Web Developer

Worky; Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 85,000 - 100,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Life insurance

Disability benefits

401(k) matching

Paid time off

Parental leave

Employee assistance

Professional development

Job summary

American Immigration Council is seeking a Web Developer to own and grow our WordPress stack. You’ll build themes, blocks, and templates, extend plugins, and work with editors to ship accessible, high-quality pages across multiple sites.

You’ll collaborate with an external hosting agency and a payments consultant, promoting security and performance while delivering reliable updates and a strong technical voice in a small team.

Qualifications

• 4–6 years of professional experience building and maintaining WordPress sites
• Strong PHP skills and demonstrated experience with custom theme development
• Proficiency in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript; comfort with modern CSS layout and vanilla JS
• Experience with Git-based workflows and deploying to staging and production environments
• Working knowledge of the WordPress plugin ecosystem, including how to evaluate and safely update third-party plugins
• Experience with Advanced Custom Fields or comparable content modeling tools
• Ability to explain technical tradeoffs to non-technical colleagues and to scope work realistically

Responsibilities

• Theme and Front-End Development: build WordPress themes, templates, and components
• Develop Gutenberg blocks and ACF configurations for editors
• Write accessible, responsive HTML, CSS, and JavaScript meeting WCAG 2.1 AA
• Translate designs into pages and troubleshoot layout across browsers/devices
• Extend WordPress with custom plugins, CPTs, taxonomies, REST endpoints and integrations
• Maintain and debug existing custom code; optimize PHP for security and performance
• Own WordPress core, theme, and plugin update cycles; monitor performance and security
• Coordinate with external hosting agency and payment-system consultant
• Support page builds, campaigns, analytics, and editor guidance

Skills

WordPress

PHP

HTML/CSS/JS

Git workflows

ACF & Gutenberg

WCAG 2.1 AA

Communication

Tools

ACF

Timber/Twig

DDEV/Local/Docker

GitHub Actions

Job description

About the American Immigration Council

The American Immigration Council works to create a more welcoming and fair immigration system. Through litigation, research, and programs that expand access to legal assistance, the Council helps ensure immigrants are embraced, communities are enriched, and justice prevails for all.

The Opportunity

We're looking for a Web Developer to serve as the in-house technical owner of our WordPress properties. This is a hands-on build-and-maintain role: you'll develop new page templates and blocks, extend and troubleshoot our custom theme and plugins, keep our sites patched and healthy, and partner with our external development agency on hosting and larger projects.

You'll work closely with colleagues across Marketing & Communications, Research, Legal, and Programs who bring you the content and campaigns that need to ship. You'll also coordinate with two external partners: a development agency that handles hosting and maintenance, and a consultant who maintains our custom payment system for J-1 visa sponsorship services.

The ideal candidate is comfortable owning a codebase, communicating clearly with non-technical stakeholders, and learning quickly in a small team where you'll be the primary technical voice in the room. This role is a strong fit for a developer with roughly 4-6 years of experience who wants meaningful ownership and room to grow.

What You'll Do

Theme and Front-End Development (~40%)

• Build and maintain custom WordPress themes, page templates, and reusable components
• Develop Gutenberg blocks and Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) configurations that give content editors flexible, well-guarded building blocks
• Write clean, accessible, responsive HTML, CSS, and JavaScript that meets WCAG 2.1 AA standards
• Translate designs and content requirements into working pages, and troubleshoot layout and rendering issues across browsers and devices

Plugin Development and Back-End Work (~25%)

• Extend WordPress through custom plugins and functionality: custom post types, taxonomies, admin interfaces, REST endpoints, and third-party API integrations
• Maintain and debug existing custom code
• Write and optimize PHP with attention to security, performance, and maintainability

Site Maintenance and Platform Health (~20%)

• Own the WordPress core, theme, and plugin update cycle for multiple WordPress sites: test in staging, resolve conflicts, and deploy safely
• Monitor site performance, uptime, and errors; diagnose and resolve issues as they arise
• Apply security best practices and respond to vulnerability disclosures promptly
• Manage local, staging, and production environments and use version control and CI/CD workflows for all deployments
• Serve as the day-to-day technical point of contact for our external development and hosting partner, and coordinate with our payment systems consultant on anything that touches the J-1 sponsorship workflow

