Greetings, aspiring PHP developers!

It looks as though the credit crunch is finally starting to fade away (at least in our industry anyway), as evidenced by the surge of work that D4 has been getting in these last few weeks. As such, I’ve been tasked with finding a talented Junior PHP Developer to join our web development team. Paul says that ideally the new developer should be a “Mini-Me” (of me, not Paul), so I guess that means you need to be American, addicted to caffeine & nicotine and moan a lot about the weather being too cold (even in the summer).

If you don’t have any of those characteristics, then I suppose your technical skills will have to suffice - so here’s what we’re looking for:

ESSENTIALS

• PHP 5 / MySQL5 - Knowledge of the differences between PHP4 and PHP5 will get you bonus points, but we’re much more concerned about the magic number 5.
• OOP / Zend Framework / MVC - You need to have developed an application using Zend Framework - we’re not bothered whether that project was a personal or professional one, as long as it was a Zend Frameowrk (MVC) application
• IIS6 / Apache 2 - Our development environment is running Apache, but our production environment is running IIS6, so a solid understanding and knowledge of the differences between the two are essential.
• Windows Server 2003 / Linux (see above)
• XHTML / CSS2 - The position says “PHP”, but you’ll be getting your hands dirty with the these two guys as well.
• W3C Standards - All of our code must be W3C-compliant, without exception.
• JavaScript / jQuery - We’ve ditched YUI and standardised on jQuery as our JavaScript framework of choice, so your jQueryness should be pretty good. It doesn’t have to be exceptional, but you *will* be getting your hands dirty with it, so previous experience with it is crucial.
• Subversion - You should at least be comfortable with checking stuff out of and committing stuff back to the repository - everything else is bonus points.
• TRAC - This is our ticketing system of choice, so previous experience is essential. Experience with installing and configuring TRAC would be fantastic.
• Willingness to learn and contribute - sharing knowledge is a 2-way street after all.
• Ability to work in a team and independently - You’ll most likely be left to work on your own after the morning meeting, but you’ll also be involved in a bit of pair-programming from time to time.
• Passion for what you do
• Hard-working and efficient
• Willingness to overcome obstacles / problems - Nothing’s worse than someone who’s constantly complaining that Microsoft is rubbish and refuses to resolve a Microsoft-related issue simply because it’s Microsoft. If that sounds like you, this probably isn’t the agency for you. We’re all about providing solutions to problems, not moaning about them.
• Attention to detail - The development team at D4 strives to produce code that’s of the same high-quality that our creative team puts into their designs, and if you’re familiar with our clients and our work, you’ll know that’s not an easy task - but still, it’s imperative that D4 strives for perfection, and that includes perfect code.
• Ability to adhere to strict coding standards - This is uber-imperative. We have very strict coding standards here at D4, which you will be expected to adhere to. They’re based on Zend Framework’s coding standards with some slight variations, so if you’re comfortable with ZF’s standards, you should have no problem with ours.

DESIRABLES

• 2+ years plus of commercial PHP experience - The more the better!!!
• SEO - We apply best-practice SEO techniques to all of our websites as standard, so a solid understanding of basic SEO would be great.
• Creative thinker - We’re a design agency after all.
• Understanding and appreciation of good design
• ISAPI rewrite / Mod-rewrite - Regular expressions often need a second pair of eyes, so it would be great if we could use yours from time to time.
• XSLT/XML - We don’t get much exposure to these technologies, but knowledge of one or both would great.
• AJAX
• Agile/SCRUM methodologies - We’ve been practising SCRUM for over a year now (without even realizing it was SCRUM until a few weeks ago!), but we’re looking to formalise it in the near future, so anything you can bring to the table in this area will be greatly appreciated.
• Test driven development - We’re not actually doing this at the moment, but it’s something we’d like to get into.
• Mac OSX - As developers, we’re either on Linux or Windows (whichever you prefer), but our design team are all on Mac’s, so it would be nice to have another knowledgable Mac person on the team.

MAIN DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES

• You will be developing and maintaining client websites and web applications, using mostly PHP/MySQL, whilst adhering to strict coding standards.
• You will be assisting the Senior Web Developer (me!) with almost the entire project lifecycle (Analysis, Specification Building, Development, Documentation, Coding, Testing, Maintenance and Updating)

In exchange for everything you bring to the D4 table, here’s what D4 will do for you:

• Increase your understanding of enterprise-level coding practices
• Provide you with hands-on experience with a wide variety of the latest web technologies
• Provide you with hands-on experience with working for a full-service web design agency (design, development, web hosting, email hosting, marketing, PR, etc)
• Improve your programming skills and give you insight into the creative industry
• Allow you to work closely with a senior web developer
• Allow you to work closely with a team of creatives
• Increase your understanding of the following technologies: PHP 5, MySQL 5, IIS6, Apache 2, HTML, XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, XML, Object-orientated programming (OOP), Windows Server 2003, jQuery, Zend Framework, Mod-rewrite/ISAPI rewrite, SVN, SEO, and just about every other acronym you can imagine!

So… If that sounds appealing, drop us an email with your salary expectations and your CV.

Oh, and you must be able to get yourself to Sheffield for an interview and have the right to work in the UK.