Hiring: Front End Developer

FEBRUARY 2012: An opportunity exists for an experienced Front-end Web Developer with Well Studio.

You will be experienced in producing quality, logical, solid production code for existing and new websites using professional best practice techniques and strategies for Browser support. You will be able to conceptualise your ideas using layout techniques and prototypes.

Situated in London (in our Soho space) and also with the opportunity to work from home, you will be working with a varied client base, providing web development, web maintenance and digital design. We have two major branded clients with on-going projects to get your teeth into from day one.

Skills

It is expected that:

…you have a love of web standards and have bags of experience in the production of CSS, (X)HTML and JavaScript for websites, particularly dynamic content based sites.

…you have a good grasp of JavaScript/AJAX and are experienced with JavaScript frameworks, specifically jQuery

…you are wild about Responsive Web Design and the challenges it brings. You have dabbled in layouts, even released a site or two and aren’t afraid of Boilerplate, 320andup and wonder why the hell a change to the CSS box-model doesn’t get implemented quicker.

…you have a great design eye and can demonstrate a flair for good web layout design. You understand information architecture and can identify the design constraints for quick loading data rich pages. You appreciate that a ‘pretty’ design isn’t usually the best option for the web and your layout ideas are about good HTML and CSS techniques as opposed to certain visual designers’ heavy bias to using Photoshop and Flash.

…you have great attention to detail and are able to notice if layouts are amiss, semantic HTML is incorrectly placed or unbalanced, a layout is out by a pixel or padding is causing the page content to look unbalanced.

…you are able to produce quality, logical, solid production layout/presentational code for existing web sites and new projects. Your code uses best practice techniques and adheres to strategies for Browser support and degrades gracefully. You are quick at solving common CSS issues and implementing industry accepted workarounds where necessary.

…you are able to wireframe and prototype concepts for clients using a number of different software tools.

…you are able to work with a Technical Web Development team specialising in production of ASP.NET sites. Though you won’t need to have a understanding of .NET, you will be able to work your HTML and CSS into the ASP.NET controls.

…you are happy to work on small maintenance tasks and prioritise these alongside work on fixed price projects.

…you are able to contribute to client proposals, including solution development and providing fixed price time estimates for your work. As a small company, you will have the opportunity to get involved in project management and account management if you want to, however if you are a purist designer who wants to spend 100% of your time doing just that, then that’s ok – we can offer flexibility.

…as an ideal candidate you have 2 or more year’s experience as a web/interface designer.

It is hoped that:

…you understand and evangelise the need for semantically correct data. You are passionate about the data structure of outputted pages and the implications this has for good indexing. You recognise page load times are a significant factor for server overhead and organic search placement.

…you subscribe to the holy grail of HTML5/CSS3 whilst maintaining a level of realism. You recognise there is no such thing as perfect markup but you are not going to stop chasing the dream.

…you are familiar with building templates for systems such as WordPress or Joomla. You know how to customise a raft of social media sites, or you are not afraid of the challenge.

…you understand where the web has come from and that ‘old school’ techniques using deprecated tags are still a necessary evil in the production of email newsletters.

…you deplore IE7′s shoddy standards support. You are asked to tolerate its use inside our customer’s networks and be patient in the deployment of IE7 and IE8 workarounds as a necessary evil to keep your beautiful standards compliant code intact.

…you have an understanding of search engine optimisation SEO techniques for organic search, analytics for campaign measurement. You have a keen interest with developments in social media.

…you have a passion for keeping yourself up to speed with cutting edge techniques and practical ways in which we can implement new ideas to improve our client’s sites.

…you are preferably educated to degree level and can demonstrate how you network, keep up to date and research.

Typical duties

  • Developing layout and wireframe ideas (prototyping)
  • Supporting regular maintenance tasks from our biggest clients
  • Implementation of semantic content
  • Teaser development
  • Using and developing Best Practice techniques
  • Customisation and set-up work on blogs and social networking sites
  • Implementing schema.org data, microformats and other emerging content techniques
  • Browser support and workarounds

Required skillset

  • CSS3 & HTML5
  • JavaScript + JQuery, plus JScript libraries
  • Google Analytics, Webmaster Tools
  • Email newsletter
  • Basic SEO knowledge
  • Social media networks, set-up and customisation of customer presence

Advantageous

  • Able to work with cloud tools, Basecamp, Highrise, Google Apps suite, Freshbooks
  • Responsive web design practices
  • APPS/ Design for mobile
  • CMS: WordPress, Joomla, Expression Engine
  • Knowledge of basic ASP.NET
  • Knowledge of CSS grid systems, e.g. Blueprint, 960gs and other frameworks
  • Other Analytics tools. NetTracker, Omniture
  • Campaign monitor (Email newsletters)

Note: We are platform agnostic and are happy to provide Macintosh or PC Environments.

If you would like to apply for this position, please send a copy of your CV with a cover letter to:
dave.patrick [@] wellstudio.co.uk