Cast Iron Coding Looking for Frontend Web Developer at Portland, OR Full Time

Who We Are

Cast Iron Coding is a web development firm in Portland, Oregon. We create web applications (and sites) for clients that spread knowledge and contribute to the common good. Most of our work is with universities, state governments, arts institutions, foundations, and other non-profits. Sometimes, when a project helps us sharpen our skills, we choose to work with for-profit, values-aligned companies.

We work with groups that tackle important problems, and we work hard to elevate the design and build quality on these projects. That work makes us proud because we’re contributing to something bigger than ourselves.

Founded in 2005, we’re currently a team of 13, which includes developers, designers, account managers, and project managers. We’re entering a growth period, and are hiring talented people who are excited about the kinds of work we do. We offer our team autonomy and a respectful, transparent, and humanist management style. In return, we hold the team to high standards around integrity, collaboration, craft, and personal accountability.

What We Care About

As craftspeople, we care deeply about the quality of our work. We expect our designs to be honest, ethical, intelligent, user-centric, and joyous. We listen carefully to our clients, but we’re not afraid to push them to bring their best effort to their projects. We resist and address head-on any constraints—unreasonable deadlines, poorly articulated requirements, insufficient resources—that prevent us from doing our best work. Our humanistic approach means we attend to users by paying particular attention to accessibility and user experience. We continuously learn and adopt new technologies, and we enjoy working on the ever-changing and growing web.

At Cast Iron, we seek profit for human ends, rather than for its own sake. In practice, that means we take work-life balance seriously and believe that maximizing employee well-being also maximizes productivity. We treat employees with respect and dignity, and provide choices about where and how our employees work. We care about employee growth, and offer professional development, advancement opportunities, regular goal setting, and mentoring to support that growth. We take a deliberate approach to project management that aims to support our designers and developers without reducing them to issue-closing cogs in a machine. We do this because their active voices are critical to our success. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we cultivate a culture of trust and collaboration by supporting each other as we learn new skills, tackle new challenges, and grow as individuals.

What We’re Looking For

Cast Iron is seeking a Frontend Web Developer with 1+ year of experience working with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. This individual will spend about 60% of their time collaborating with other frontend developers on new projects. Newer projects are generally built on Next.js/React and utilize TypeScript, GraphQL, Tailwind, and other modern and emerging frontend technologies. The other 40% of their time will be spent with our retainer team to handle frontend development requests for existing retainer clients. These requests will involve adding new features to projects built on Wordpress, October, Craft, Rails, Next.js, and other platforms. Knowledge of all these platforms is not required, as the fundamental frontend technologies are similar across these environments. This position involves working on quite a few projects and moving between them, and it’s a good role for someone who wants to be exposed to a wide range of technologies and clients rather than someone who wants to go deep on a single project.

Requirements

Please read the following requirements carefully. We’re willing to provide training to fill gaps for the right person, but we do need to see some demonstrable experience to consider an application.

Responsibilities

• You’ll be expected to write HTML that is accessible and semantically correct.
• You’ll write responsive CSS that uses modern techniques like custom properties, min/max/clamp functions, and Grid/Flexbox, with support from CSS Modules and Tailwind.
• You’ll work with JavaScript on a regular basis, including vanilla JS and React.
• You’ll produce interfaces that meet WCAG guidelines by using your knowledge of accessibility and regular testing your work using assistive technologies.
• You’ll meet regularly with our retainer team to scope and estimate frontend development requests on projects.
• You’ll participate in regular frontend team meetings and contribute to internal tooling and best practices.
• You’ll review designs in tools like Sketch and Figma and provide implementation feedback to designers as needed.
• You’ll work with a variety of content management systems and templating languages.
• You’ll manage your tasks carefully in Linear and provide thoughtful, accurate feedback to PMs and fellow developers.
• You’ll be accountable to your teammates and treat them with kindness, respect, and empathy.

What will Success Look Like?

• The projects you’re on come in on time and at or under budget.
• We retain the clients you work with and they report high satisfaction with your work.
• Your teammates feel they can rely on you and enjoy collaborating with you.
• The code you write works well and is written with long-term maintainability in mind.
• You demonstrate consistent improvement with time and experience.

Required Skills And Experience

• 1+ years working with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
• Basic understanding of semantic HTML
• Experience writing JavaScript
• Experience working with modern CSS techniques
• Must have strong written communication skills

Desired Skills And Experience

• Familiarity with the current JavaScript landscape including tooling, libraries, frameworks, and design patterns
• Familiarity with accessibility (considerations when writing HTML, CSS, and JS; WCAG guidelines; testing methods)
• Understanding of techniques for building robust, inclusive applications, such as progressive enhancement
• Experience working collaboratively with Git, including branching, rebasing, resolving conflicts, etc.
• Experience with one or more content management systems, especially Craft, October, and Wordpress
• Familiarity with React and Next.js
• Understanding of MPA vs. SPA architecture and server-side vs. client-side rendering
• Experience working with APIs, especially GraphQL
• Familiarity with Webpack or other build tools
• Confidence working closely with client stakeholders
• Experience with other programming paradigms, such as functional programming
• Understanding of the HTTP request/response lifecycle
• Familiarity with the command line

Benefits

• The Cast Iron leadership team will work to understand your personal and professional goals, and will help you reach them.
• We have a lovely office in Portland that you can work from, or you can work from home, or some combination of the two. Work wherever you feel you do your best work.
• Most people at Cast Iron work a 4 day work week with Fridays off. Employees can choose between a more intense four day week or a somewhat less intense five day week.
• Competitive salary, 15 days of paid vacation and 8 days of PTO in your first year; 8-11 paid holidays per year; 50% employer contribution to health and dental benefits for you, your spouse, and your children; 401k retirement plan with 4% employer contribution; 4 weeks of paid family/parental leave, and a great company culture that supports your success, well-being, and happiness.