We’re looking for a back-end application developer with at least 2 years of experience to round out our team. We’re based in Chicago, but over 70% of our staff live in other parts of the United States, across all four time zones. (US citizens only please.)
What does it feel like to work as a software developer at WAM?
It's equal parts coder, mentor, counselor, and self-manager. It’s about the relationships with our clients as much as it is about code.
You'll know your clients by their first name. You'll answer their questions on a daily basis. You'll ask them questions on a daily basis. You'll write code that solves their business problems. You'll provide them tools and guidance when they can't solve their own. You’re neurotic when you don’t understand how something works, and will take time out on your accord to dig deeper. Junior developers at WAM don’t sit on the sidelines. You'll be on the frontlines with the entire team.
At the same time, you'll work with remote team members who are as equally committed to the team and work. The most common feedback we get from new hires is how closely-knit this team feels compared to other teams they've worked with. We respect one another's needs. This means we call out for help when we're not sure of what to do. We jump at the opportunity to help another team member out when they're stuck. Everyone works on both the glamorous stuff and the dirty work here. Individually, we're responsible for delivering great work. Collectively, we're responsible for helping each other grow.
While we're looking for a junior developer, you need to be a senior-level team player, communicator, and problem solver.
We recognize this kind of personality is not in everyone's DNA. If you aren’t comfortable getting in the trenches with clients and your teammates, please don’t apply. But, if you think you have the right ingredients, please read on.
As a junior backend developer, here are some things you might do in a typical week:
- Investigate and resolve 15-20 reported bugs.
- Make updates to a SQL server database schema using our in-house data modeling tool, X2O.
- Provide well-written messages to a client in Basecamp about the current status and upcoming roadmap for a particular site implementation.
- Routinely provide detailed insight to a client for into how you've implemented a piece of logic that they've specified, to resolve a bug.
- Manage merging bug fix commits from SVN back to a central codebase. This sometimes includes manual merging when codebases begin to diverge.
- Listen in (and occasionally lead) a Friday afternoon code meetup with the development team to go over a code refactoring, a new technology, or any other coding topic of interest.
- Work with a project manager to estimate additional work for an existing application.
- Work with a front-end developer to integrate server-side models into an HTML/JS front-end using either traditional MVC or client-side frameworks like jQuery.
- Gain more business domain knowledge of how benefits and retirement plans work, as you continue to implement more code for a client. You'll use this knowledge to become even more productive and valuable for future projects.
- Perform scheduled code, database schema and data migrations to various environments.
- Respond to issues discovered in a dynamic and static scan of existing code bases.