Lead Developer - remote

Knucklepuck
Posted 2 years ago
We Work Remotely
About Knucklepuck
We are a fully remote digital agency dedicated to driving sustainable, bottom-line growth for our clients. To accomplish these goals, we become an extension of our clients’ teams to create extraordinary web experiences. 

Our team is comprised of top-notch people specializing in SEO, Paid Media, and WordPress Website Development. We mirror our industry — innovative, creative, and growing — but we also reflect a unique mission to build up those around us with our specialized skill sets. 

Knucklepuck is committed to consciously embracing a diverse, equitable, and inclusive culture as an extension of our core values. We make our decisions based on Integrity, we nurture our team through Accountability, and we practice Empathy to foster genuine collaboration.
About the Position
You, our future Lead Developer, will take the reins of Knucklepuck’s robust WordPress library to deliver efficient, highly-performant websites for our clients. You will oversee the ongoing evolution of the library to incorporate new developments and innovations that will help us stay at the forefront of our field. 

We are looking for someone who can lead our back-end development process and support the expansion of our Web Services team. Knucklepuck hired a Director of Client Development in 2022 to invest aggressively in the growth of this department and have ambitious plans for pursuing high-margin, scalable WordPress work. We expect you to maintain and enhance Knucklepuck’s coding standards and apply an engineering mindset to maximize efficiencies from our library.

We offer the opportunity for you to make an impact on our business and our clients’ businesses, to innovate our code base, and to share in that success with a team that embraces a commitment to work-life balance.

Knucklepuck’s Product Owner will serve as the primary point of contact to manage our client relationships though we do expect our Lead Developer to be available to meet with our clients and problem-solve as necessary to validate technical requirements and properly scope desired functionality. Our Lead Developer may also be asked to participate in our Discovery process, an upfront consulting effort conducted by our Vice President of Web Services to ensure clear, documented scope for development. 

You will report to the Vice President of Web Services and will work closely with our Lead Front-end Developer to ensure we deliver a website that matches our detailed project scope and client expectations.

Success in this role means engineering WordPress websites that make content management easy and deliver a clean, fast, and intuitive user experience across all devices. You need to be a leader and a team player who is enthusiastic about applying your web development expertise to drive Knucklepuck’s growth.

Qualities we look for in our Lead Developer include:
 
  • Diligent
  • Self-motivated
  • Strategic Leader
  • Collaborative
  • Innovative
  • Adaptable
  • Strong Communicator
  • Goal-oriented

Our dream Lead Developer is:
 
  • Committed to embracing our Core Values of Accountability, Integrity, and Empathy and practice these daily
  • Able to strategically leverage multiple web technologies to solve complex problems. 
  • Adept at following scope documents to deliver on client expectations
  • Possesses expert-level skills in PHP, JavaScript, WordPress, HTML and CSS
  • Experienced with RESTful API integrations
  • Comfortable with the UNIX command line and remotely debugging LAMP/LEMP stacks
  • Capable of managing delivery dates, code quality and readability
  • Experienced with Git: branching, merging, submitting code for peer review, and reviewing peers’ code
  • Always looking for opportunities to reduce friction and create efficiencies
  • Shrewd judge of new or existing technical solutions with a preference for simplicity and clarity
  • Able to communicate professionally with technical and non-technical teammates and clients.
 
Your primary responsibilities will include:

  • Planning and implementing website features in the form of WordPress plugins and/or themes
  • Using Core WordPress APIs to extend the WordPress admin experience
  • Investigating, evaluating, and code reviewing new technologies, services, plugins for project use. Specifically for security, performance, code quality and maintainability.
  • Thoughtfully gathering requirements for complex problems and breaking them down into simple solutions
  • Collaborating with multiple internal and external stakeholders to execute scope
  • Leveraging and adding to a growing library of code as new reuse patterns present themselves
  • Setup and troubleshooting of staging and production environments
  • Setup and troubleshooting of local development environments
  • Setup and troubleshooting of automated code deploys (Github Actions, Codeship)
  • Maintaining and extending internal staging server and cross-team build tools
  • Integrating and troubleshooting 3rd-party technologies into projects
  • Conducting site audits and providing recommendations based on performance best practices and Core Web Vitals
 
It would be great if you have:

  • Experience working for demanding or enterprise-level clients
  • Open source contributions
  • Content migration experience from multiple platforms
  • Remote working experience

Growth Opportunities
Knucklepuck thrives on growth from within. Knucklepuck has a robust code library with an intense focus on content management experience. This role will serve as the cornerstone of our back-end development and coding standards, someone we expect to build around as the business grows.
 
Salary
Base salary is $120,000 USD.
Benefits
At Knucklepuck, you will receive the following benefits.

  • 15 days of PTO (increases after 3yrs);unlimited sick leave
  • Paid parental leave
  • $1,800/yr culture bonus (paid quarterly) to be used for office updates, wellness, nutrition, or whatever will help you improve your work-life balance
  • 401k with 4% company match 
  • Flexible work hours
  • Provided Macbook and other essential WFH equipment
  • Contributions toward a competitive medical plan, including dental and vision 
  • Peer-to-peer coaching program
  • Virtual teambuilding events throughout the year (ex. cooking class, escape room, trivia) not to mention the occasional holiday gift or treat
  • Lunch on your birthday. Let’s celebrate you!!
  • Annual company retreat and other in-person events (ex. concerts, sporting events, city-wide scavenger hunts)
  • Brettgammon. Ask us about it ;-) 
  • Knucklepuck gear, stickers, and more!
  • Startup business mentality: personal growth potential, career advancement and the opportunity to make meaningful impact on Knucklepuck’s growth

Our Commitment to Diversity of Thought
As part of our commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, we welcome all applicants, regardless of race, age, color, religion, national origin, sex, ability, or gender identity. We encourage Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) as well as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer (LGBTQ+) to apply.

We want to meet our military veterans and full-time parents looking to re-enter the workforce. We welcome those with public and private sector backgrounds. 

We have no roles at Knucklepuck that require a college degree. 

We are privileged to work in an industry that requires no formal education and we feel compelled to use our position as a growing company to provide opportunities for under-represented groups. 
 
Resumes Not Accepted
When you apply, we only have one rule: no resumes or cover letters. We know how time consuming these are to put together (and how time consuming they are to review). We also recognize that higher education institutions train their students how to write resumes to present an overly favorable impression of a person’s skills. This gives an unfair advantage to those who attended college or were fortunate enough to pursue professional development over providing for themselves or their family.

We believe it is most important to evaluate how you will contribute as our Lead Developer. Our application process is precisely tailored with questions that give you an opportunity to tell us (in your own words) how you will contribute in this role. 

Everyone has life experience that informs your worldview and we strive to eliminate factors that could trigger bias based on location, education, race, gender, and personal life circumstances.

We consider candidates based on your ability to do the job we’re hiring for, not the jobs you had before. Our interview process is designed for you to show us why you are the right fit for Knucklepuck and how your skills will help us achieve our goals.
 
How do you apply?
If our Lead Developer position feels like a good fit, apply here to show us what you got!