What are the responsibilities and job description for the Tech Lead - Remote position at Cummings Creative, Inc.?
Barrel is currently looking for an experienced Tech Lead to join our team. As a remote-first company, you may work from anywhere in the U.S. The Tech Lead is responsible for technical project success and works closely with project team members to ensure that our technical solutions are delivered on time and under budget. While writing code and understanding of the software development lifecycle is a prerequisite for the role, a large part of your time will be spent architecting an approach, working with the team to plan sprints, writing tickets for engineers to execute, reviewing and testing their code, interfacing with QA team, and managing deployments. You’re a proactive problem solver, can leverage tools like AI to be more efficient, and have a strong sense of leadership amongst the team and clients.
Key Responsibilities:
- Research and evaluate software technology options and weigh the cost/benefit analysis when relying on third-party platforms, apps, plugins, services, etc.
- Assist with identifying level of effort to provide initial estimates and inform scoping efforts.
- Brainstorm and communicate technical solutions directly with clients in a courteous and professional manner.
- Ensure that correct technology processes are being employed and followed on projects.
- Contribute to best practices, workflows, and standards and company knowledge sharing.
- Present simple solutions and alternatives for complex and expensive problems.
- Lead and oversee developers while assisting with their execution on current projects with new tasks.
- Hands-on code review and technical collaboration to support developers resourced on customer projects to remove blockers in the architecture or development process.
- Provide a strong point of view on technical approach for projects, including research and proof-of-concept prototyping
- Estimate and plan with leadership teams on tech strategy or red flags in pre-sales conversations
- Manage the delivery by staying on top of all project technical requirements, scope, specs, documentation, and assumptions and communicating gaps in expectations/agreements.
- Be an articulate voice during client discussions, building confidence and trust
- Work through bugs/QA issues/project roadblocks, and adapt to changes as they happen
- Communicate personnel needs, challenges, or issues to the Director of Software Engineering or CTO
- Run scrums or scrum-like process with PMs to effectively manage engineers against a project and its timeline and deliverables
Skills:
- Hands-on experience both in frontend development (HTML, CSS, JS, LIQUID) and backend development (LAMP, MERN, JAM)
- Proficiency in project management tools such as Google Suite, Slack, Basecamp, JIRA, Harvest and Forecast
- Ability to simplify complex technical concepts to non-technical audiences
- Be an articulate voice during internal and external presentations
- Excellent verbal, written, presentation and interpersonal communication, organizational, leadership and time-management skills
- Working knowledge of the Shopify ecosystem, including platform features, apps, and integrations, with the ability to translate this knowledge into actionable strategies for clients
- Analytical mindset with the intellectual curiosity to seek context
- Self-motivated and detail-oriented
- Level-headed and positive under pressure
- Ability to thrive in a fast-paced environment with multiple clients and projects, balancing competing priorities effectively
Experience:
- 4 years of education; e.g. Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Engineering, Computer Science or similar relevant field; relevant work experience including freelance and/or entrepreneurship considered
- 5 years of software engineering for the web
- 3 years of experience with Shopify and migrating to Shopify from other platforms
- 2 years of technology experience within a design and/or digital agency