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Vacancy: Backend Developer (Support)

23/09/2022

Salary: £40,000-£45,000 + benefits

Location: Remote (UK-based. The role-holder needs to be based, and have the right to work, in the UK and spend one day per month in our Birmingham office.)

Working hours: Monday to Friday, (we’re happy to discuss flexible working hours, the majority of our clients have office hours of 10-6 so there will need to be some overlap with this)

We have written this guide about what to expect if you’re thinking about applying for a job at Substrakt.

Deadline for applications: Friday 14th October 2022

Overview

We are looking for a friendly, diligent and knowledgeable developer to join our team. You will be working to support our portfolio of work (websites and products).

You’ll be tasked with maintaining and supporting our work, the majority of which are WordPress-backed websites integrated with third party APIs, and ensuring they are as performant as possible.

We have developed an increasing number of customer-facing products and services, recent examples include Viadukt, Quick Donate and showcase. Which are built using PHP and Django (Wagtail CMS) respectively, and integrate with Stripe for transactions.

We have also developed a number of internal products that are core to most projects we work on. You’ll be supporting these to ensure clients can manage both their content, and their events. You’ll also be helping to develop these existing products and new libraries/products as required.

You will be responsible for:

  • Supporting and maintaining websites.
  • Supporting and developing our suite of client-facing products.
  • Supporting and developing our suite of internal products.
  • Triaging and troubleshooting incoming requests
  • Responding to client questions and issues and providing updates on progress
  • Ensuring internal technical documents and ReadMe's are kept up to date when making major changes

The tools and technologies we use are:

  • PHP (WordPress)
  • JavaScript (Vanilla, Vue, jQuery)
  • Python (Django, Wagtail, Flask)
  • Git for version control and GitLab as our repository manager
  • MySQL, Aurora, Redis
  • Amazon Web Services (RDS, S3, and CloudFront)
  • Heroku

If you have experience using most of these tools and technologies, or others tools and technologies that are similar (i.e. they are based on the same concepts or structures), then we want to hear from you.

Knowledge, experience and skills that make you great for this role are:

  • Ability to work well in a small team environment
  • Experience working in a support environment
  • Great formal and informal communication skills
  • Understanding of how to deliver for and work well with clients
  • Comfortable working on multiple projects at the same time and managing competing priorities
  • Conscientious attitude - you take pride in doing good work
  • Relevant technical skills from the list above

You...

  • Are an enthusiastic self-starter and problem solver, you’re good at identifying and following-up opportunities
  • Are good at spotting and fixing the smaller issues before they develop into bigger problems
  • Can think ahead and balance technical debt and impact.
  • Know the difference between a business critical fix and and when a temporary patch will do
  • Enjoy interacting with clients and colleagues to ensure we are always delivering the best, most appropriate solutions.
  • Are passionate about web development, and sharing your knowledge and ideas.
  • Have an interest in the work of arts and cultural organisations and the needs of their users.
  • Rarely get stuck in rabbit holes, and know when to ask for help.

Why Join Substrakt?

At Substrakt we believe that arts and culture enriches lives and brings society together. We want to ensure that amazing cultural experiences can be enjoyed as widely as possible by harnessing the power of digital technology.

Substrakt creates digital solutions for cultural organisations. The types of organisations we work with include theatres, performing arts centres, music venues, museums, galleries, and performance groups in Europe and North America.

We work with some of the most exciting and interesting cultural organisations in the world including the National Theatre, Shakespeare’s Globe, Santa Fe Opera, Royal Court Theatre, American Repertory Theater, Bridge Theatre, Malmö Live and Malmö Opera amongst many others. Read more about the work we do, and the people we work with.

We also provide consultancy services and training on analytics, digital strategy, ticketing, project management and digital community events.

By supporting organisations with their digital needs, we enable them to reach new and wider audiences so that arts and culture can be accessed and enjoyed by everyone.

Life at Substrakt

At Substrakt we believe that work should be an enjoyable part of life and we put effort and resources into making this a reality for our team. We have a friendly and supportive culture that enables our team to do their best work and develop their skills, we value curiosity, compassion and respect. We are selective about the clients we work with, so that we build rewarding relationships and work on exciting projects. When we say that we work with people we like, on projects we love we really mean it.

We invest in our employees and provide opportunities for them to grow. This includes formal training, going to industry conferences, and regular informal knowledge-sharing sessions such as our weekly demo and drink, and monthly Substrakt Sessions.

We have a great set of benefits as standard:

  • Fully flexible working patterns, agreed in advance and available from day 1, including part-time hours, condensed hours, flexible start and end times and 100% remote working. We’ll discuss this with you upfront, so you can feel comfortable knowing a role at Substrakt will give you the work life balance you want.
  • 25 days annual leave (plus public holidays) and no fixed holiday dates, so you can use your leave when it suits you. Plus, your holiday will increase by a day for every two years you are part of the team.
  • Enhanced maternity, paternity and adoption leave policies.
  • Free NHS cashback health plan – enabling employees to claim cashback on health costs such as dental treatment, scans, prescriptions and much more. Access to an employee assistance helpline, counselling, and accident cover is also included. The plan is also available for our employee’s partners and children.
  • Annual profit share scheme.
  • Annual allowance of £500 to spend on books, courses, conferences and training – anything that helps you build skills to thrive in your role – and 6 days off per year for you to focus exclusively on your professional development.
  • Monthly health and wellbeing allowance of £50 to spend on anything that helps you feel your healthiest and best self. This includes anything from hobbies, to the gym, to childcare, talking therapy, a donation to a cause you care about, entertainment, or a nice meal out!
  • Free weekly yoga classes
  • Free weekly Distrakt sessions where we play games, do quizzes and other things to unwind
  • Regularly bringing the team together for outings to theatres, galleries, historic sites and cultural events through our network of client partners.
  • Quarterly team lunches and a varied selection of optional, relaxed social events.

To apply…

Please contact work@substrakt.com with details of your experience and an outline of why you think you would be a good fit for this role.

Please include a link to some code that you’re proud of. You can send us a link for a public repo, or contact us and we can organise looking at a private repo. We promise we won’t share.

We have written this guide about what to expect if you’re thinking about applying for a job at Substrakt.

Substrakt is an equal opportunities employer and we welcome applications from all suitably qualified people regardless of their ethnicity, gender, disability, religion, sexual orientation or age, read more about our Equity, Diversity and Inclusion vision.

Deadline for applications: Friday 14th October 2022