Team Lead - Web Development (PHP)

Are you excited to work for a tech company on the front lines of innovation for some of the biggest brands in the world? Do you thrive in environments where challenging the status quo is the daily norm? If you’re an A-player with energy, initiative, and focus on delivering top results, or as we refer to our colleagues at Clickatell – a Champion – then read on.

At Clickatell, we’re upending the way companies connect, engage, and transact with their customers in chat. Chat is something you do every day with your friends, but it’s also a simple technology that we’ve helped our customers to use to accomplish pretty amazing things. Clickatell helps businesses power customer support, customer engagement, and payments all through chat apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.

Our customers are some of the most admired and recognizable companies in the world and our communications technology is used to reach more than 15,000 global brands every year. Our jobs offer you a chance to grow your career and work with global teams on technology that is quite simply changing the world.

We could tell you about our great coffee, cool digs, super flexible work-life integration, and amazing benefits, but these won’t convince you to come work with us. If you want to test yourself, work on meaningful projects in a fast-paced environment, and be where every day presents new possibilities, come join one of the greatest global tech companies. We want you!

This year marks our 20th anniversary – an achievement that’s about great vision and execution, but much more. We’ve grown by combining curious minds and quick smiles with a collaborative company culture where we never quit or settle, and always strive to create solutions that will change the world. It’s a big proposition, but it’s a mission our team takes on every day in an environment that provides you with the freedom to create and innovate, while having fun at the same time. We’re a fanatically friendly group that listens and puts each other first to accomplish great things together for our customers, our communities, and Clickatell.

Purpose:

Are you interested in building products used by millions of people? Do you wish you could launch code daily? Are you looking to work on an enterprise-grade transaction platform hosted in cloud environments?

You will be joining an agile team of developers who are passionate about the products they build. We enable our clients to transact and engage with their customers seamlessly (on a global scale via channels like WhatsApp, Google RCS, etc). Clickatell is looking for a talented and ambitious team leads that are passionate about leading teams that build high performing applications (low latency, high transaction volumes) across multiple platforms.

We have a great company culture where we deeply value collaboration. Our environment allows you freedom to lead and innovate while having fun at the same time. We believe that everyone has a say in the way we build products and solutions, regardless of their skills or experience.

This is an opportunity to join an energetic, fast paced, dynamic, Sequoia* backed company, offering ample growth opportunities and exciting challenges.

Career & personal growth opportunities within Clickatell are unusually high, fuelled by a team of Champions who drive growth. At Clickatell we invest in career development of our people and work closely with you on making your career goals a reality.

*Sequoia played a role in the funding of YouTube, Apple, Google and other exciting companies.

The role of our Champion:

• Work with an awesome geographically distributed team of engineers, designers, and product managers to implement the next generation of products and/or features
• Work independently and collaborate on projects developing applications from scratch, as well as maintaining and improving existing applications
• Lead teams to:Build applications that can scale (thousands of users and accounts)Develop software iteratively and deliver working code each iteration, including authoring relevant documentation and test cases
• Build applications that can scale (thousands of users and accounts)
• Develop software iteratively and deliver working code each iteration, including authoring relevant documentation and test cases

• Be responsible for:Supporting your technical manager in delivering successCollaborating with key internal stakeholders including Products, Design, Marketing, Support and SalesLeading the team to achieving success and attaining the goals set out by managementAssisting the team in coming up with solutions and strategies on order to attain goals as set out by managementMentoring team members to achieve their goals as set out by managementMonitoring team members' participation and collect feedback from the team to provide guidanceIdentifying and escalating matters to management where neededDriving and leading optimal implementation, debugging and testing of new product features, or enhancements on existing featuresAssisting customers, internal stakeholders, and vendors with implementing and troubleshooting end-to-end solutionsImplementing a test-driven development using unit tests, functional tests, and integration tests in an agile environmentHave regular one-on-one sessions with team members and assist with the creation and tracking of personal development plansFacilitate and lead backlog grooming sessions, sprint planning and sprint reviewsSustaining implemented features once delivered into production, including maintenance and support
• Supporting your technical manager in delivering success
• Collaborating with key internal stakeholders including Products, Design, Marketing, Support and Sales
• Leading the team to achieving success and attaining the goals set out by management
• Assisting the team in coming up with solutions and strategies on order to attain goals as set out by management
• Mentoring team members to achieve their goals as set out by management
• Monitoring team members' participation and collect feedback from the team to provide guidance
• Identifying and escalating matters to management where needed
• Driving and leading optimal implementation, debugging and testing of new product features, or enhancements on existing features
• Assisting customers, internal stakeholders, and vendors with implementing and troubleshooting end-to-end solutions
• Implementing a test-driven development using unit tests, functional tests, and integration tests in an agile environment
• Have regular one-on-one sessions with team members and assist with the creation and tracking of personal development plans
• Facilitate and lead backlog grooming sessions, sprint planning and sprint reviews
• Sustaining implemented features once delivered into production, including maintenance and support
• The candidate in this role will play a vital Web Applications Development role where he/she will take the designs created and converting them to functional deliverables
• Develop interactive components using JavaScript; integrate with internal tools, frameworks, and services as well as external APIs, collaborate with backend developers
• Create wireframes from user flow diagrams to illustrate high-level solutions to an application and feature requests
  
