Contara

We are a specialized e-commerce growth agency based in Chicago working exclusively with subscription-focused CPG brands in the food, beverage, supplements, and health & wellness sectors. Our clients include leading DTC brands like Slate Milk, Magna, Firebelly Tea, Wildwonder, and Hint Water. We focus on Shopify site optimization (with emphasis on Revenue Per Visitor, not just conversion rates) and comprehensive Klaviyo retention marketing.

We’re seeking a Shopify expert - not just a developer who knows Shopify, but someone who lives and breathes the platform. This is a full-time position working directly with our team to build and optimize Shopify Plus stores for high-growth subscription brands.

You must demonstrate 100% mastery of modern Shopify development. Here’s what that means to us:

Subscription Commerce (Essential) - Deep experience with subscription platforms like Skio, ReCharge, Smartrr, etc. Building custom subscription UIs and flows, subscription management features and customer portals, one-time-to-subscription conversion optimization.

Modern Shopify Architecture (Essential) - Checkout extensibility and custom checkout modifications, metaobjects and metafields for dynamic content, Shopify Functions for custom logic, app blocks and theme app extensions, understanding of Hydrogen/headless commerce (even if not primary focus).

Theme Development (Essential) - Advanced Liquid templating - you should be able to write complex logic in your sleep. JSON templates and section schemas, custom sections and blocks architecture, cart drawer and AJAX cart implementations, product page customization and variant handling.

Technical Excellence (Essential) - JavaScript frameworks (Alpine.js, Vue, React) for interactive components, Shopify APIs (Admin API, Storefront API, Ajax API), custom app development and private app integrations, performance optimization and Core Web Vitals improvement, clean, maintainable, well-documented code.

Ecosystem Knowledge (Highly Desired) - Deep familiarity with Shopify app ecosystem and common integrations, experience with A/B testing platforms (Intelligems preferred), email/SMS platform integrations (Klaviyo a plus), subscription analytics and retention tools, understanding of app conflicts and how to resolve them.

Your responsibilities will primarily consist of building and customizing Shopify themes in Liquid for subscription-focused CPG brands, implementing complex subscription features and conversion optimization tactics, developing custom functionality using Shopify’s APIs and modern architecture, optimizing site speed and performance, integrating third-party apps and troubleshooting conflicts, and working on cart optimization, product pages, and checkout customizations.

Portfolio and references are required. You must present a portfolio showcasing Shopify theme development work, particularly subscription commerce implementations. We will assess your technical knowledge in depth - surface-level familiarity won’t cut it. Development speed and clean code will be essential for this job. Your code must be readable, maintainable, and follow best practices. Some overlap with USA working hours (we’re Chicago-based) is required for team collaboration, but you’ll be able to work on your own schedule.

The role will start as an hourly position for the first 2-4 weeks as a trial period to ensure mutual fit. After that trial period is complete, the role will transition to full-time with a generous monthly salary. You will be paid bi-weekly (twice per month). Often times there will be less than 40 hours of weekly work - when your tasks are done for the day, you’re free to take off. All holidays of your respective country are honored. Frequent raises for high performing candidates.

AI-generated applications will be immediately discarded. We can tell when you’ve used ChatGPT, and we’re not interested. Please include your portfolio of Shopify development work (subscription commerce examples highly preferred), professional references, a brief note on your most complex Shopify implementation and what made it challenging, and your experience with the specific technologies mentioned above.

We’re looking for someone who can hit the ground running and truly understands Shopify at an expert level. If that’s you, we’d love to hear from you.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​