Full stack web developer (design engineer)

About the role

You will build and maintain a website presented in-universe as the corporate terminal of Galatea Systems, a fictional corporation within the QUANTUM 13 story. It is a subscription platform with four connected systems: a digital lore vault (a growing, searchable archive of characters, factions, technology, and timeline events, including hosted video); a membership system (registration, login, and recurring paid subscriptions to access gated content); a community forum (a threaded, Reddit-style discussion space); and a merch store running on Shopify integrated with the site. Visual direction, brand, and user flows are provided. Your job is to turn them into a fast, secure, well-structured product, and then keep it running and growing.

Key responsibilities

• Build a CMS-backed content system for the Digital Lore Vault that non-technical team members can operate without a developer
• Implement search, filtering, and navigation systems that remain usable as the archive grows into hundreds of entries
• Set up subscriber-exclusive video hosting through services such as Mux, Cloudflare Stream, or Vimeo, with signed URLs and adaptive streaming
• Implement user registration, authentication, and account management using an established auth provider, with recurring billing for monthly or yearly subscriptions
• Enforce gated content server-side so paywalled material never appears in the page source of unauthenticated requests
• Build growth mechanics including discount and promo codes, gift subscriptions, and free trial periods
• Configure Shopify store integration on your own domain with theme customisation and bridge site accounts with Shopify customer accounts
• Build a threaded, Reddit-style community forum with single sign-on, moderation tooling, notifications, and thread subscriptions
• Set up transactional and marketing email infrastructure with correct domain authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC)
• Implement full analytics across site and store with e-commerce tracking, audience insights, and an admin dashboard or documented reporting setup
• Implement server-side rendering or static generation with sitemaps, canonicals, metadata, and strong Core Web Vitals on mobile
• Set up staging environment, version control in a Somex Studios-owned repository, automated backups with tested restore processes, and uptime monitoring with alerting
• Implement cookie consent that gates analytics and marketing scripts, GDPR-compliant data handling, and terms of service, privacy policy, and refund policy enforcement

About you

• Demonstrable experience building and shipping production websites end to end, not mockups
• Experience integrating a headless CMS such as Sanity, Payload, Contentful, or Strapi, including designing content models for non-technical editors
• Experience with authentication and paid subscriptions using providers such as Stripe, with ability to explain how to enforce gated content server-side
• Shopify integration and theme customisation experience
• Fluent English speaking and writing capability
• Strong advantages: practical SEO with results, gated or protected video delivery, email infrastructure, building or deploying a community forum with real moderation needs, analytics implementation including e-commerce event tracking
• Also valued: work for entertainment, music, gaming, or fandom brands; experience with membership or subscription content platforms; motion and interaction work such as GSAP, Framer Motion, or WebGL

About us

Somex Studios is an AI-native entertainment studio creating original stories, characters, music, and cinematic worlds for a global audience. Our flagship series, QUANTUM 13, reflects our ambition to build an enduring fictional universe, combining creative direction, filmmaking, and music with generative technology to work at a speed and scale previously out of reach for an independent studio.