Senior Wordpress Developer

Our mission and where you fit in

At Employment Hero, we're an ambitious bunch of people on a mission to make employment easier and more valuable for everyone.

Our world-class software is the easiest way for businesses to manage HR, payroll, employee engagement, and benefits.

Since our inception in 2014, we've had some pretty impressive growth (100% YoY), reached unicorn status in 2022, and now serve 300,000 businesses globally, with 2 million+ users on the platform. We have no plans to slow down.

There's never been a more exciting time to join one of the fastest-growing SaaS unicorns, so let's see if we could be a match!

Role Overview

We are looking for an experienced WordPress Developer to help us build a high-performance, scalable WordPress site from the ground up. This isn't your typical WordPress development role - we need someone who can design and develop bespoke solutions tailored to modern WordPress architecture, utilizing the full potential of the Gutenberg editor, with a focus on performance, security, and minimal reliance on external plugins.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop a custom WordPress theme from scratch, or extend a lightweight starter theme, with an emphasis on minimalism and performance.
• Heavily adopt the Gutenberg block editor experience, enabling editors to create complex templates and content layouts without developer intervention.
• Architect a multi-site setup that supports publishing across multiple regions simultaneously, with region-specific overrides where necessary.
• Build complex, multi-faceted content types using attributes on Gutenberg blocks, avoiding unnecessary reliance on custom fields or bulky plugins.
• Ensure that the site primarily renders as static content for optimal performance, while progressively degrading if JavaScript is disabled.
• Optimize the site to achieve high scores on Core Web Vitals, prioritizing user experience and page load speed.
• Implement best practices in security, ensuring that the site is protected against common vulnerabilities.
• Integrate with CDNs and full-page caching solutions to ensure that the site scales efficiently to handle large traffic volumes.
• Keep the external plugin footprint minimal, focusing on bespoke solutions and avoiding large or cumbersome plugin stacks.
• Ensure that JavaScript payloads are light and minimally intrusive, deferring scripts where possible and minimizing custom JS to avoid performance penalties.
• Implement image optimization strategies, including responsive images and modern formats (e.g., WebP), to ensure fast load times and minimal bandwidth usage.
• Establish reusable patterns and components that empower the marketing team to design and deploy no-code templates independently, without developer involvement.
• Ensure accessibility compliance with WCAG AA standards to deliver an inclusive user experience.
• Employ modern responsive CSS practices without relying on heavy-weight CSS frameworks, ensuring the design is adaptable across devices without unnecessary overhead.
• Support analytics integration in a minimally intrusive way, avoiding performance impacts while ensuring accurate data collection.

You're the hero we're looking for if you:

• Have a deep understanding of modern WordPress architecture and Gutenberg editor development.
• Can create lightweight, high-performance WordPress sites that can scale to handle large volumes of content and traffic.
• Care about the user experience, accessibility, and know how to optimize for speed, security, and stability.
• Have experience establishing reusable design patterns that empower non-technical teams to work independently.
• Take pride in building bespoke solutions that avoid unnecessary bloat and complexity.
• Familiar with modern CSS practices and know how to build responsive designs without heavy frameworks.
• Understand how to integrate analytics integrations in a way that minimizes impact on site performance.

It'll be great, but not essential, if you also have:

• Strong understanding of security practices and how they apply to WordPress development.
• Experience with CDN integration, full-page caching, and performance optimization for large-scale websites.
• Ability to architect solutions that rely on minimal external dependencies, prioritizing custom development where it makes sense.
• Expertise in optimizing JavaScript and image assets to ensure a lightweight, fast-loading experience for users.
• Experience in ensuring accessibility and meeting WCAG AA compliance standards.

Why you love working here?

• We are remote-first, where you can work from the comfort of your home, and enjoy flexible working time
• Work your local hours! 40-hour work week, Monday to Friday
• 100% Salary During Probation
• A generous budget to spend on setting up your home office
• We set you up for success with the latest and greatest hardware, tools and tech
• Budgets towards continuing your learning
• Annual Global Gathering in 1 week - Road to Bali in 2024!!!
• Refer friends to open jobs and receive a cash bonus for every successful referral you make
• Participate in our Employee Share Options Program - you'll be a part owner of Employment Hero.