Senior Full Stack Developer

StudioLabs is a full-service creative technology and digital production shop that operates without limits. No idea is too small to love, and no project is too big to be handled with detail-oriented care.

For over 16 years, StudioLabs has served direct clients and agencies, as well as funded startups and software shops. We understand the digital landscape; navigate it; and collaboratively release thoughtful, stellar work into the real world.

While they represent only the tip of the iceberg, StudioLabs’ clients include direct relationships like Estee Lauder, Crunch Fitness, and M&T Bank, as well as agencies like Momentum Worldwide, 360i, and Young & Rubicam, and SaaS companies like Zype and Synacor.

StudioLabs is searching for a senior full stack developer who loves teaching and mentoring as much as writing code. Someone who brings creative solutions to every challenge and quickly learns new technologies. And someone who is a strong, hands-on senior-level developer with system administration and DevOps skills. We would prefer to fill this position in our Buffalo, NY location. However, we’ll consider strong applicants from NYC and other cities as well.

StudioLabs offers competitive salaries, excellent benefits packages, and flexible work hours. Check out our Stack Overflow company page here to learn more about our culture, employee benefits, and the services we provide to our customers.

OUR IDEAL CANDIDATE SHOULD BE:

• An expert with NodeJS and modern JavaScript frameworks/libraries
• An expert with web application development and systems administration, and must have experience with LAMP: Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP
• Great at communicating with developers and other StudioLabs team members
• Able to work effectively with our client’s technical leads, our other in-house developers, and non-technical staff from other departments
• A cross-disciplined person who is not afraid of maintaining a production application whilst capable of learning new technologies and putting them into practical use
• An automation master and familiar with configuration management and deployment tools such as Docker, Vagrant, Capistrano, and CircleCI
• Unafraid of writing software for extending our REST APIs, improving our monitoring software or extending our analytics tools
• A natural, ego-less team player who enjoys working in small teams to accomplish big things

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Responsible for effective provisioning, installation/configuration, operation, and maintenance of systems hardware and software and related infrastructure
• Document daily progress on work items & communicate to appropriate stakeholders
• Able to manage multiple concurrent priorities spanning new web / software development projects as well as applications maintenance and support
• Work out of hours, when appropriate, to support deployments or to react to high priority service issues
• Guide development of tools, infrastructure, and processes within the development, build and release process
• Provide expertise in determining the strategic technical direction and system architecture for projects, as needed
• Work as part of a team to help define technical requirements, explain the capabilities and limitations of various systems, and generate diagrams/documentation for internal and client use
• Provide assistance, training, and/or mentoring to other engineers and other team members
• Other duties as assigned

KEY QUALIFICATIONS:

• Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, Computer Sciences, Engineering, Math/Physics or equivalent professional work experience
• Expert technical knowledge of PHP, Object-Oriented programming, design patterns, and best practices in PHP5
• Experience with PHP frameworks (Laravel in particular) or other MVC development frameworks
• Expert knowledge with NodeJS and modern JavaScript (specifically ES6, React and/or Angular, redux, etc) and CSS / SASS
• Experience with tools such as Babel, ESLint, Webpack, and Typescript
• Experience with database systems such as Mysql, PostgreSQL, MongoDB
• Understanding of Linux Operating Systems and Linux internals
• Must be able to multitask, manage details, and keep sight of overall objectives
• Able to work well under pressure and to tight deadlines within a dynamic environment
• Must possess an exceptional ability to effectively communicate both verbally and non-verbally, with technical and non-technical personnel
• Must have a strong technical foundation as well as a full understanding of common coding standards and attention to detail
• Understand the complete software development life cycle from design, build, test, and deployment
• Experience with cloud computing configuration and administration (AWS, Azure or similar)
• Familiarity with one or more version control systems (Preferably Git)
• Scripting ability (Bash / Shell, Perl, Python, Ruby)
• Excellent analytical and creative problem-solving skills
• Familiarity with the command line & SSH

BONUS POINTS FOR:

• Experience in systems management or software development with systems management responsibilities
• Experience as a Release Engineer, Database Administrator, or Senior Systems Administrator, preferably in a LAMP environment
• Experience with Scrum or other Agile software methodologies
• WordPress experience
• Specific experience with Amazon Web Services such as EC2, RDS, S3, EBS, Route53
• Experience with SSL Cert installation, including wildcard configurations
• Web application performance tuning (Apache, NGINX) and experience building or managing applications from the Application layer down
• Database design and performance tuning
• Exposure to security concepts / best practices and system security policy management experience for cloud-based deployments
• CircleCI, Docker or similar build automation / deployment experience
• Customer service experience / strong internal and external customer focus
• GitFlow experience
• Experience with business processes and risk management
• Experience with backup strategies and execution
• Experience with Load Balancing, Network Monitoring / Troubleshooting tools

COMMUNICATION SKILLS:

• Must be able to communicate effectively with many types of clients – those who are technically savvy as well as clients who look to us for technical advice
• Must be able to collaborate with in-house project management / product ownership team to keep the project running smoothly
• Must be able to speak English fluently
• All applicants must be able to work legally in the U.S.