Software Engineer for Supporting Cast
This position is no longer open.
Slate is seeking a passionate, creative PHP developer with Laravel and Amazon Web Services experience to help build Supporting Cast’s podcasting membership platform. Podcasters and media companies are looking for pathways to financial growth, and your role in architecting and maintaining our platform can deepen their connection with their most engaged listeners and vastly increase their podcasting revenue. You’ll be our second developer and will be in a position to have a huge influence on our tech stack, our rapidly evolving product, and future hiring. Working here provides the dynamic excitement of a startup, and the stability and competitive compensation of an established employer.
About Supporting Cast
Supporting Cast is an internal startup within Slate, the multimedia digital publishing company. Supporting Cast builds on the success of Slate Plus, Slate’s nearly 50,000-strong podcasting-centric membership program. Supporting Cast’s services allow podcasters to charge their listeners for exclusive access to podcast content. See our launch announcement and some of the industry coverage we’ve received.
We are a small team: You would be the second full-time dev. We work adjacent to the Slate.com tech and product teams. We are very much part of Slate.com’s warm, inclusive, and unique business culture.
Supporting Cast provides the dynamic excitement of a startup and the stability and quality-of-life benefits of an established employer. Slate has a history of successful internal startups, having previously spun off Social Code and Megaphone as independent companies.
Opportunities
• Learn a lot about the fast-growing podcast industry and the fast-growing membership-service space.
• Scale an application vertically as we onboard clients with tens of thousands of members.
• Scale an application horizontally as we evaluate and implement new technologies and stacks beyond Laravel and PHP.
• Build and maintain an API for clients.
• Build and maintain implementations for other websites, including but not limited to WordPress plugins and JS/iframe embeds.
• Maintain and optimize advanced CDN (Fastly), e-commerce (Stripe), and devops (AWS) integrations.
• Play an important role in product, business, and hiring conversations.
Attributes of the Ideal Candidate
• 5–7 years’ professional experience
• Extensive experience with PHP and Laravel. Experience with WordPress is a plus.
• Fluency with a wide range of AWS services, with the ability to quickly research and adopt new ones
• Experience with CDN strategies. Knowledge of Varnish is a plus.
• Experience with payment platforms like Stripe (preferred) or Braintree
• Working knowledge of software design concepts like SOLID, design patterns, and cyclomatic complexity
• Working familiarity with job-scheduling tools like queues and crons
Our Current Tech Stack
• App: PHP/Laravel, Nginx, Varnish, Redis, Postgres, Docker
• Devops: AWS (EC2/EB/Pipeline/Parameter Store/etc), Fastly CDN
• Key business vendors: Stripe
• Key software vendors: Google Cloud Computing, AWS (SES/SNS/SMS)
• Repo: Github
• Project management: Agile-oriented. Zenhub, Trello, Google Docs, Slack
Candidates located in New York City; Washington, D.C.; or the Raleigh/Durham, North Carolina, area are preferred, but we will consider candidates from any location.
Slate is committed to excellence through diversity, which involves attracting talented people from diverse backgrounds and traditions. We encourage everyone to apply.
