Updated 9/23/08 - We are no longer seeking applicants for this role. Thank you for your interest and good luck in your search!

Tree House creates high traffic, dynamic sites for big-name clients like Lifetime Networks, Mansueto Ventures, CBS and Sony. Things move fast here, and standards for both code and service are high. We've got a virtual team of top-notch talent, and we want to add a new Project Manager to the group.

We offer a casual environment, built on trust and a drive to be among the best in our space. We build and theme custom websites with an Agile process, with collaboration across the team. This position calls for high initiative and passion for the work. Close attention to detail and commitment to delivering solutions are a must!

We're looking for an individual with amazing communication skills who can take ownership of a project, understand and maintain expectations of both the client and development team, and get the job completed on time and within budget.

The first key rule in this theming process is that there should be a strict separation of content and presentation. This means that the logic for putting together page data and the code wrapping this data in the presentational XHTML should be kept as isolated from each other as possible.

There are some very good reasons for this.

Keeping the poets out of the accounting

The first is that keeping data logic and presentational code strictly separated lets developers work within their respective skillsets. Back-end developers only need to concern themselves with database management, data logic, and query optimization, while front-end developers do not need to navigate this code to apply the XHTML structure. The themer uses their own dedicated functions as a sandbox for applying the front-end code to the back-end data.

Server-side gurus don’t have to write XHTML, and front-end experts don’t have to mess around with data logic. This helps to preserve the quality of code and reduce mistakes and reworking.

Adapting to new needs

Most people would consider CMS-based site development as having two key layers, or tiers—content and presentation. Your content is your data, data relationships, and raw assets, while your presentation is your design, XHTML, CSS, and Javascript. These two tiers are stitched together to create a template and themed site.

We have found, though, that this perfunctory approach to theming misses out on some very powerful benefits.

Drupal, our usual platform of choice, inherently provides tools and conventions dedicated to theming. These tools inspired the realization that theming is most powerful when treated as a critical process separate from and as important as the processes for creating content and presentation.

In this approach, theming involves more than combining the content and presentation. The three-tier approach adds a “theming” tier to content and presentation. Just as presentation and content have dedicated roles associated with them (designers and front-end developers for presentation and back-end developers for content), the theming approach we advocate requires a themer role for successful execution.