Virtual Office 

Join Our Team

Reason advances a free society by developing, applying, and promoting libertarian principles, including individual liberty, free markets, and the rule of law. We use journalism and public policy research to influence the frameworks and actions of policymakers, journalists, and opinion leaders. 

About the Role 

The Reason web development team is looking for a PHP and WordPress Developer to help build modern web user experiences, improve publishing automation and tooling, and upgrade existing WordPress products. This person will work closely with a small, distributed team, and will therefore need to have excellent communication skills and be highly self-driven. 

The Reason web team is responsible for two highly-customized WordPress-based websites (reason.com and reason.org), as well as a number of small services and API integrations that power our various infrastructure. The PHP and WordPress Developer will be responsible for helping continuously upgrade our themes and plugins with modern technologies, like React, Tailwind, and the WordPress Block Editor. 

With 3.6 million visits of reason.com content per month, this is an opportunity for someone with experience in modern PHP development to make significant contributions to an independent publisher and build products and features that will be seen by a wide audience. The PHP and WordPress Developer will assist in building custom themes and plugins for WordPress, engineering and building new publishing automation tools, planning and implementing improvements to cloud infrastructure, and integrating a variety of vendor APIs with our systems. 

This is a full-time position that can be done remotely and reports to the Director of Web Technology. 

Responsibilities

  • Use best practices and design principles to write functional and object-oriented PHP, JavaScript, HTML, and CSS code
  • Build robust, well-tested custom themes, plugins, and CLI commands for WordPress websites
  • Maintain and upgrade a large number of existing integrations and customizations
  • Stay up to date with security standards and monitor our codebase for bugs, exploits, and usability flaws
  • Independently plan and execute coding projects from start to finish
  • Provide internal technical support for various internal systems and platforms
  • Write and optimize MySQL queries for WordPress and internal reporting
  • Utilize Git repositories to track code changes, submit pull requests, and manage issue reports

Qualifications

  • At least 3-5 years of experience in web development or an equivalent field
  • Experience working with AWS infrastructure, including AWS CLI, S3, EC2, RDS, and other services
  • Practical experience with utilizing strict typing and other modern PHP (8.2+) features
  • Experience with React, React Native
  • Experience building blocks, templates, or other assets for the WordPress Block Editor
  • Experience contributing to open source projects
  • Experience with Next.js, GraphQL, or other tools and frameworks for building headless WordPress sites
  • Ability to honestly evaluate one’s own work for weaknesses and strengths
  • Quick and efficient troubleshooting/problem solving
  • Ability to synthesize a plan of action that addresses the requests/desires of a variety of stakeholders
  • Alignment with Reason’s mission to advance libertarian principles

How to Apply

Interested candidates should submit the following materials in one PDF document: 

  • A cover letter detailing your alignment with Reason’s mission, your interest in the position, and how your experience has prepared you for this role
    • Please include links to any relevant, publicly-visible work examples (personal portfolio, GitHub repos, live projects, etc)
  • Resume 

Applications should be submitted to https://reason.org/jobs-apply/. 

Any questions can be directed to Lydia Ocampo, Talent Coordinator, who is managing the search process: lydia.ocampo@reason.org. 

While we thank all applicants in advance for their interest in this position, we are only able to contact those to whom we can offer an interview. Only direct applications will be considered. No phone calls, please.