical issues and more time innovating and thinking strategically?
We’re not looking for someone to develop websites per se! We’re thankful to have multiple teams of highly skilled front and backend developers. We’re more interested in your abilities to mentor and inspire development teams, architect solutions to our most technical client challenges, and support our project teams with a steady hand and listening ear. We also hope you’ll geek out to attend the latest tech conferences, evaluate new technologies that help innovate our development processes and continuously improve our standards of quality. And yes, occasionally dazzle us with your rockstar coding abilities by solving the uniquely complex technical problems you’d be excited and proud to share with colleagues.
Your expertise in WordPress development, great communication skills, and ability to deliver effective technical solutions based on best-practice, experience and fresh ideas are why you would succeed as Senior WordPress Technical Lead at GLIDE.
RESPONSIBILITIES
Key Responsibilities include:
- Technical leadership architecting complex development solutions
- Mentor and bring out the best in a remote development team
- Own the entire development methodology process at GLIDE
- Engage clients to discuss technical challenges, business needs and strategic goals
- Work with sales and operations teams to form the best technical solutions
Additional Responsibilities include:
- Provide feedback on requirements gathering, project estimates and scoping
- Identify project risks and performing technical discovery to ensure project feasibility
- Analyze, plan and demo complex third-party API integrations
- Champion the use of best practices – agile, versioning, documentation, tool usage
- Own and improve our technology stack (including tools, libraries, standards, etc.)
- Participate in weekly leadership meetings to discuss and solve critical issues
- Work with operations and support teams to diagnose and resolve support issues
- Code review the work of other developers and mentor junior developers
- Advocate for accessibility, compliance and privacy (WCAG, GDPR, CCPA, etc.)
REQUIRED EXPERIENCE
- 5+ years of proven experience as a WordPress developer on production sites
- Extensive experience implementing complex WordPress sites
- Experience architecting and writing your own plugins and frameworks
- Portfolio website and/or samples of past work and completed projects
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a similar field is a plus
REQUIRED KNOWLEDGE
Advanced knowledge of:
- the entire WordPress development process
- HTML5 and CSS3 (including frameworks like Bootstrap or Foundation)
- Design-matched front-end experiences (we love beautiful design)
- Integrating complex third-party APIs including REST and GraphQL
- JSON and XML formats (fetching and parsing values)
- performance optimization (site speed, Google Page Speed and Core Vitals)
Thorough knowledge of:
- Javascript (including jQuery libraries and AJAX techniques)
- crafting modern and well-documented PHP
- Custom themes, Gutenberg, Multisite, Woocommerce,
- Custom post types
- Common plug-ins like ACF (advanced custom fields),
- Gravity Forms and Yoast SEO
- Technical SEO best-practices (leveraging Yoast, XML Sitemaps, robots.txt)
- Analytics platform integration (using Google Analytics &Google Tag Manager)
Working knowledge of:
- WP Engine (including deployment of dev/staging/production environments)
- Using CSS compilers (LESS or Sass) and build tools like Gulp
- Version control and repositories (Git and Bitbucket)
- Ecommerce (platforms like Shopify and payment gateways like Stripe)
- Server environments (Apache and Nginx) and database languages like SQL
LEADERSHIP EXPERIENCE
- Experience leading and managing development teams
- Experience mentoring other development team members
- Aspiration to hold senior leadership roles is a plus
- We see this role evolving into Director of Technology within 1-2 years.
As a growing agency you will have a real opportunity to help shape our future, and the role is only limited by your passion, curiosity and drive for continuous improvement.
WHY WE’LL LOVE YOU
You say “Hell Yeah!” when reading our core values:
Build meaningful relationships – You see every day as an opportunity to grow and inspire and celebrate others. Love what you do – You do it for the love of the craft and the process and because work excites you. Better every day – You’d rather live in the stretch zone than the comfort zone. Trying new things is the only way to grow. Deliver faithfully – You set clear and realistic expectations for yourself and others. Then you follow through.
WHY YOU’LL LOVE US
Here’s a few reasons we think you’ll love working at GLIDE:
Purpose – Unrelenting focus on our core purpose to help people who help others Freedom – Freedom of time, location and work hours to balance your work/life People – Collaboration with kind-hearted, humble, and talented “A” players Remote – Work from anywhere, travel the world, be FREE to roam! Balance – We never ask people to work nights, weekends or holidays Growth – We encourage, recognize, and support employee career development Culture – Daily, weekly, quarterly and annual cultural activities Recognition – 628 encouraging Slack posts of specific recognition in 2020 G-Labs – Core GLIDE initiative to collaborate, innovate and make a better world Strategy – We communicate big picture, annual and quarterly goals regularly
ABOUT OUR COMPANY
For almost 20 years, our desire to help people who help others remains true. For that reason, GLIDE has always sought to work with startups, nonprofits, and difference makers—all passionate, all wanting to do amazing things. It’s about giving great ideas and great organizations the exposure they deserve through delightful online digital experiences that are beautiful, useful, and produce lasting value.
We attribute our success and well-being to working with other passionate folks, choosing projects that everyone can rally behind and fanatically embracing open source platforms like WordPress. Whether it’s a nonprofit that distributes care boxes to cancer patients or a devilishly good taco maker, GLIDE has had the privilege and honor to work with truly beloved brands like Yeti Coolers, Torchy’s Tacos, iFLY, H.E. Butt Foundation, RetailMeNot, National Breast Cancer Foundation, WP Engine, and many more.
COMPENSATION
This position is full-time and remote. Salary and compensation is commensurate with experience. Not to worry. The pay is competitive and what you’d expect for this role.
BENEFITS &PERKS
- Full-time is 35 hours per week (~30 less work days a year)
- Unlimited time off (we aim for 4+ weeks a year)
- Generous holidays (~20 days per year)
- Sick days for any reason (you, your kids, your loved ones)
- Benefits including health, vision, dental and life
- Competitive parental leave policies (for mothers and fathers)
- Healthy budgets for conferences, online courses and books (of your choice)
- Company t-shirts, long-sleeves, hoodies, beanies and other schwag
LOCATION
You’re free to work from anywhere anytime. If you’re outside of the US but can work at least 4+ hours in the US Central time zone from 9am-6pm, let’s talk. You should be fluent in English and have a strong wifi signal to support Zoom video chats with our team and clients.
INCLUSION
We celebrate our diversity, of nationality, race, ethnicity, gender, religion, lifestyle, location, and more. We believe a variety of backgrounds, experiences and voices make for a better workplace. We strongly encourage people of color, individuals who identify as LGBTQ+, women, and people with disabilities to apply.
No agencies or recruiters please.