**In-office working arrangement preferred but open to a remote working situation.**
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COMPANY & CULTURE
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STEWARDS OF OUR CLIENTS’ BRANDS.
We help clients discover and tell their stories. We need your help to do it.
Our clients trust us to take care of them – and their brand – especially when crafting their digital experiences. We believe the combination of curiosity, design, writing, development and a little bit of adventure can create something more than just a website. Our holistic approach allows us to put goals before technology and meaning before jargon.
The Design Rangers are a small, 4-person design and marketing strategy firm based in sunny Colorado Springs, Colorado, where we play (almost) as hard as we work. We’re celebrating our 10th anniversary this year and proud of our humble basement beginnings.
WHO IS THE IDEAL DEV RANGER?
- Someone who sees code is art. Art that when combined with strategy, design and content, becomes a masterpiece.
- A designer-turned developer or a developer with an HUGE appreciation for good design
- A willing collaborator who wants to work with a team to make the best experiences possible
- A life-long student
- Someone who likes to laugh and have fun
THE RANGER CAMP (OUR CULTURE):
Below are some of the things we’re all about. If they make you want to lace-up your boots and join the camp, we’d love to hear from you. If not, your adventure lies elsewhere.
- Fun and lively – Our Slack channel makes full use of Giphy. We like to talk, joke, have fun and eat tacos (even on a Monday.)
- Storytellers – We believe every client has a story that will connect them to their audience, and we love discovering it.
- Collaborators – We think together is better.
- Contributors – Free marketing workshops for nonprofits, sharing lessons learned with our competitors, connecting with our community. We want to be part of the conversation.
- Outdoorsy – This is Colorado after all. Several of our clients are based in the outdoor/recreation industry and we’re out in it whenever possible.
- We work with nice people – because life’s too short to work with jerks.
- Cause related – Nonprofits love us and we love them.
- Honest – We are Rangers, and open and honest communication is part of our DNA.
OUR DESIGN/DEV PHILOSOPHY:
We’re actively moving away from the linear design and dev, template and test approach, to creating websites and digital products. Instead, we prefer to create design and dev systems that are flexible from the start. And not only for the end-users or stakeholders, but for the content managers, who are often left to fend for themselves.
We’ve been watching industry leaders and adding our own Ranger insights to the mix, using atomic design principles and new deliverables like element collages to forge a new path. Don’t know what those things are? You should be looking them up. Currently we’re using tools like Sketch, InVision, WordPress, the X Theme/Pro/Cornerstone framework along with hand-crafted design, code and content to get the job done.
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SKILLS TO PAY THE BILLS:
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We believe that passion and willingness to learn can move mountains. But we also need a foundational skillset to build-upon. Here’s what we need you to bring to the table:
REQUIRED:
- Front-end development – You know, the crafting of HTML, CSS & JS into art like we talked about earlier. Oh, and it’s 2017 for goodness sakes, EVERYTHING has to be responsive.
- WordPress development – You don’t need to be a PHP genius, but you do need to understand how basic hooks, actions, logic and structure work. Things like:
- WordPress best practices
- Theme development, child themes and template creation
- Working with the WP Codex
- Working with existing frameworks and plugins
- Creating basic extensions and/or plugins
- Creating intuitive, user-friendly experiences, even in the back-end
- Flexible approach to design and development – Everyone has their own way of doing things. We need someone who is always willing to experiment and change workflows when and if it makes sense.
- Tenacity – Dev can be frustrating, trust me, we know. But we need someone who won’t give up. Someone who curses the existence of IE but finds the solution and rises triumphantly nonetheless. #winning
- Detail-oriented – Sorry, 19px Arial is not close enough to 1.25rem Proxima Nova. You’ll need to be a stickler for all the little details. We all do.
- Thinks beyond the brackets – Your key skill is code. Our key differentiator is creating great experiences. Creating them requires thinking about the entire solution, not just one piece of it.
- Able to take and give feedback – Your opinion matters. So does ours. Let’s make great things together!
IMPORTANT:
- OK with frameworks and **gasp** even plugins – Yes, we said the “P” word. We know custom code is always cleaner and faster. Yes, we know frameworks can add additional overhead. We also know that they can jump-start great solutions instead of re-inventing the wheel.
- Basic design principles – You don’t need to be a designer, but you should be able to see that Stripe’s website looks a lot better than Electrifying Times.
- A student of life – We learn something new every day. So should you.
- Problem-solver – Our clients have challenges. Help us solve them.
- Communication skills – Be clear. Be concise. And above all else, be human. Bonus points if you can make us laugh.
- Tasks both big and small – Sometimes we’re creating a site that brings a client to tears. Sometimes plugins need updated. You’ll be responsible for these things and everything in-between.
NICE TO HAVE:
- PHP skills
- Full-stack skills
- Familiarity with Agile design principles
- Familiarity with Atomic design principles
- Familiarity with GIT versioning
- Web and/or print design skills
- Loves to create a good process
- Up on modern standards/techniques
- Familiar with Sketch, Adobe and InVision products
- UX experience
- Theme and/or plugin development
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THE JOB:
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WHAT YOU’LL BE DOING:
- Crafting code – Creating digital experiences that foster an environment of success for everyone involved:
- The end user
- The content managers
- The stakeholder
- Websites – Creating websites, from single-page campaign support to full-blown corporate basecamps.
- Design systems – Creating pattern libraries of design and code that can act as Lego blocks for a brand.
- Surprise-and-delight – Micro-interactions and small additions that make a big difference.
- Processes – Building and documenting Ranger-approved ways of working that can be re-used and enhanced over time
- Web maintenance, updates and refinements – The little stuff that’s critical to keep a site running smoothly.
- Extending and refining existing client sites – Based on data, behavior and business needs.
Determining the best dev solutions – Using a holistic approach that considers the entire experience and all audiences including content managers. - Support – Respond to and take action on support tickets and on-going web refinements for clients.
- Keep the Ranger site looking tip-top – because it tends to get neglected. Like hasn’t been updated in 2+ years neglected.
- Contributing – to our on-going discussion of how design and dev can help get to the essence of the client’s story.
SPECIFICS:
- Full-time preferred, part-time with secured hours considered.
- In-office working arrangement preferred but open to a remote working situation.
- We’ll require finalists to take a sample design and dev it. Paid of course, but you can’t BS your way through it.
- We’ll want to know a lot about who you are and if you’re a fit.
- Sell us! Write something interesting that lets me know who you are and what you can bring to the table.
- Tell us the most interesting development problem you’ve solved.
- Show us how you’ve used WordPress in interesting ways.
- MUST show completed websites and/or products you’ve worked on.
- MUST provide code examples via said websites and/or GitHub, CodePen, etc.
- Salary requirements.
BENEFITS:
- Competitive salary
- Health benefits
- Generous paid vacation time
- Beer tap and top-tier coffee just steps away
- Environment where you can participate and make a difference
- Collaborative workspace surrounded by architects, designers and fine artists
- S’mores