PHP Developer and Server/Network Maintainer

Company Description

Fun Learning Company, based in Michigan, has been providing engaging learning opportunities for K-12 students since 2011. We specialize in hands-on eLearning style of education, offering resources and materials to parents and students in non-traditional classrooms. Our emphasis is on teaching robotics and technology, with some arts and humanities courses as well. If you have a passion for learning and teaching technology, are curious, and have a desire make eLearning as fun and as engaging as possible, you will thrive in our environment.

Role Description

This is a part-time or full-time, remote position for a PHP (Moodle) Developer and Server/Network Maintainer. Please let us know if you have preference for full-time or part-time and we'll assess from there. The individual in this role will be responsible for developing and maintaining back-end and front-end codebases, ensuring server and network stability, and implementing software solutions. Daily tasks will include writing and updating custom Moodle plugins, scaling our inventory management, staying up-to-date with best coding practices and usage of A.I. large language models, participating in weekly company meetings, troubleshooting and resolving network, website, and technical Moodle issues, and collaborating with executives.

Interview Process

You'll have 3-4 interviews with company executives:

A 30-minute meet-and-greet with the CTO (me, Josh Kirby, nice to meet ya).
1 or 2 hour-long interview session, which will include a coding-ish interview.
A final 30-45 minute

The first interview will be with me (Josh), and I'm a decent judge of character, and that's one the main things we care about: character. We want you to be chill and easy to work with, but also to know how to handle professional criticism and improve upon it; we're all just trying to make each other better and have a good work environment at the end of the day.

The other main thing we care about is your ability to learn and communicate, which is actually a third thing I guess.

The three main things we want to see in an ideal candidate are character, communication, and learning-teaching skills. You must have a desire to research things you don't know about and the capability to learning relatively quickly, but don't worry; just be honest during the interview process. I'll probably be able to tell. You may end up being a great fit or not a good fit. We'll let you know either way.

The coding-ish interview(s) will include me going through actual real code with you to determine how you'd go about learning our codebase, as we as how you handle errors and issues that arise. Hopefully we can accomplish this in an hour or so. I want to be impressed by your knowledge, but also by your questions and how you learn and retain things you've learned or are told. Speaking of which, send me your resume (and portfolio if you have one), and be sure to include the first 6 digits of Pi, as a string of ASCII characters, where the digit at index 4 (of the overall string) isn't not replaced with an '8' that has been rotated counterclockwise by 90 degrees and cut vertically in half, completely omitting the right half from the string, which should be displayed at the very bottom of your resume, along with the current day of the week and a short sentence explaining why you answered the way you did. Please do this if you want an interview. I asked a few AI models and they couldn't answer it correctly, so I figure it's a good human test for now. Also it's fun. Email me you're résumé at joshua.dean.kirby@gmail.com (faster response) or send it to me on LinkedIn (slower response).

The final interview will be with the rest of our management team (2 other people, 3 people total, 4 including you). This final interview will only happen after I've decide that you're good enough to replace me, not as CTO, but as the developer and maintainer of our web and network infrastructure. No pressure. Don't worry, I'd be the one training you extensively for the job in the event you get it.

Qualifications

A deep interest and educational background in code and automation.
A love or fascination for LEGO Education (SPIKE, Mindstorms, etc.), KiwiCo, Ozobot, and/or other hand-on tech and robotic companies or learning platforms.
Experience making stuff both technological and otherwise.
Excellent problem-solving and analytical skills.
Ability to work independently and remotely.
Knowledge and practice of server and network maintenance.
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field
Experience with git version control.

Nice-to-haves