Experienced 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 customized with hundreds of plugins, WordPress users always get to own and control their data, their expression, and their freedom. We’re always looking for talented and experienced engineers worldwide, excited to help Automattic’s product ecosystem, and join our mission to make the web a better place. What have we worked on recently? AI is at the heart of many new product developments and powers a lot of our day-to-day development workflows. WooCommerce is the most popular and most flexible e-commerce platform on the web. We're working tirelessly on giving you all the control, while keeping the platform fast and stable. Gutenberg is a new block-level editor for WordPress with clean abstractions for users, too, not just developers. Tumblr is a microblogging social network where users create, share, and follow what they love. 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 build a positive, supportive, and inclusive culture of cohesive teams focused on building useful products for 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. We encourage you to learn and develop and we support you with what you need – covering expenses, easy internal mobility, coaching. Enough about us, let‘s talk more about you. Working at Automattic might be a good fit if: You care and often obsess over the quality and the details of your work. Debugging any problem is a fun challenge and not a chore. Understanding the layers of abstraction below and above your work isn't something extra, but how you operate. You have production experience with several programming languages, frameworks, and paradigms. We mostly use PHP and JavaScript at Automattic, we expect you to be comfortable with the idea of becoming an expert in these languages, even if being one isn't a requirement to apply. In your mind abstraction is associated as much with cost as it is with value. You have experience working at scale – it can be on the backend and performance side, or via the complexity of interacting with a multi-million diverse userbase. Are open and able to travel 3-4 weeks per year to meet up with your teammates in person. 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! Salary range: $70,000-$170,000 USD. Please note that salary ranges are global, regardless of location, and we pay in local currency. We are searching for high-caliber candidates with the skills and qualities to have a net positive for Automattic. Pay will reflect the potential contribution and the impact you can bring, which may, in some cases, go beyond the range stated. We’re pleased to offer a straightforward, competitive base salary, providing financial clarity without complex variable components. This isn’t your typical work-from-home job: we are a fully-remote company with an open vacation policy. To see a full list of benefits by country, consult our Benefits Page. And check out these links to learn more about How We Hire and What We Expect from Ourselves. ABOUT AUTOMATTIC Now in our 20th year, we’re the people behind WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Tumblr, Simplenote, Jetpack, Longreads, Day One, PocketCasts, Beeper, and more. We believe in making the web a better place. We’re a distributed company with more than 1400 Automatticians in nearly every corner of the globe, speaking over a hundred different languages. Enriched by this diversity, we’re united by a singular mission: to democratize publishing, commerce, and messaging so anyone with a story can tell it, anyone with a product can sell it, and everyone can manage their communications from a single source. In short, we help maintain a balance in society, creating and continually refining powerful tools people can use to compete fairly—regardless of income, gender, politics, language, or where they live in the world. We believe in Open Source, and the vast majority of our work is available under the GPL. Automattic is a Most Loved Company and Disability Confident Committed. (Here’s what that might mean for you.) Learn more about our dedication to diversity, equity, and inclusion and our Employee Resource Groups. If you need disability-related accommodations during the application or interview process, please fill out this form. We are committed to ensuring an accessible hiring process for all candidates. To learn about how we handle your data, please review our Privacy Policy. You can track your application status and more at MyGreenhouse. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or status as a protected veteran.

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Common Interview Questions And Answers

1. HOW DO YOU PLAN YOUR DAY?

This is what this question poses: When do you focus and start working seriously? What are the hours you work optimally? Are you a night owl? A morning bird? Remote teams can be made up of people working on different shifts and around the world, so you won't necessarily be stuck in the 9-5 schedule if it's not for you...

2. HOW DO YOU USE THE DIFFERENT COMMUNICATION TOOLS IN DIFFERENT SITUATIONS?

When you're working on a remote team, there's no way to chat in the hallway between meetings or catch up on the latest project during an office carpool. Therefore, virtual communication will be absolutely essential to get your work done...

3. WHAT IS "WORKING REMOTE" REALLY FOR YOU?

Many people want to work remotely because of the flexibility it allows. You can work anywhere and at any time of the day...

4. WHAT DO YOU NEED IN YOUR PHYSICAL WORKSPACE TO SUCCEED IN YOUR WORK?

With this question, companies are looking to see what equipment they may need to provide you with and to verify how aware you are of what remote working could mean for you physically and logistically...

5. HOW DO YOU PROCESS INFORMATION?

Several years ago, I was working in a team to plan a big event. My supervisor made us all work as a team before the big day. One of our activities has been to find out how each of us processes information...

6. HOW DO YOU MANAGE THE CALENDAR AND THE PROGRAM? WHICH APPLICATIONS / SYSTEM DO YOU USE?

Or you may receive even more specific questions, such as: What's on your calendar? Do you plan blocks of time to do certain types of work? Do you have an open calendar that everyone can see?...

7. HOW DO YOU ORGANIZE FILES, LINKS, AND TABS ON YOUR COMPUTER?

Just like your schedule, how you track files and other information is very important. After all, everything is digital!...

8. HOW TO PRIORITIZE WORK?

The day I watched Marie Forleo's film separating the important from the urgent, my life changed. Not all remote jobs start fast, but most of them are...

9. HOW DO YOU PREPARE FOR A MEETING AND PREPARE A MEETING? WHAT DO YOU SEE HAPPENING DURING THE MEETING?

Just as communication is essential when working remotely, so is organization. Because you won't have those opportunities in the elevator or a casual conversation in the lunchroom, you should take advantage of the little time you have in a video or phone conference...

10. HOW DO YOU USE TECHNOLOGY ON A DAILY BASIS, IN YOUR WORK AND FOR YOUR PLEASURE?

This is a great question because it shows your comfort level with technology, which is very important for a remote worker because you will be working with technology over time...