Senior Backend Software Engineer

WordPress doesn’t try to keep its users inside walled gardens, a rare thing in a world that is dangerously moving away from the open web. Instead, WordPress gives them the freedom to build a business website, an online store, or a personal blog – the way they like it. Big sites or small, using the community-run open source project or Automattic’s WordPress.com, vanilla or customised with hundreds of plugins, WordPress users always get to own and control their data, their expression, and their freedom.

What have we worked on recently?

• Gutenberg is a new block-level editor with clean abstractions for users, too, not just developers.
• Jetpack is a plugin that brings cloud-scale features to self-hosted sites and our latest addition is Rewind, think git for WordPress sites.
• WooCommerce is the most popular e-commerce platform on the web.
• To view more of our recent work, check out our longer product list on Automattic.com.

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 welcome collaboration, and you can be involved in any discussion across our many communication channels.

Enough about us, let‘s talk more about you. The Software Engineer 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.

Speaking of interests and skills, 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.

These are exciting times at Automattic and you’ll have a unique opportunity to shape the future of our products. Join us! We look forward to hearing from you.

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.

Please note that we are paying extra attention to your answers to the questions in the application form. They are a significant part of the hiring process, and we will review them just like we would review any other step of the hiring process. 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!