05DE: Senior Fullstack Drupal Developer

Senior Fullstack Drupal Developer

Headless Drupal | Backend Focus | React | Conversational English

About the Opportunity

We are seeking a Senior Fullstack Drupal Developer to work on the development and evolution of digital solutions built on a Headless Drupal architecture. In this model, Drupal will be used primarily as a content management platform, business logic, data persistence, and service delivery via APIs, while the digital experience will be implemented in a decoupled frontend application, preferably using React.

Although technical evaluation has greater depth in the backend layer, the professional must possess effective fullstack execution capacity, understanding and implementing complete integration between Drupal, APIs, and frontend applications.

The ideal professional should combine technical depth, architectural vision, autonomy, curiosity, investigative capacity, and conversational English for working in an international environment.

Architectural Context

The solution uses a Headless Drupal approach, in which:

• Drupal acts as the CMS, data layer, content management, and solution backend;
• Business rules are implemented in custom modules and services;
• Content and features are made available through APIs;
• User experience is developed in a decoupled frontend application;
• React is the primary technology reference for the frontend layer;
• Backend and frontend have independent development and deployment cycles;
• Integration between layers must be secure, performant, observable, and scalable.

The professional must understand the impacts of this architecture on authentication, authorization, caching, security, content modeling, API versioning, performance, and user experience.

Key Responsibilities

General Responsibilities

• Develop, evolve, and sustain digital solutions based on Headless Drupal;
• Act end-to-end in the implementation of features between backend and frontend;
• Participate in technical refinements, architecture definitions, and estimation;
• Transform functional requirements into scalable and sustainable technical solutions;
• Ensure code quality, security, performance, and maintainability;
• Investigate failures and perform root-cause analysis;
• Document APIs, components, configurations, and technical decisions;
• Participate in technical meetings in Portuguese and English;
• Work collaboratively with architecture, product, quality, infrastructure, and engineering teams.

Backend Expectations

Backend performance will focus on utilizing Drupal as a decoupled platform and service provider.

Drupal Development

• Develop custom modules following Drupal best practices;
• Implement custom entities, avoiding the inappropriate use of Nodes;
• Create fields, relationships, data structures, and validation rules;
• Develop services utilizing Drupal's dependency injection system;
• Correctly use Events, Subscribers, Plugins, Services, and Hooks;
• Implement administrative forms and interfaces for solution management;
• Configure permissions, roles, and access controls;
• Develop administrative routines, commands, and automated processes;
• Apply Object-Oriented Programming standards in PHP.

API Development

• Design and implement custom REST APIs;
• Manually develop core endpoint logic, without exclusive dependency on JSON:API;
• Create endpoints for data querying, creation, updating, and processing;
• Implement payload validation and consistent error handling;
• Define clear and documented API contracts;
• Apply API versioning;
• Implement pagination, filters, sorting, and search criteria;
• Ensure backward compatibility when necessary;
• Create Postman collections for documentation and testing;
• Document endpoints using OpenAPI or Swagger when applicable.

Security

• Implement authentication and authorization between frontend and backend;
• Work with standards such as OAuth 2.0, JWT, or equivalent mechanisms;
• Implement access control by user, role, and operation;
• Ensure protection against unauthorized access and data manipulation;
• Apply input validation and sanitization;
• Protect the application against common vulnerabilities;
• Properly configure CORS, security headers, and origin policies;
• Ensure sensitive data is not inappropriately exposed by APIs;
• Apply security recommendations from the Drupal ecosystem.

Performance and Scalability

• Design solutions prepared for high request volumes;
• Ensure data integrity in concurrent operations;
• Avoid duplicate records and race conditions;
• Use database transactions when necessary;
• Optimize queries and database access;
• Implement Drupal caching strategies;
• Work with Cache API, Cache Tags, Cache Contexts, and Cache Max-Age;
• Evaluate the use of queues and asynchronous processing;
• Reduce unnecessary load on Drupal;
• Analyze bottlenecks and propose performance improvements.

Observability and Operation

• Implement structured logging;
• Create request tracing mechanisms;
• Support the definition of metrics and alerts;
• Facilitate error identification across frontend, API, and backend;
• Implement consistent exception handling;
• Use correlation IDs or equivalent mechanisms;
• Support failure diagnosis in integrated environments;
• Monitor availability, latency, and error rates of APIs.

Backend Quality

• Write clear, modular, and testable code;
• Apply SOLID principles, Clean Code, and separation of concerns;
• Create unit, functional, and integration tests;
• Use PHPUnit and related tools;
• Participate in code reviews;
• Ensure adherence to Drupal development standards;
• Use static analysis and code quality tools;
• Maintain minimal documentation of the solution and technical flows.

Frontend Expectations

The frontend layer will be responsible for consuming Drupal APIs and delivering the digital user experience.

React Development

• Develop applications using React;
• Create reusable and decoupled components;
• Work with functional components and React Hooks;
• Manage local and shared application state;
• Implement navigation and routing;
• Consume REST APIs;
• Handle loading, success, missing data, and error states;
• Implement forms and validations;
• Integrate frontend components with API contracts;
• Create responsive experiences for different display resolutions;
• Maintain code organization, readability, and reusability.

