We’re hiring: Digital Developer

Do you love building websites and web apps? Do you want to be part of a consciously small team of experts who are as passionate about the culture in the business as they are about delivering great work? Do you like the idea of being part of an employee owned business, which means having your voice heard and contributing to and sharing in our success? Then you’ve come to the right place.

Basis: Option for full-time or part-time hours (3-5 days a week).

About the role

We’re not just looking for any developer, we’re looking for a developer who cares deeply and takes the utmost pride in their work. With a strong background in digital development, you’ll be a self-initiated learner and a proactive problem solver, ready to roll your sleeves up to get stuck into building beautiful websites, web apps and integrations of third-party services. 

It goes without saying that you’ll have experience in troubleshooting bugs, dealing with requests, and the ability to work on existing codebases professionally and comfortably.

You’ll be working on a variety of different clients. Their size, industry, and type vary but the common denominator is that each one will either be purposeful, people-positive, progressive, or all three. We believe in working with people that we like and who share a cultural connection with, but that doesn’t mean it’s fluffy and huggy: we work hard for our clients, putting their needs first and having empathy for the challenges on their desks. 

You’ll be part of a small but perfectly formed digital team of 3, working on products ranging from simple brochureware, to business critical high-traffic and bespoke functionality websites and web apps. Experience with various PHP frameworks is required, and your WordPress experience needs to be beyond just themes, plugins and site builders. Caching mechanisms, accessibility and web security will be paramount in your thinking when scoping a solution to a brief.

Employee ownership and our future vision 

Since April 2021 Salad has been employee-owned. This means that ownership of the company is held in an Employee Ownership Trust for the benefit of the employees. 

Beyond your core role as developer, we’re looking forward to welcoming you to our Salad family and, after one year, you’ll become a beneficiary of the Employee Ownership Trust. 

We cannot overstate the importance of ‘team’ in Salad, and we’re looking forward to the inputs you’ll bring to our open and democratic culture. This includes quarterly all-agency vision days where we collectively discuss topics such as goal setting, finances and culture.

Ultimately this role is an opportunity to come in and help us develop and be part of defining where we’re going as a business. We hope you’ll consider this your new home and stay for a long time. We think there are a lot of great things we can do together.

Key Responsibilities

• Front and back end development: Delivering high end work on front-end styling and functionality, with a preference for using Tailwind CSS. You’ll also be comfortable with back-end development tasks using PHP frameworks such as Laravel or CodeIgniter. You’ll have experience building bespoke WordPress websites, (not just bought themes and plugins). Experience with Timber and TWIG an additional advantage.
• High-level problem resolution: You’ll contribute effectively to planning sessions, troubleshooting complex issues, and creating innovative solutions for web-related challenges.
• Debugging and problem-solving: You’ll identify, troubleshoot, and resolve bugs or issues in website code. Perform regular code reviews and refactor code to enhance performance and maintainability.
• Website maintenance and server management: This includes monitoring website uptime, troubleshooting any downtime issues, and resolving issues with servers / services when necessary. Ensuring server configurations are optimised for performance and stability, and communicating recommendations.
• Integrations: Developing and implementing integrations with third-party services, such as job boards and other external platforms. You’ll be confortable working with new API documentation and services, using tools like Postman, and ensuring seamless communication between our website and external services using different API types.
• API knowledge: Understanding and working with APIs. You’ll understand REST and be open to working with SOAP.
• Code refactoring: Improving and optimising existing codebases, ensuring clean, efficient, and scalable solutions.
• Caching strategies: Utilise different classes of cache, such as object, database, and opcode caching, to enhance site performance. You’ll understand both the value and the differences.
• Security and penetration testing: Addressing and resolving vulnerabilities identified during penetration tests. Updating code and configurations based on security audit recommendations. Comfortable reading a 3rd party report and working with security consultants.
• Wider business engagement: Participate in business-level discussions, pitch ideas and work with non-technical teams on wider projects. Being comfortable working in an agency environment is a bonus, but not essential.

Preferred skills

• Proven experience in web development with a focus on both front-end and back-end
• Proficiency in PHP and frameworks such as Laravel or CodeIgniter.
• Can deliver front end to a high standard. Familiarity with Tailwind CSS is highly desirable
• WordPress knowledge exists beyond installing plugins. Timber, Bedrock etc all a bonus
• Understanding of security best practice.
• Experience with server management, debugging, and troubleshooting issues
• Ability to write clean, efficient, and maintainable code
• Experience with additional JavaScript frameworks, such as Alpine, Vue etc.
• Familiarity with cloud hosting platforms (e.g., AWS, DigitalOcean, Linode)
• Knowledge of database optimisation techniques
• Comfortable working with inherited codebases and websites
• Comfortable working within a development team, and understand version control and well as release management

Other stuff you’ll want to know

• Open to full-time or part-time hours (3-5 days a week)
• Our hours are Monday to Friday 8.30am – 5.30pm
• We have an office on Poole Quay in Dorset but we’re predominantly remote. We typically spend 1-2 days a week in the office although we would expect this to be higher for the first month following your start date
• Holiday allowance of 20 days, increasing a day a year up until 25 days + bank holidays
• Additional time off between Christmas and New Year 
• Additional day off for your birthday
• Death in Service policy x 2 salary 
• Regular team events
• EOT beneficiary payments after 1 year of service

Salary: Negotiable depending on experience 

How to apply

If you like the sound of this, please drop our Head of Digital, Matt an email at matt@saladcreative.com 

Don’t forget to include your CV and/or the following:

• An introduction explaining why you think you’d be the perfect fit.
• LinkedIn profile (if you have one) 
• Publicly accessible code repositories (GitHub etc)
• Links to a portfolio or recent examples of your work

P.S. No offence, but no agencies please