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Deseret Book

Deseret Book is hiring: Mid-level software engineer - Deseret News in Salt Lake

Deseret Book, Salt Lake City, UT, United States, 84193


Our company is committed to being trusted voices of light and truth reaching hundreds of millions of people worldwide.

The Deseret News is currently seeking a Software Engineer to work on the Deseret News software development team. The company's websites and mobile apps continue the strong legacy of providing online news and information nationwide, and we will continue to elevate and illuminate our readers as we expand our journalism to meet them wherever they are.

This Software Engineer will be responsible for development, and maintenance of technology for parts of deseret.com and other related web sites and apps. The ideal candidate needs to have experience with high-traffic websites, excellent communication skills, and be willing and excited to learn new skills and technologies.

Our core language is Javascript, but we do have one remaining PHP/Symfony app that we continue to maintain. We prefer and build GraphQL APIs and use React for most of our interactive frontend. Most of our infrastructure is hosted with AWS. We used a combination of Docker hosted on Fargate and managed instances of AWS ECS. Our data is housed in a combination of MySQL and PgSQL databases. Big portions of our websites are powered by ArcXP, and we use Arc's React-based template system to develop components. If this sounds like a stack you would like to work with, then you may be a good candidate for the position!

At a minimum, you're a candidate if you can demonstrate:
  • 3-5 years of current experience with web software development technologies and tools including:
    • JavaScript, HTML, CSS, PHP, MySQL/PgSQL
  • Self motivated to learn new and emerging technologies
  • Must be a strong team and individual motivator with a positive attitude who enjoys working with others. Ability to work independently in addition to collaborative work on large projects with team members, including stakeholders, product owners, designers, and other developers
  • Goal-oriented person with high personal drive, integrity, and energy
  • Excellent written and verbal communication
An ideal candidate will have:
  • Experience working with Javascript frameworks, namely NextJS and Express
  • Experience working with front end technologies. (e.g. React)
  • An understanding of best practices and design principles as it pertains to architecting web applications.
  • Experience working with GraphQL and REST API's
  • Experience working with source control, specifically GIT
It's a bonus if you have:
  • Experience working with PHP and MVC frameworks, namely Symfony
  • Experience developing within a virtualized environment using docker
  • Experience working with asset management systems like npm and composer. Using transpilers for frontend assets like webpack, babel, and using SCSS for styles
  • Experience working with Agile/Scrum methodology and use of project/story tracking software (Clubhouse, JIRA, Trello or similar)
  • Experience optimizing and working with high traffic web sites using caching and scalability technologies
A day in the life:

A typical day as a junior software engineer with Deseret News will start out with a morning standup where the team will meet and discuss our progress made from the day before. We will work through any impediments that have come up and set a game plan for the day. From there you will continue to pull work from our current sprint and work to complete the stories that our product director and team has prioritized for this sprint. A portion of your time may be spent pairing with a senior developer. Taking turns being in the driver seat and being the observer to complete stories. If you get stuck on solving a problem, the rest of the team is there as a resource to help. At the end of a sprint you may be asked to help demo some of the work that you completed to our stakeholders within the company.

Our team

You will join an energetic group of colleagues who aspire to the best processes for development that fit our team. Our team members don't take themselves too seriously, but we are serious about working together as digital innovators.

Our culture
Culture is a very important part of the Deseret News Publishing Company. We look for people who exhibit and exemplify our Cultural Beliefs:
  • Think Audience - I understand and engage our audiences.
  • Build Trust - I share my best, respect my colleagues and expect others to do the same.
  • Be One - I collaborate to build a unified, world-class team.
  • Align Daily - I align my efforts daily with our Key Results.
  • Own It - I continually ask, "What else can I do to achieve our results?" and refuse to blame others.
  • Go Big - I inform and influence the world in a way no one else does.


Our company
The Deseret News is Utah's oldest newspaper and the Beehive state's longest continuously-operating business. Our primary focus is digital and our reach is national and global with over half of our online readers living outside of Utah.