WordPress Engineer

Summary

LawnStarter is seeking a skilled WordPress Engineer to join their team as a contractor. The ideal candidate will develop and maintain WordPress websites, collaborate with the team, optimize sites for performance and SEO, and stay up-to-date with industry trends. This position offers the opportunity to work from home and provides an annual salary of $25-30k USD.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field (or equivalent experience)
• Proven experience as a WordPress Developer or WordPress Engineer, with a strong portfolio showcasing your WordPress projects
• Proficiency in PHP, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and MySQL, with a solid understanding of web development principles and best practices
• Strong understanding of web performance optimization techniques and SEO best practices
• Experience optimizing WordPress sites for high speed and performance, including achieving high scores on Google PageSpeed Insights and other performance testing tools
• Strong problem-solving skills and attention to detail, with the ability to effectively troubleshoot and debug issues
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to work effectively in a team environment
• Self-motivated and proactive, with a passion for learning and staying current with industry trends and technologies

Responsibilities

• Develop custom WordPress themes and plugins from scratch, ensuring responsiveness and optimal performance across various devices and browsers
• Customize and extend existing WordPress themes and plugins to meet specific project requirements
• Collaborate with designers, project managers, and other developers to translate design mockups and project requirements into functional WordPress websites and applications
• Conduct code reviews and provide constructive feedback to team members to ensure code quality, consistency, and adherence to best practices
• Perform upgrades for WordPress, plugins, themes, and PHP
• Optimize WordPress sites for high speed and performance, implementing techniques such as caching, lazy loading, image optimization, and minimizing HTTP requests
• Implement SEO best practices to improve site visibility and ranking, including optimizing site structure, meta tags, heading tags, and schema markup
• Utilize tools such as Google PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix, and Lighthouse to analyze and improve site performance, aiming for high scores and fast loading times
• Troubleshoot and debug issues that arise during the development and testing phases, implementing effective solutions in a timely manner
• Stay up-to-date with the latest trends and advancements in WordPress development, web performance optimization, and SEO techniques, continuously improving your skills and sharing knowledge with the team
• Participate in project planning, estimation, and scoping discussions, contributing technical expertise and insights to ensure project success
• Collaborate with SEO and Editorial teams to identify new opportunities for site improvements and content optimization
• Demonstrate an autonomous mindset in managing your workload, proactively identifying and proposing new opportunities for enhancing our WordPress projects

Preferred Qualifications

Familiarity with front-end frameworks/libraries such as React.js, Vue.js, or AngularJS is a plus

Benefits

• Work from the comfort of your own home
• Opportunity for growth
• $25-30k USD annually