Senior WordPress & PHP Engineer – Hybrid, Enterprise CMS

News Corp UK & Ireland Limited; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 110,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Private medical insurance

25 days holiday

Pension scheme

LinkedIn Learning access

Job summary

The Sun, part of News UK, is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to drive the development of its WordPress-based content platform. You will enhance the editorial experience, build robust integrations, and ensure high performance for millions of readers.

You will develop WordPress themes/plugins, streamline newsroom workflows with Slack, implement SSO with Okta, and optimise caching and feeds while maintaining top-notch code quality.

Qualifications

• Expert proficiency in PHP and WordPress core/internals to build scalable enterprise solutions.
• Deep experience with Composer for dependency management, PHPUnit for testing, and Gutenberg block development.
• Proven track record of integrating third-party APIs (Slack, Okta, REST APIs).
• Knowledge of caching mechanisms (Varnish, CDN) and authentication protocols (SAML, SSO).
• Ability to work in a hybrid office environment with a focus on high-performance CMS platforms.

Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain complex WordPress themes and plugins for high-traffic sites, including The Sun.
• Build tools to streamline newsroom operations and integrations (Slack for publishing workflows, author attribution).
• Implement and manage secure authentication systems including SSO using Okta and SAML across editions.
• Optimise application performance with advanced caching strategies and custom MU-plugins for Cache-Control headers.
• Engineer and migrate syndication feeds (RSS for Google Newsstand, Tabloid integration).
• Maintain code quality with PHPUnit testing and dependency management via Composer.

Skills

PHP

WordPress core

Composer

PHPUnit

Gutenberg

REST APIs

Slack integration

Okta SSO

Caching strategies

SAML

Tools

Slack

Okta

SAML

Varnish

CDN

Job description

The Sun, part of News UK, is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to drive the development of its WordPress-based content platform. You will enhance the editorial experience, build robust integrations, and ensure high performance for millions of readers.

You will develop WordPress themes/plugins, streamline newsroom workflows with Slack, implement SSO with Okta, and optimise caching and feeds while maintaining top-notch code quality.