Senior Software Engineer (Backend, PHP)

We are the people behind WordPress.com, WooCommerce, and Tumblr to name a few. We believe in making the web a better place. We’re hiring across all our teams and products. 

We’re a distributed and 100% remote company with 1,381 Automatticians in 79 countries speaking 100 different languages. We’re committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and our common goal is to democratize publishing and commerce so that anyone with a story can tell it, and anyone with a product can sell it, regardless of income, gender, politics, language, or where they live in the world

What have we worked on recently?

• Gutenberg is a new block-level editor with clean abstractions for users, too, not just developers.
• WooCommerce is the most popular e-commerce platform on the web – with a number of growing functionalities around WooCommerce Shipping, WooCommerce payments and core.
• Tumblr is a microblogging and social network, in a short-form blog format, which now uses React. The Engineering blog covers a number of projects and improvements to the platform. 
• Jetpack brings cloud-scale security, performance, and growth features to any WordPress site in the world.
• To view more of our recent work, check out our longer product list on Automattic.com.

The Role

Engineers at Automattic are responsible for the engines of Automattic: a variety of codebases and processes devoted to making the web a better place. With their varied backgrounds, our engineers collaborate with the other roles at Automattic to define, implement, and improve the experience those engines provide and enable.

We’re looking for Software Engineers with experience scaling who are passionate about and experienced in backend software development; in particular, with PHP. 

We also are looking for people who:

• Have experience working on large-scale systems. Making them faster, more scalable, and fault-tolerant.
• Have demonstrated experience and interest in systems architecture.
• Are highly collaborative and love participating in code reviews and discussions about architecture, and/or design.
• Are knowledgeable about design patterns and testability; having experience with testing frameworks, performance and unit testing is very welcome.

The Senior Software Engineer (Backend, PHP) position might be a good fit if you:

• Have production experience with several programming languages. We mostly use PHP and JavaScript at Automattic – you should either be familiar with them already or the idea of using them on a daily basis should not be a blocker for you.
• Have experience working on a large-scale system. Making it faster, more scalable, and fault-tolerant.
• Know about systems architecture.
• Are highly collaborative and you love participating in code reviews and discussions about architecture, or design.
• Are passionate about and experienced in software development; in particular, advanced PHP knowledge is a plus.
• Are knowledgeable about design patterns and testability; having experience with testing frameworks, performance testing and unit testing is very welcome.
• Are thoughtful about product design, with good user experience instincts.
• Are open and able to travel 3-4 weeks per year to meet up with your teammates in person.

Extra credit:

• WordPress programming experience.
• Open source contributions or contributions to programs designed to help underrepresented people enter the tech field.
• Experience working on accessibility.
• Familiarity with JavaScript.
• Data analysis experience, and understanding of how analytics can help with product decisions.
• Knowledge of tooling and build systems.

How do we work?

• We’re kind to each other and our users – we strive to build a positive, supportive, and inclusive culture of cohesive teams focused on delivering value to our customers.
• We work as a global and distributed workforce resulting in a unique way of working built around our creed.
• We offer flexible work arrangements allowing our team members to work when they feel best.
• We open-source! We’re cool with open-sourcing everything except passwords, or secret keys.
• We ship often, deploying many times daily with the help of peer code review, continuous integration, and our global workforce in over 70 countries.

We prioritise our employees’ growth. Here are some areas in which you can grow and have further impact in the future at the company:

• Leadership – we offer a variety of leadership options to those who have interest, including becoming a team lead and managing releases.
• Learning and development – we have a generous personal development budget and encourage you to grow your skills through courses, books and conferences.
• Architecture – we encourage developers to develop expertise in the systems they work with, guide their evolution and mentor other developers working on them.
• Engineering effectiveness – we believe in helping other developers become more effective through tools, practices, cross-team collaborations, and process improvements.

DIVERSITY, EQUITY, & INCLUSION AT AUTOMATTIC

We’re improving diversity in the tech industry. At Automattic, we want people to love their work and show respect and empathy to all. We welcome differences and strive to increase participation from traditionally underrepresented groups. Our DEI committee involves Automatticians across the company and drives grassroots change. For example, this group has helped facilitate private online spaces for affiliated Automatticians to gather and helps run a monthly DEI People Lab series for further learning. DEI is a priority at Automattic, though our dedication influences far more than just Automatticians: We make our products freely available and translate our products into and offer customer support in numerous languages. We require unconscious bias training for our hiring teams and ensure our products are accessible across different bandwidths and devices. Learn more about our dedication to diversity, equity, and inclusion and our Employee Resource Groups.

Curious who works in engineering at Automattic? Meet our Code Wranglers – Brandon, Jeremy, Mark, Jennifer, Roy and Kat!

WHAT TO EXPECT

We know applying to jobs can be stressful and we want to ease the stress by giving clear expectations upfront about our process. We’ve outlined everything you need to know here including all of the steps in the process as well as how we approach hiring. We’re always iterating so if you happen to join us in the process, please feel free to offer feedback on what else we can include there!

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