Role: Senior Software Engineer (Senior Full-Stack Developer)

Location: Remote
Start date: 2023
Salary: HK$35K - 45K per month

Who we are

We are GigaScience Press. Based in Hong Kong, but our teams are working remotely from all over the world.
We publish open-science journals, like the prestigious GigaScience Journal and the newer GigaByte, in the fields of Biology and Bioinformatics. Since we care about the reproducibility of scientific research, we have developed GigaDB, a system for storing research data reported in our published papers, which is freely- available for all to access and reproduce.
GigaDB has historically been our core application and is managed as an open-source project.

Your role in the team

• You will be joining a small team of software developers of diverse background and experience level.
• You will be configuring and coding functionalities on both legacy codebase and new codebase for the IT systems used by other teams in our organisation, and for those built for the scientist readers of our online journals.
• You will be helping the more junior team members to level up their skills in delivering quality software effectively and efficiently.
• You will be helping the technical lead with developing and maintaining a sound software architecture, and steadily improving CI/CD processes.
• You will be helping the business with understanding and formulating their needs and the iterative path to implementation.
• You will be contributing to the technical team’s effort in delivering and operating software for the rest of the organisation

Our technical stack

• Backend: PHP 7/8, Yii framework, Codeception, PostgreSQL
• Frontend: Bootstrap, Vue.js, Jasmine, WebDriver
• Other: GitLab, Terraform, Ansible, Linux, Docker

Your responsibilities

• Deliver quality software for our backend systems according to high coding standards
• Maintain and steadily grow the coverage of multi-layered test harnesses
• Propose and implement technical solutions according to our organisation’s systems architecture
• Write code for functionalities and bug fixes that follow good practices and proven design patterns
• Ensure production systems are functioning optimally
• Work autonomously and collaborate with other developers
• Continuously seek to automate for efficiency and error avoidance
• Contribute to the maintenance and improvement of coding standards and their effectiveness
• Contribute to the setup, operation, migration and retirement of (multi) cloud-based applications and their data
• Cultivate an open-source mindset by contributing to upstream open-source dependencies when it make sense, and by ensuring our own open-source projects stay so in both spirit and to the letter
• Participate in code reviews
• Be available at the intersection of Europe timezone and Chinese timezone as that is when video meetings are scheduled for

Our methods

We use SCRUM principles that we have adapted to our circumstances as the process that drives our development cycles.
Both the product owners that represent the rest of the organisation and all members of the technical team participate in this process.
GitHub is the central piece for managing product specifications and development artefacts, while GitLab is the backbone of our CI/CD process.
GitHub’s Pull Requests are our main mechanism for code contribution and code reviews. The latter are also performed using other ad-hoc approaches when needed.

Your qualifications

• 3+ years of relevant work experience
• Expertise in programming with modern PHP, Web frameworks (e.g: Yii, Laravel, Symfony), Object Oriented Design, Web Technologies, Cloud Integration, Automated Testing, Database Design
• Good knowledge of modern javascript on the frontend
• Experience with Agile or Scrum software development methodologies
• Experience with working on open source projects
• Ability to integrate, reason with and share useful notions of system architecture, software design, programming patterns, and engineering practices in your work and your communication
• Ability to multitask, organise, prioritise work, assisting others and reflecting

What you will find working for us

• An organisation made of culturally and language diverse group of enthusiastic and knowledgeable academics and developers
• Leadership that deeply cares for personal development
• A team that value curiosity, transparency, pragmatism, consistency, and helping each other
• A team that understand and aim to practise software quality through: BDD and TDD, appropriate use of design patterns, improving through deliberate practice, favouring of long proven technology and stability
• An organisation that while mostly remote, still collectively loves to reconnect in person and with peers of the industries (Life Sciences, BioInformatics and Software Engineering) at conferences/special events whenever possible

How to apply:

By email:

Specify which role you are applying in the subject field

Send resume and a cover letter to tech AT gigasciencejournal.com

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