Full-Time Lead WordPress Developer

 We're looking for a fullstack developer. However, for this position, it is much more important to be great at backend coding than frontend design. Our sites already look great on the front end, but it's mainly on the back end where a lot of work needs to be done. (we also have graphic designers on our team)

Big projects in front of us right now:

1. Make our websites the fastest loading websites when compared to our competitors, and have fewer display ads than the competition.
2. Build out the Hepper.com e-commerce experience: revamping checkout pages, category pages, product listings, and making sure that data analytics on Hepper is properly configured.
3. Clearing the big backlog of tasks that has piled up over the last couple of months. We are behind, and we have lots to do, so it's important that you hit the ground running!
4. In this role, you would over the next 3-4 months hire 1-2 developers in your department. So, it's crucial that you're excited about managing, inspiring, and doing code reviews with other developers too.

You will be responsible for

• Making the webdev department kickass: catching up with the backlog of tasks, and being an amazing communicator.
• After 3-4 hiring months: hiring 1-2 web developers who will work under you. It is therefore important you are excited about hiring, managing, and doing code reviews with developers. We can help teach you the skills to hire and manage developers, though, you must be excited about this for this to work.
• Developing new tools and software that help millions of pet lovers every month (could for example be to develop a Puppy Weight Chart Tool / Calculator that helps pet owners predict how fast, and how big their dog will grow)
• Developing, testing, and maintaining new features and solutions for our WordPress sites for desktop and mobile browsers that are optimized for high traffic.
• Create, review, and update technical documentation such as contributing to our development processes, QA procedures, and technical planning
• Communicating and supporting our content and marketing departments with dev/IT requests, troubleshooting, fixing bugs
• Performing scheduled and non-scheduled maintenance and security updates on our WordPress sites
• Always proactively being on top of things and securing and protecting our WordPress sites from hackers and malware, as well as eliminating risks
• Be informed of relevant new technology and best practices

You are expected to have:

• Experience with HTML, CSS, JavaScript/jQuery, and PHP
• Experience with MySQL and managing databases
• Experience with WordPress development (e.g. themes, hooks, filters, plugin API, etc)
• Experience with build tools like Webpack or ViteJS
• Experience with Composer and a basic understanding of autoloading, dependency management, and dependency injection
• Experience with SSH and comfortable with basic terminal usage
• Experience with Git (and GitHub)
• Troubleshooting abilities (ie include finding CSS and JavaScript conflicts using browser developer tools, navigating codebases in theme and plugins, and determining whether a plugin or theme code could be causing a code conflict)
• The ability to take a project on your own and get it done before the deadline
• Strong communication skills. This is a MUST as we work remotely. (most of our communication is written in Slack with occasional calls)