Collaboration and Support (~15%)

• Support colleagues with page builds, campaign launches, forms, and troubleshooting requests
• Implement and QA analytics and tag management changes in partnership with the team
• Write and maintain documentation for the codebase, environments, and recurring processes
• Provide light technical guidance to web editors on publishing workflows and site conventions

Requirements

• 4-6 years of professional experience building and maintaining WordPress sites
• Strong PHP skills and demonstrated experience with custom theme development (not just page builders or off-the-shelf themes)
• Proficiency in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript; comfort with modern CSS layout and vanilla JS
• Experience with Git-based workflows and deploying to staging and production environments
• Working knowledge of the WordPress plugin ecosystem, including how to evaluate and safely update third-party plugins
• Experience with Advanced Custom Fields or comparable content modeling tools
• Ability to explain technical tradeoffs to non-technical colleagues and to scope work realistically
• Comfort working independently and prioritizing across competing requests

Nice to Have

• Familiarity with managed WordPress hosting (Pantheon, WP Engine) and CI/CD via GitHub Actions
• Experience with local development environments (DDEV, Local, Docker)
• Experience with a templating layer such as Timber/Twig
• Experience with Gutenberg block development, including custom blocks and block patterns
• Nonprofit, advocacy, or mission-driven organization experience

You won't need to arrive as an expert in every layer of our stack — this role works closely with our external development/hosting agency and payment systems consultant, and over time you'll build fluency in working knowledge of Elasticsearch or ElasticPress, CRM or advocacy platforms (EveryAction, Quorum, or similar), multilingual sites (Polylang, WPML), GA4 and tag management, and our Stripe payment integration as you grow into a larger role supporting the J-1 payment system.

Don't check every box? We'd still like to hear from you if you're strong on the required qualifications above — the rest we're happy to help you grow into.

Work Environment

This is a fully remote position. Employees are expected to maintain a home workspace conducive to focused, professional work and have reliable internet access. This is an exempt position; occasional evening or weekend availability may be required to respond to time-sensitive site issues. Responsibilities include extended periods of sitting at a workstation and frequent use of a PC or laptop for prolonged hours. Reasonable accommodations will be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of this role.

Why Join Us

Own the technical backbone of an organization doing meaningful work in the immigration space, with real autonomy and a clear path to grow your scope.

Compensation and Benefits

Salary Range: $85,000–$100,000, commensurate with experience

The salary range provided reflects a reasonable estimate of the annual salary based on AIC's commitment to equitable and market-competitive pay. The actual salary offered will depend on several factors, including relevant education, qualifications, years of experience, certifications or professional licenses, job-related skills, internal equity, and business needs.

Our compensation structure is based on industry-specific market data for similar-sized nonprofit organizations. Typically, individuals are hired at or near the starting point of the salary range for their role. Compensation decisions are made on a case-by-case basis, considering the unique facts and circumstances of each applicant.

Full-time and part-time employees working at least 20 hours per week on a regular basis are eligible for AIC's comprehensive benefits program:

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance
• Employer-paid life insurance and disability benefits
• 401(k) retirement savings plan with matching contributions after 3 months of employment
• Generous paid time off
• Paid parental leave
• Employee assistance program
• Professional development opportunities

Eligibility to Work

In compliance with the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, we are required to hire only individuals who are authorized to work in the United States. Applicants selected for employment will need to provide documentation verifying their eligibility to work in the U.S. without the need for employer sponsorship. AIC participates in E-Verify to confirm work authorization. For more information on E-Verify, please visit dhs.gov/E-Verify.

Equal Employment Opportunity

The American Immigration Council ("the Council") is an equal-opportunity employer. We are committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace where all individuals are treated with respect and dignity. We prohibit discrimination and harassment of any kind based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law. We are committed to providing equal employment opportunities to all qualified applicants and employees, and we encourage individuals from all backgrounds to apply.