What are the responsibilities and job description for the Accessibility Developer position at Zimmer Communications?
Summary: Zimmer Communications is looking to add a qualified accessibility developer to work with our established full-stack web development team. The accessibility developer will be responsible for ensuring end-to-end compliance for all sites owned and serviced by Zimmer. You will be responsible for ensuring these sites meet Section 508 and WCAG 2.1, 2.2, and upcoming 3.0 compliance standards through testing, auditing, collaboration and remediation.
You will need a wide-range of web development skills including the ability to write clean code using modern W3 standards. We expect you to be a self-starting professional, who communicates well, is curious about new digital technologies, and aspires to combine accessibility with functionality and visual design. Ultimately, you should be able to create a functional, accessible, and attractive digital environment for our sites, ensuring great user experience.
Responsibilities:
- Auditing - Regularly conduct manual and automated compliance audits of sites that have been either launched or in development, using available tools and accessibility software such as screen readers.
- Documentation - Maintain detailed reporting of all findings, providing actionable steps for yourself or others to remediate any issues.
- Remediation - Collaborate with our team of designers and developers to address accessibility flaws in an expedient manner.
- Consultation - Ability to guide both internal and external teams on best practices regarding accessibility.
- Adaptability - Must be able to accommodate shifting priorities and sites with potentially complex features including ecommerce, audio, video, and motion elements.
- Use markup languages like HTML and CSS and content management systems to create user-friendly websites.
- Maintain and improve new and existing websites, optimizing for maximum speed and performance.
- Track analytics for both internal and client websites.
- Stay up-to-date on new and emerging technologies.
- Write code to implement those visual elements into various web applications.
- Identify and troubleshoot various website issues and coding problems.
- Meet tight deadlines as required.
- Retrofitting older sites for compliance.
- Communicate with team members about current projects and accessibility issues clearly to non-technical stakeholders and designers.
Requirements and Qualifications:
- Bachelor's degree or equivalent in Computer Science, Web Development or relevant field
- 2 years of Accessibility Development experience, agency experience preferred.
- Thorough experience with the following languages: Liquid, HTML5, CSS, JavaScript (vanilla and jQuery), PHP
- Adept understanding of WCAG 2.1, 2.2, and upcoming 3.0 guidelines, Web Accessibility Initiative, and all corresponding regulations such as the ADA, Section 508, and any others.
- Familiarity with creating accessibility statements and VPATs.
- Understanding of color contrast, alt text, semantic markup, keyboard navigation, and form accessibility.
- Understanding of integrating accessible media (captions, transcripts, audio descriptions).
- Knowledge of ARIA roles and best practices.
- Experience with tools like axe, WAVE, Lighthouse, and NVDA/JAWS/VoiceOver
- Proficient in building and maintaining websites and multisite environments built in WordPress (including theme and plugin development)
- Familiarity with popular page builders, such as Elementor, WPBakery, Divi, Beaver Builder, Avada
- Familiarity with GitHub or similar source management
- Familiarity the web development process from design to deployment
- Custom theme development
- Familiarity with browser testing and debugging
- Understanding of layout aesthetics and basic design
- Knowledge of basic SEO principles
- Familiarity with software and content management systems
- Strong understanding of cross-browser/cross-platform compatibility and responsive web design
Compensation/Benefits:
- Excellent benefits including a 401K, medical packages including optional dental and vision
- Vacation accrual from day 1
- Paid holidays
- On-going training both in team meetings and individual one-on-one support
- Recognition awards
Zimmer Communications is an equal opportunity employer.
