WordPress Software Developer

About the position

The Software Development Intern contributes to ONC’s mission of providing nonpartisan news, opinions, and policy solutions by completing essential tasks in the Technology department at ONC. The Software Development Intern is responsible for building and maintaining our website. We are 80% done building our website, and need extra support to clean up a few page designs, fix some bugs, complete a few pages, and tighten up the main website. This intern will research and use Wordpress and PHP software. They will also implement new features according to incoming design and functional requirements. The Software Development Intern will work closely with the Director of Technology, the Software Development Team Lead, and various other team leads, but most work will be completed independently. Therefore, time management is an essential skill for this role. This is not a theoretical internship. The work done will be incorporated into our site quickly, giving the opportunity to add to a portfolio. This position is remote, with work primarily conducted over Zoom and Slack, so applicants must be comfortable coordinating in a remote environment and are expected to maintain a high level of communication. The Software Development Intern must commit to the Spring semester (ending April 30, 2025). However, many people choose to extend their internship past the amount of time they initially committed to, provided their performance meets the required standards.

Responsibilities

• Contribute to building and maintaining a website from scratch using frameworks.
• Connect and maintain a database to the website.
• Implement new features according to incoming design and functional requirements.
• Document the code base and general structure of the overall product.
• Ability to write clean, efficient, and maintainable code for backend functionality and to fix bugs.
• Write high quality applications that can achieve massive scale.
• Document user requirements, create design documents, develop self-documented code, conduct testing, and create user and system documents.
• Communicate effectively with the team leads, Director of Technology, and COO as needed.

Requirements

• Current student working towards a degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Information Technology, and/or related fields.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills (English) are required.
• Willing to learn general programming principles and skills as well as specific frameworks and methodologies on the job.
• Experience working with WordPress, including theme customization, plugin management, and general WordPress development.
• Solid knowledge of PHP, particularly in the context of WordPress development.
• Able to work collaboratively in a team-setting.
• Responsive, consistent, and effective communicator, even during conflict.
• Ability to work remotely and on their own schedule in order to make deadlines.
• Attention to detail is required.
• Google Workspace experience preferred.
• Submit a portfolio of previous work to demonstrate your skills.
• Ability to attend Organization-wide meetings every other week.
• Ability to attend weekly Tech Department meetings.
• Must be authorized to intern in the U.S.

Nice-to-haves

• WordPress
• PHP
• Javascript
• Python

Benefits

• Flexible schedule
• College credit
• Professional networking
• Resume-building experience