Skip to main content
Technology

What is a Senior Developer at Modern Tribe?

Our Senior Developers have a tremendous impact on shaping our company and leading our challenging projects. We’re sharing the four traits that make our Senior Developers so valuable.

Have you heard? We’re looking for Senior Developers. The thing is, “Senior Developer” doesn’t mean the same thing to us, at Modern Tribe, as it does to everyone else. If we’re being transparent, we tend to seek strong performers even at the entry level. So what constitutes a Senior Developer here at Modern Tribe?

Really, it comes down to four big checkboxes.

1. A Technical Architect

Senior Developers at Modern Tribe have been around the block a time or two before. We have an intimate understanding of the framework and technologies being used on any given project.

Of course, at Modern Tribe we’re exceptionally familiar with WordPress. We’ve built some seriously complex implementations of themes and plugins. On top of all that, we are able to handle the entire software development lifecycle of our projects from end-to-end.

Yes, we’re good at what we do, but no one is perfect. We’ve experienced failures in the past and have been guilty of over-engineering solutions. Now, we’re obsessed with simplicity.

Modern Tribe works on large-scale enterprise systems, including multi-site networks used by millions of people around the world! Projects can involve intricate relationships, complicated migrations and imports, managing multiple databases and multiple caching systems. It’s our job to plan and implement solutions that allow these systems to be scaled reliably.

Sound overwhelming? It can be, but as a team we take time to understand why a problem exists, and how things are connected, before we dive in. When you’re aware of all of the tools and approaches available to any given problem, architecting sustainable solutions is the logical next step.

2. Self-Managed Leader

The projects we take on are large, complex, and fast-paced. There is always work to be done, so we’ve mastered the art of prioritization. We communicate with our team and project stakeholders early, and often. We understand and respect our team dynamics because the benefits of a happy, effective team are contagious. Through our leadership, we empower other teams at Modern Tribe to efficiently produce exceptional work.

To us, being a team means taking ownership of the team’s work, because each one of us is the gatekeeper of the long term technological vision and quality of the team’s projects. As the project goes on, it’s crucial to maintain a clear and deep understanding of how everything fits into the big picture.

Our team is experienced enough be proactive in the strategic planning of projects, and can easily break things down into manageable tasks/pieces. We work as one team. We know each other’s strengths and weaknesses and are happy delegate work for the best outcomes. That being said, we know when to be flexible, and when to push back.

We’ve learned to use the context of each project to balance the tricky trichotomy of quality vs. speed vs. good enough. We’re serious about knowledge sharing and documentation. We make sure the work we do is contributed back to the appropriate channels including internal tools, processes, products, and thought leadership.

3. Supportive Mentor

Something else that every Triberian has (regardless of discipline) is a tremendous respect for our teammates. We don’t have big egos, nor do we appreciate them. We’re not just willing to help others, we are passionate about mentoring, empowering and helping each other learn and grow.

Sure, as individuals we’re strong contributors to our projects, but what’s even more important is that we contribute to making the people around us better and more productive. Each and every one of us is responsible for driving and fostering our company’s culture. As developers, our impact spans across the whole team. We’re excited about the power we have to help the entire organization become better, and we always rise to the occasion.

4. Prolific Contributor

At Modern Tribe, our Senior Developers also work closely with our sales team. Sales will rely on us to help guide the estimates and scope of our proposals. We’re grateful for our role in securing the projects that allow Modern Tribe to grow, because it means our clients have an accurate depiction of the scope of our work, before we even get started.

We help to ensure that projects are planned and developed in a manner that allows usable features to be completed and released on budget and on schedule, thanks to what our Director of Engineering, Daniel Dvorkin, calls “ship-it-ness”. Where many developers are focused on perfection, our forte is delivering requirements that meet expectations in the shortest period of time.

We’re always looking for ways to improve our workflows and capabilities. Often times, this means building and sharing our own internal tools that have company-wide impact.

Living Well and Doing Good Work

Our motto at Modern Tribe is to live well and do good work. We’re extremely proud of, and fulfilled by our contributions to world-class projects. We get to collaborate with some pretty incredible people from all over the globe, each with wildly different backgrounds and experiences. Our Tribe is now over one hundred generous, humble, and super talented teammates.

In case you didn’t know, our team is 100% remote. Sometimes we work from home, but we also work from offices, hotel rooms, cafés, beaches, cottages, airbnbs or basically wherever we find good WiFi. A stellar work-life balance is incredibly important to all of us, and Modern Tribe has our backs.

We are happy, helpful, curious and accountable people, and our team is growing!

If you dig remote work and think becoming a Triberian would fit well in your journey, we would love to hear from you. You probably have some talented friends who might love working with us. Maybe a tweet, email, or slack message is in order?

Head over to our Careers page to learn more about working at Modern Tribe and check out our open positions.

Feeling inspired? Do you have that magic combination of skills and humility?

Join Us!