• Translate UI designs into well-organized and structured HTML/CSS compatible with modern browsers, and use open source tools & frameworks to improve the structure and maintainability of the front-end code where possible
  
• Partake in discussion of architecture, design recommendations and implementations
  

Requirements

The capabilities of our Champion:

• Strong leadership skills; Being able to lead a team by example as the senior member and act as the bridge between the team and management
• Intricate knowledge and experience with responsive design and its implementation nuances will be essential in this role
• Having worked in and has a deep level of understanding in the following (expected to be hands-on at times)PHP and PHP frameworksJavaScript frameworks: Angular.JS, Angular 2+, Node.js advantageousJavaScript component librariesDatabases SQL language and scripting (PostgreSQL, MySQL)Unit Testing, Integration Testing, and Continuous DeliveryProven Strong troubleshooting and analytical skillsContainerization (Docker / other), Kubernetes or other container orchestration frameworks advantageousAWS (Amazon Web Services) or other cloud-based infrastructures advantageousGit or other Source Control Management toolsJenkins
• PHP and PHP frameworks
• JavaScript frameworks: Angular.JS, Angular 2+, Node.js advantageous
• JavaScript component libraries
• Databases SQL language and scripting (PostgreSQL, MySQL)
• Unit Testing, Integration Testing, and Continuous Delivery
• Proven Strong troubleshooting and analytical skills
• Containerization (Docker / other), Kubernetes or other container orchestration frameworks advantageous
• AWS (Amazon Web Services) or other cloud-based infrastructures advantageous
• Git or other Source Control Management tools
• Jenkins
• Knowledge of SCSS, Graphic Design and RxJS is advantageous
• Verbal Communication: good interpersonal skills, verbal communication skills and able to communicate clearly
• Written Communication: ability to write clear and concise documents, etc.
• Customer Focus: identify and effectively respond to the diverse needs of development department’s customers
• Team Working: able to work reliably and responsibly with internal and external colleagues to achieve development and organisational goals as a member of a team
• Individual Working: able to work alone and to achieve development and organisational goals reliably and responsibly

Our Champion's journey thus far:

• BSc/BA or higher in Computer Science, Interactive Design and/or equivalent experience is required
• 5+ Years of Front-end design/development for the web
• 5+ Years JavaScript framework development experience
• PHP development experience
• Has successfully led a small team of software developers
• Demonstrating focus on quality (unit testing, system testing, user acceptance testing)
• Proven experience inHigh transactional high availability low latency environments will be advantageousApplications serving a large user baseBuilding multi-platform web sites using Responsive Web Design/ RWD (media queries, progressive enhancement, feature detection)Integration with internal and 3rd party service providers (RESTful APIs, SMPP)Scrum / Agile methodologyDocumentation of relevant design artefacts (use cases, user stories, sequence diagrams etc)
• High transactional high availability low latency environments will be advantageous
• Applications serving a large user base
• Building multi-platform web sites using Responsive Web Design/ RWD (media queries, progressive enhancement, feature detection)
• Integration with internal and 3rd party service providers (RESTful APIs, SMPP)
• Scrum / Agile methodology
• Documentation of relevant design artefacts (use cases, user stories, sequence diagrams etc)

Benefits

Why you will love being here:

• Competitive salary paid monthly
• Medical aid contributions
• Quarterly performance incentives
• Pension fund contribution
• Group life cover
• Communication allowances
• Undercover parking
• Half day off on your birthday
• 5 “personal” days leave a year, over and above your normal annual leave
• Staff events, daily popcorn, snacks, cool offices. All the things that make Clickatell a fantastic place to work