Technology Associate: Wordpress Theme Developer

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Associates are expected to put in a minimum of 5 hours per week and be responsive to emails within 3 calendar days.

SUMMARY:

Join our Technology team to help improve and maintain the Save the Water(tm) website. This role focuses on custom WordPress theme development using PHP-based templates and dynamic content. You will work with UX/UI designers and other developers to resolve existing layout issues and implement scalable, high-performance code.

We are currently addressing a technical challenge in a custom WordPress template ("Water News"), which blends hardcoded PHP with dynamic post queries. A temporary CSS workaround was applied to hide unwanted content. Now, we seek a highly experienced WordPress developer to help us permanently restructure and clean up the layout using PHP best practices.

This candidate must have demonstrated experience with custom PHP templates.

PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Collaborate with the UX/UI, Development, and Webmaster teams
• Report to the Project Leader for assigned initiatives
• Attend monthly Technology team meetings
• Submit weekly timesheets
• Analyze and refactor existing custom WordPress templates
• Implement clean, responsive, and accessible PHP-based layouts
• Ensure performance, maintainability, and cross-browser compatibility
• Make informed decisions about when to use Elementor vs native theme templates

KEY QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE:

Required:

• Minimum 1 year of hands-on experience with WordPress theme development using PHP (including internships or freelance projects)
• Proven experience customizing get_template_part(), the_content(), and archive/CPT displays
• Ability to modify or create page templates and structure dynamic content using PHP
• Comfortable debugging hardcoded PHP in custom templates and applying permanent fixes
• Familiarity with Elementor and when to extend beyond it using PHP
• Experience with WordPress best practices (child themes, functions.php, template hierarchy)
• Proficient with HTML, CSS (including conditional display), and responsive design
• Solid understanding of WordPress security, updates, and backups
• Comfortable working in cPanel, MySQL, and phpMyAdmin
• Understanding of .htaccess, robots.txt, 301 redirects, and SEO basics
• Familiar with optimizing performance (image compression, CDNs, caching)
• Able to implement and configure Google Analytics and Search Console
• Experience with staging environments, version control, and debugging
• Comfortable with technical ticket systems and collaborative tools

Preferred:

• Prior experience contributing to nonprofit or mission-driven web projects
• A public portfolio or GitHub demonstrating similar PHP template work
• Strong problem-solving mindset and willingness to propose improvements

How to apply:

If interested, please submit your resume to newvolunteers@savethewater.org. We would love to hear from you!