Headless Drupal Integration

• Consume content and data provided by Drupal;
• Correctly interpret content models made available by APIs;
• Implement authentication and session maintenance;
• Work with access tokens and credential renewal;
• Implement permission handling on the frontend;
• Work with URLs, slugs, aliases, and metadata provided by the CMS;
• Ensure proper handling of structured content;
• Implement secure rendering of rich content;
• Align frontend changes with the evolution of API contracts;
• Identify and diagnose integration issues between React and Drupal.

Quality and User Experience

• Develop functional, intuitive, and accessible interfaces;
• Apply semantic HTML;
• Work with CSS, Sass, CSS Modules, or equivalent solutions;
• Implement responsive layouts;
• Consider basic accessibility requirements;
• Correctly use ARIA attributes when necessary;
• Ensure proper keyboard navigation;
• Implement visual feedback for user actions;
• Avoid inconsistent behavior during loading and updates;
• Apply user experience best practices, even without acting as a designer.

Frontend Performance

• Avoid unnecessary re-renders;
• Apply lazy loading and code splitting;
• Optimize component and resource loading;
• Use memoization when technically justified;
• Implement appropriate caching strategies;
• Optimize images and static resources;
• Monitor application performance metrics;
• Consider Core Web Vitals;
• Reduce the impact of excessive API calls;
• Implement debounce, throttle, or pagination when necessary.

Frontend Testing

• Create unit tests for components;
• Create integration tests;
• Test user interaction flows;
• Use tools such as Jest and React Testing Library;
• Use Cypress, Playwright, or equivalent tools for end-to-end testing;
• Create API mocks when necessary;
• Validate error, loading, and unavailability behaviors;
• Ensure critical components can be tested in isolation.

Required Technical Skills

Backend

• Solid experience with Drupal;
• Experience with custom module development;
• Advanced knowledge of Object-Oriented PHP;
• Knowledge of Drupal internal APIs;
• Experience with custom entities;
• Experience with Services and Dependency Injection;
• Experience with relational databases;
• Knowledge of transactions and data integrity;
• Experience with custom REST APIs;
• Knowledge of authentication and authorization;
• Knowledge of web application security;
• Knowledge of caching and performance in Drupal;
• Experience with Composer;
• Experience with Git;
• Experience with Lando, Docker, or equivalent environment;
• Experience with Postman;
• Ability to create technical documentation.

Frontend

• Practical experience with React;
• Solid knowledge of modern JavaScript;
• Knowledge of TypeScript;
• Experience with React Hooks;
• Experience with componentization;
• Experience consuming REST APIs;
• Knowledge of state management;
• Knowledge of HTML5 and CSS3;
• Experience with responsive design;
• Knowledge of accessibility;
• Experience with component testing;
• Ability to diagnose integration issues between frontend and backend.

Headless Architecture

• Experience or consistent knowledge in decoupled architectures;
• Understanding of the separation between CMS and experience layer;
• Knowledge of API contracts;
• Understanding of authentication in decoupled applications;
• Knowledge of CORS;
• Knowledge of distributed caching;
• Ability to analyze impacts of changes between backend and frontend;
• Understanding of observability in distributed architectures.

Language Requirements

• Conversational English proficiency;
• Ability to participate in technical meetings;
• Ability to explain a solution or architectural decision;
• Ability to discuss problems, risks, and dependencies;
• Ability to understand technical documentation and requirements in English.

Behavioral Competencies

Autonomy

The candidate is expected to:

• Understand requirements with low supervision needs;
• Structure a technical implementation plan;
• Investigate issues before escalating;
• Identify dependencies and risks;
• Make well-founded decisions;
• Communicate impediments proactively;
• Drive deliverables to completion.

Curiosity

The candidate is expected to demonstrate:

• Interest in understanding the problem beyond immediate implementation;
• Ability to investigate how architecture components interact;
• Willingness to analyze root causes;
• Interest in learning new technologies;
• Constructive questioning of technical decisions;
• Proactivity in proposing improvements.

Communication

• Explain technical decisions with clarity;
• Adapt communication for technical and non-technical audiences;
• Communicate risks and impacts;
• Actively participate in refinements;
• Document relevant information;
• Interact in English with international teams.

Collaboration

• Work integratively with backend, frontend, QA, DevOps, and architecture teams;
• Participate in code reviews;
• Share knowledge;
• Receive and provide feedback;
• Support joint problem resolution.

Sense of Responsibility

• Commitment to quality and security;
• Responsibility for developed components;
• Attention to production impacts;
• Compliance with technical agreements;
• Transparency regarding risks, delays, and difficulties.

Nice to Have

• Experience with Drupal 10 or later versions;
• Experience with Next.js;
• Knowledge of Server-Side Rendering;
• Knowledge of Static Site Generation;
• Experience with GraphQL;
• Experience with JSON:API, even if not used as the main solution;
• Knowledge of Redux Toolkit, Zustand, or Context API;
• Experience with React Query or TanStack Query;
• Knowledge of Storybook;
• Experience with Design Systems;
• Knowledge of micro frontends;
• Experience with CDN and edge caching;
• Knowledge of Redis or Varnish;
• Experience with queues and messaging;
• Knowledge of cloud platforms;
• Experience with CI/CD;
• Experience with Docker;
• Knowledge of Kubernetes;
• Experience with observability tools;
• Experience in international environments;
• Experience with high-traffic applications.