Senior Headless Developer (PayLoad CMS) (013-0535)

Looking for Philippines-based candidates

Job Role: Senior Headless Developer (PayLoad CMS)

Compensation range: $3,000 AUD - $3,500 AUD / Monthly

Engagement type: Independent Contractor Agreement

Work Schedule:  This role is expected to align with the AU business hours (approx. 8.30 AM - 5 PM, Monday to Friday) for collaboration, but as a contractor, you’ll have flexibility in how you manage your time.

Who We Are: At Hunt St, we help Australian companies hire top remote talent in the Philippines. For this role, you will be engaged directly by the client as an independent contractor. We are not an outsourcing agency. All of our roles are 100% remote so you'll be able to work from home.

Who The Client Is: A dynamic full-service digital agency with over a decade of experience creating data-driven, user-centric digital solutions for organisations across industries. They specialise in digital strategy, SEO, SEM, lead generation, social media ads, UX/UI design, accessibility-focused website builds, and custom web development, using in-house expertise to deliver measurable results and meaningful user experiences. Their work spans both marketing performance and digital product delivery, and they pride themselves on combining creativity, technical precision, and strategic insight to help clients grow online visibility, engagement, and conversion outcomes.

Role Overview: We’re looking for a Senior Headless Developer to build high-quality, design-led websites and digital products using our modern headless stack, with a strong focus on performance, scalability and frontend polish.

This role suits someone who is comfortable working across frontend and backend concerns in a headless environment — translating structured designs and content models into fast, accessible, production-ready experiences.

Communication and documentation are core to the role. You’ll be expected to clearly explain decisions, document your work and collaborate closely with designers, digital producers and other developers throughout delivery.

You take responsibility not just for building features, but for leaving the codebase, UI, performance profile and documentation better than you found them.

You bring a respectful, friendly demeanour, contribute positively to team culture and actively support collaboration and shared problem-solving.

Bonus points if you also have strong WordPress experience.

Key Responsibilities: 

• Build and maintain websites and applications using a headless architecture, primarily with Next.js and Payload CMS.
• Translate Figma designs into high-fidelity, polished UI implementations, with strong attention to spacing, typography, states and responsiveness.
• Work with structured content models and APIs to deliver flexible, scalable frontends.
• Collaborate closely with designers, digital producers and developers throughout the full project lifecycle.
• Contribute to scoping, estimates and technical planning, helping turn briefs and designs into clear build plans.
• Communicate progress, blockers and trade-offs clearly and proactively.
• Identify risks and edge cases early — including UI, UX, performance and architectural concerns — and raise them before they impact delivery.
• Implement and optimise server-side rendering, static generation and client-side interactions as appropriate.
• Optimise applications for performance and Core Web Vitals, alongside accessibility and usability.
• Actively measure and improve performance, including page load, rendering, interaction and layout stability.
• Integrate with third-party services such as ecommerce platforms, APIs and external data sources.
• Test and QA your own work, including visual, accessibility and performance QA.
• Document your work clearly and consistently, including architecture, data flows, content models and deployment notes.
• Assist with troubleshooting server, hosting and environment-related issues, including deployments, caching, CDN behaviour and runtime errors.
• Participate constructively in reviews and feedback cycles, giving and receiving feedback with clarity and respect.
• Contribute positively to the team by sharing knowledge, supporting others and improving internal frameworks and standards.

Requirements

Required Skills and Qualifications:

• 4–5+ years professional experience building modern web applications or headless websites.
• Strong experience with Next.js (App Router), including modern rendering strategies, data fetching, caching and routing.
• Experience working with headless CMS platforms, particularly Payload or similar.
• Solid backend fundamentals, including APIs, authentication, databases and server-side logic.
• Strong frontend development skills with a polish-first mindset: 

○ Modern JavaScript / TypeScript

○ Component-based UI development

○ Tailwind CSS

○ Motion / animation libraries

• Demonstrated ability to deliver pixel-considered, production-ready UI.
• Strong understanding of web performance fundamentals, including Core Web Vitals (LCP, INP, CLS).
• Solid understanding of web accessibility standards (WCAG).
• Experience deploying and operating applications on modern platforms (e.g. Vercel).
• Familiarity with modern databases (e.g. Postgres-based platforms like Neon).
• Experience working with Git-based workflows.
• Comfortable collaborating with designers using Figma.
• Strong understanding of modern web security best practices.
• Excellent communication and documentation skills.
• Strong attention to detail and ownership mindset.
• Ability to manage your workload effectively using project management tools (we use Productive).

Nice to have:

• Strong WordPress experience.
• Experience with Shopify, including headless ecommerce builds.
• Experience with Cloudflare (CDN, caching, edge behaviour, security).
• Specific experience with Payload and Next.js.
• Familiarity with multi-environment setups and release workflows.
• Experience working on larger-scale or long-lived digital platforms.

Work Arrangement & Expectations:

This is a remote role that will be set up as an independent contractor engagement.

To ensure alignment and transparency, successful candidates will be expected to:

• Disclose any existing ongoing roles or client work
• Reflect this engagement on their LinkedIn profile (clearly marked as “Independent Contractor”)