Jul 4, 2022
You will be working across multiple teams, chiefly our highly-experienced and multi-disciplinary development and product teams, enhancing the functionality of the website through UX/UI design and improving our web codebase and infrastructure through client-side and server-side development.
Our priorities 2022 and beyond include:
Building out and optimising our entirely new design built in Vue.js, which represents the biggest upgrade to NewsNow's format in its nearly 25-year history;
Evolving into a social news site by crowdsourcing feedback and ratings from users to drive quality and user-centric improvements;
Implementing various mobile initiatives, such as the development of a progressive web application (PWA) and push notifications to not only make accessing NewsNow easier, but also put us at the forefront of peoples' minds at critical moments;
Continuing our mission to provide a healthy news diet through publishing headlines linking to breaking and curated news from a diverse range of credible, independent and public interest news sources.
As a Web Developer/Designer, you will have a strong grasp of aesthetics, constraints and implementation and be expected to contribute authoritatively towards our web development and design projects, producing designs in Figma and implementing new functionality through Vue components (and where necessary in the backend) to a high level of design precision.
At NewsNow, we are highly collaborative, so you'll also be invited to work closely with other members of our team in conceiving design and development efforts, researching and specifying planned product enhancements, and reviewing and providing feedback on designs and code produced by others.
Furthermore, all mid-level members of our design and development team are expected and encouraged to progress to become senior members of the team once they've become established in the role.
We want to hear from you if you are confident that you can learn what you need to know quickly and are keen to master new methods and discover new approaches. On-the-job training will be provided on the specifics of our systems and on the technologies we use (as necessary).
For this role you will need:
Strong design skills and a proficiency in Figma or similar tools
Prowess in HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript/ES6, and responsive design
Vue.js; or experience working with a modern front-end framework such as React or Angular and a willingness to pick up Vue.js quickly
A thorough understanding of UI/UX processes and best practices
A keen eye for detail
Excellent written and verbal communication skills
In addition, one or more of these would be nice to have:
Familiarity with UX & CRO tools such as Google Analytics and Google Optimize
Programming experience in another high-level language like PHP, Ruby, Python, Go, Java, Node.js or Perl
SASS
Webpack
SEO
Familiarity with the Linux command line, bash, and Git
Copywriting
You’re also someone who:
Is comfortable with fully remote working
Is open to new technologies and concepts, but isn’t a slave to them: you relish crafting elegant solutions to hard technical and business problems, using whatever is the best tool for the job
Thrives in a small, open and collaborative team, where the best ideas can come from anyone. You’re confident and articulate about what you know and open about what you don’t
Is passionate about any area of news or sport, or creating the best product for people who are
Our highly experienced multi-disciplinary development team runs lean. Our compact set-up lets us keep hierarchy and bureaucracy to a minimum. Which means today, we're still a company where everyone gets to make a massive impact.
We’re a developer-driven company. Two of the company’s three directors are developers — and that includes the CEO. This means that development is core to the business, developers are appreciated for their creative input, and the importance of investment in development — and avoiding technical debt — is understood.
We use a cutting-edge containerised development model, that makes agile development convenient and cheap, using Dockside, our online IDE. For each new task, Dockside lets us launch a disposable development container — aka a devtainer — which provides a self-contained fully-functioning development environment running a full live NewsNow stack (talking to a disposable live database clone) complete with high-end browser-based VS Code-compatible IDE. This makes forking, staging and code-review a breeze. From conception through roll out, branches and staged developments are continuously available as needed to developers, managers and testers for collaboration, feedback and review. (Learn more about our open-sourced Dockside on GitHub).
We run Debian Linux, Apache, MySQL with Python 3, Perl 5, and Node on the server-side, with TensorFlow/Keras for ML, and HTML5, CSS3 (SASS/SCSS) and modern JavaScript (OO ES6+ & Vue.js framework) on the client-side.
All our software is containerised and deployed using Docker Swarm services on our own co-located raw metal or in Google Cloud.
Open: we share and collaborate within and across departments
Rigorous: We like to be clear about what we're doing, and why. Experimentation and peer-review are in our DNA
One team, one vision: no office politics
An appreciative environment: expect to hear ‘thanks’ a lot
Room to grow: development of skills and responsibilities is encouraged and rewarded
Virtual: we are today a fully-remote company with occasional in-person get-togethers
Family-friendly and flexible: we understand sometimes personal needs come first
NewsNow is an exceptionally stable business that values long-term relationships with its employees. As an incentive to join NewsNow, we will look to offer candidates their current market rate or above.
Furthermore, we run a programme of annual (or even more frequent) appraisals and pay reviews, with the aim of ensuring our employees are motivated, fulfilled, and that their remuneration reflects and recognises their developing expertise (whether transferable skills, or knowledge of our particular stack), their value to NewsNow, and on the wider job market.
All our positions are fully remote - work from home 100% of the time. We offer flexible working for all team members (we’re a family-friendly company) with occasional in-person meetups. Furthermore, we provide:
UK-resident employees with an annual bonus, private health insurance, a competitive holiday allowance, home office equipment, and more - please ask.
Non-UK-resident employees or contractors with benefits according to their location and employee status - please ask.