Full Stack Web Developer

Full Stack Web Developer

The Full Stack Web Developer at CIAT is responsible for designing, building, and maintaining modern web applications that power our student experience, marketing funnels, and internal operations. They work across the entire stack (front end, back end, databases, and integrations) to deliver secure, scalable, and responsive solutions that support CIAT's growth and innovation goals in career-focused higher education. This role collaborates closely with the CIAT Marketing department and IT stakeholders to translate business requirements into reliable web-based solutions, continuously iterating based on data and user feedback to improve performance, usability, and conversion outcomes.

Responsibilities:

• Develop, maintain, and optimize web applications using PHP/Laravel, WordPress, and NodeJS
• Collaborate with business stakeholders, graphic designers, QA, and other team members to define requirements, design solutions, and deliver new features
• Troubleshoot, profile, and optimize code to ensure high performance, stability, and security
• Write clean, well-structured, and well-documented code; actively participate in code reviews
• Monitor application health, identify bottlenecks or bugs, and implement timely fixes
• First point of contact for change requests and enhancements on ciat.edu and CIAT web properties including content updates, images, menu changes, digital assets, new page layouts, new features, and accessibility features
• Create responsive and interactive web pages that align with CIAT brand guidelines
• Ensure all ciat.edu website pages and content remain editable in version control tools for collaborative team maintenance
• Collaborate closely with our in-house and third-party development team members to triage, delegate, and test new web changes
• Gather project requirements outlined by department stakeholders and provide time estimates to scope web projects for implementation
• Accurately implement design specifications and work collaboratively with the marketing team to optimize the user experience within time, budget, and business constraints
• Monitor web analytics and real-time visitor monitoring tools to recommend improvements in web accessibility, functionality, or new feature deployment
• Communicate effectively and professionally with internal teams and vendors
• Utilize critical thinking and problem-solving skills to outline programmatic solutions for solving critical business challenges
• Stay up to date with emerging tools, libraries, frameworks, and industry trends; proactively suggest improvements
• Adhere to CIAT's compliance requirements to ensure all Federal, State, accreditation, and institutional policies and procedures are being met
• Contribute to team effort by accomplishing results as needed
• Embody CIAT's mission, vision, purpose and values
• Ensure a safe, secure, and ethical work environment

Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree in software development, web development, computer science, or related industry experience
• 7+ years of web programming experience in professional business environments
• 7+ years of experience with version control tools such as Git, to collaborate with a multi-person development team
• Advanced expertise in PHP/Laravel, including complex Eloquent relationships, service container usage, event-driven design, and queue orchestration required
• Experience with backend languages, such as Rust, or exposure to systems-oriented development in Go or Python preferred.
• Familiarity with Microsoft Power Pages preferred
• Strong proficiency in WordPress, building and maintaining scalable solutions such as multisite or headless implementations, with deep REST API customization and effective caching strategies
• Strong proficiency in Node.js, including service-oriented architecture, real-time features (WebSockets), and performance profiling in production environments
• Strong proficiency with front-end development, with deep knowledge of JavaScript (ES6+) and CSS (including preprocessors such as SASS or LESS), and production experience with at least one major framework (React or Vue.js)
• Demonstrable experience designing and optimizing relational database schemas (MySQL or PostgreSQL), with working knowledge of NoSQL systems (Redis or MongoDB) for caching and high-throughput workloads
• Demonstratable experience with containerization and delivery pipelines, including Docker and CI/CD workflows, and familiarity with orchestration platforms such as Kubernetes
• Strong proficiency with API design, including RESTful and GraphQL systems, authentication and authorization flows (OAuth2, JWT), and real-time communication patterns
• Experience with automated testing, including unit, integration, or end-to-end testing using tools such as PHPUnit, Jest/Mocha, or Cypress
• Familiarity with security best practices, including OWASP guidelines, content security policies, and secure development practices across the stack
• Ownership mindset around code scalability, and reliability, with a proactive approach to identifying and resolving issues before they impact users
• Confident use of Git as an engineering tool, with attention to clear history, ownership, and long-term maintainability
• Familiarity with responsive web design, mobile compatibility, UI/UX best practices. Familiarity with SEO requirements and the impact of website performance, URL structures, and the impacts of compliance and search engine friendly code
• Eagerness to learn and adapt to new web programming tools and methodologies
• Ability to work independently, estimate effort accurately, and deliver reliably within structured development cycles.
• Willingness to participate in regular team check-ins and provide clear, proactive progress updates
• Self-motivated, goal-oriented, assertive, results-driven, high energy, and highly ethical.
• Team player with a positive, can-do attitude
• Strong organizational skills with the proven ability to prioritize
• Possess high ethical standards, being an example of professionalism to others
• Ability to problem solve while maintaining compliance with all policies, procedures, and regulations, including those related to integrity, conduct, and professionalism
• Must be able to embody CIAT's mission, vision, purpose and values

Position Type and Expected Hours of Work:

Days and hours of work are Monday through Friday. Occasional weekend and evening hours may be required.

Supervisory Responsibility:

This position has no supervisory responsibilities.

Values:

Values such as integrity, excellence, customer service, teamwork and mutual respect are some of those that remain constant, regardless of changes in our company. When identifying company values, it is important that those values are being demonstrated in the course of business each day. Our values set expectations for how employees and managers interact with every person while representing the company.

• We are passionate about education and student success
• We value integrity and excellence in our employees and students
• We treat ourselves and our students with dignity and respect
• We believe in and encourage innovation at our school to better help our students succeed
• We have a customer centric focus and we want people highly committed to achieving goals, where our success equals student's success
• We are accountable for our actions and focus on improvements moving forward
• We have a growth mindset with a sincere belief that every student can do better and achieve their goals
• We expect every employee to be an example of conduct and professionalism, being a role model to students and colleagues
• We commit to fostering an inclusive and supportive learning environment that respects the diversity of students' backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives
• We foster lifelong learning and professional development

Physical Demands:

These physical demands are representative of the physical requirements necessary for an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of the job. Reasonable accommodation can be made to enable people with disabilities to perform the described essential functions.

• Essential functions of this role require sitting for extended periods of time.
• Ability to type, use a computer to search for information and input information while speaking on the phone is required.
• The employee will frequently be required to use the computer, mouse and telephone to conduct the regular tasks of this role.
• The employee will be required to compute simple to simple mathematical calculations as a normal part of this role.

Work Environment:

While performing the responsibilities of this remote position, the job holder will work in a home