Ex-Disney · Ex-Globant · Freelance since 2014
Hire a senior WordPress developer who codes, not just installs plugins.
I build WordPress sites the way an engineer builds them — custom themes from scratch when brand matters, WooCommerce integrations that survive Black Friday traffic, Gutenberg blocks with proper React code, and headless setups when the backend needs to power a Next.js frontend.
Start a projectCustom themes, not page-builder bloat
For brand-critical sites I build themes from scratch — or sensibly customized starter themes (Underscores, Roots Sage, Blockbase) — with clean Gutenberg blocks, no Elementor/Divi tangle, no 300kb jQuery legacy. The result is a site that loads fast, ranks well and survives plugin updates.
WooCommerce that actually scales
WooCommerce is WordPress's e-commerce soft spot — it works until it doesn't. I've tuned WooCommerce installs for merchants hitting 50K+ daily traffic with custom caching strategies, HPOS (High-Performance Order Storage), Action Scheduler tuning, and surgical plugin removal. If your Woo site slows down at scale, we fix the actual bottleneck.
Headless WordPress when it fits
Keep WordPress for the CMS (editors love it) and ship the frontend as Next.js via WP-REST API or WPGraphQL. Get the best of both: the content-management workflow your marketing team already knows, with the performance and SEO flexibility of a modern React stack.
Legacy rescues without judgment
WordPress sites accumulate technical debt — outdated themes, plugin conflicts, custom PHP in functions.php that nobody documented, hacked installs, PHP 7.x dependencies. I audit the existing site, prioritize the urgent issues, stabilize, and then upgrade incrementally. No rewrites unless the current site is genuinely beyond saving.
The WordPress stack I work with
- WordPressLatest stable — custom themes, Gutenberg-first, REST API
- WooCommerceE-commerce with custom checkout, subscriptions, payment gateways
- Gutenberg BlocksCustom blocks in React with proper block.json and typed attrs
- Advanced Custom FieldsFlexible content modeling for editors
- WP-REST APIHeadless integrations and decoupled frontends
- WPMLMultilingual sites with proper hreflang and translation workflows
- WP Multi-SiteNetwork installs for franchises, multi-brand, or tenant architectures
- Headless WPNext.js + WP-REST or WPGraphQL for decoupled architecture
- Elementor / BricksWhen clients insist — I'll work in them but advise alternatives
- Yoast / Rank Math SEOTechnical SEO, schema markup, sitemap configuration
- Wordfence / SucuriSecurity hardening, malware scanning, post-hack cleanup
- Cloudways / KinstaManaged WordPress hosting aligned with performance goals
When WordPress is the right tool (and when it isn't)
WordPress powers roughly 43% of the web for a reason — it's the best content management system for non-technical editors, has an ecosystem of proven plugins for almost any common need, and has been battle-tested at scale by thousands of sites including the White House, TechCrunch, and The Walt Disney Company (which I've seen up close). For content-heavy marketing sites, blogs, small e-commerce, and sites where non-technical editors will update content daily, WordPress is the honest default answer.
Where WordPress stops making sense: custom web applications with complex business logic (use Laravel or NestJS), high-scale e-commerce with custom checkout requirements beyond what Woo provides (Shopify Plus or a custom backend), SaaS products where you're managing user accounts and permissions with intricate rules (WordPress's user system is rigid), or real-time features like chat or dashboards (WordPress's request-response model fights you).
The middle ground is headless. If you want WordPress for the editorial experience and something modern for the frontend — Next.js, SvelteKit, Astro — headless works well. I've shipped this pattern several times; the payoff is real when the content team needs WP's editing UX but the site needs better performance, SEO flexibility, or integration with non-WP systems.
On plugin philosophy: I prefer fewer plugins over more. Each plugin is technical debt — version conflicts, security patches, abandoned maintainers. For most sites, 10-15 carefully chosen plugins handle everything needed. Sites with 40+ plugins have inherited accidental complexity, and the first audit I do is usually "which of these can we remove without losing functionality?". The answer is often "more than half".
FAQs
I work with what's already there. If your site is built on Elementor, I'll edit and extend it rather than propose a rewrite. For new projects where you haven't committed yet, I'll usually recommend Gutenberg with custom blocks — cheaper long-term and more flexible. Bricks is the best page builder if you want performance and structured code; Elementor is the most common; Divi is the one I recommend avoiding for new projects.
Yes, this is common work. Migration involves: content mapping (pages, posts, media, metadata), URL mapping with 301 redirects for SEO preservation, plugin/theme selection matching the source site's capabilities, and QA on the staging site before DNS cutover. Usually a 2-4 week project depending on site size and complexity.
Start with measurement: page-level query analysis (Query Monitor), database audit (slow queries, missing indexes, orphan data), Action Scheduler backlog review, object cache hit rate. Most Woo performance problems come from plugin bloat, unoptimized queries, or lack of caching at the right layer. I fix the actual bottleneck — not "install another caching plugin".
Yes. Security audit, malware scanning, restoration from clean backups, hardening (disable XML-RPC, file permissions, admin user cleanup, wp-config.php locking, 2FA for admins), Wordfence or Sucuri configuration, and post-hack monitoring. If your site was hacked, I can get it clean — but the first step is understanding how they got in so it doesn't happen again.
WPML is the industry standard and what I use for most multilingual work. For heavy-traffic multilingual sites with complex content structure, sometimes a multi-site setup makes more sense (each language as a separate site in the network). I'll recommend based on your content volume, editorial workflow, and budget.
I don't offer ongoing hosting or 24/7 maintenance contracts — I'm a freelance engineer, not a managed-hosting company. I'll set you up on Cloudways, Kinsta, WP Engine or similar (managed WP hosting with proper backup and staging environments), configure everything correctly, and hand over access. For ongoing monthly maintenance, those providers or a dedicated WordPress maintenance agency fits better.
Need a WordPress developer who codes, not just installs plugins?
Custom themes, WooCommerce scaling, headless WP, legacy rescues, multilingual. 24-hour reply.
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