closed vacancy Lead Backend Developer/Technical Architect - remote

As lead backend web developer at mStoner, you’ll be responsible for planning and executing highly effective and usable websites and digital experiences for our college and university clients.

The ideal candidate is a committed and passionate developer who wants to remain primarily “hands-on”and is also interested in contributing to our direction as an agency and providing technical consulting services to our clients.

We need a strong developer who can help us implement large-scale Drupal and WordPress driven sites and offers a point of view on development best practices, modern techniques and processes, and emerging technologies.

Estimated compensation: $85,000 to $105,000 depending on level of expertise.

What You’ll Do

• Plan and implement effective and highly usable university websites in Drupal and WordPress
• Build content integrations with other web applications and third-party systems
• Convert front-end code to custom Drupal and WordPress themes
• Lead functional and technical planning for new client websites
• Participate in technical aspects of the discovery and strategy phases of client projects
• Contribute to the technical direction of the agency, including how we best leverage emerging technologies (e.g., personalization and anonymous content targeting)
• Complete maintenance, support and enhancement tasks for existing client websites
• Participate in quality assurance activities

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree
• Five years of web development experience, preferably with PHP, Drupal and/or WordPress
• Experience implementing large and/or complex websites within a content management system environment
• Prior experience in an agency or consulting firm that services clients;customer- or client-service mindset is a must
• Comprehensive knowledge of responsive web design and HTML5 / CSS3 / SASS / SCSS / JavaScript / JQuery
• Solid understanding of best practices and standards for web development, performance, security, accessibility (WCAG 2.1), and organic search engine optimization
• Proficient with code versioning tools such as Github or Bitbucket
• Familiar with quality assurance tools and code validation tools

Job Requirements

• Must be a good problem solver and someone who is curious and enjoys learning new skills
• Must be organized and able to manage and track time effectively
• Must be able to meet deadlines and negotiate priorities with other team members
• Must be able to balance multiple projects in a given week
• Must be versatile and able to contribute and add value to the team on a variety of tasks
• Must be proactive and self-motivated and able to work with minimal supervision, this position is not for someone who needs to be told exactly what to do and how to do it
• Must be able to communicate and collaborate effectively with clients and co-workers from a variety of professional disciplines and at different levels of authority
• Must be able to collaborate and work effectively in a remote / distributed environment
• Must be able to work in the Central Time Zone
• Must be willing to travel on occasion to client locations, mStoner Chicago, or meetups with technical team members in St. Louis