Senior WordPress Engineer – Freelance

XWP

Senior WordPress Engineer developing custom plugins and themes for enterprise scale at XWP. Collaborating with teams on ambitious WordPress projects and delivering exceptional software.

Posted 5/12/2026full-timeRemote • 🇺🇸 United StatesSenior💰 $35 - $60 per hourWebsite

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

DockerJavaScriptPHPReactSQLWordPress

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Be an Engaged Team Member
Contribute to estimations for all tickets in the backlog and participate in Backlog Grooming, Sprint Planning, and Sprint Review Meetings
Adhere to Agile Scrum Methodologies and organizational processes
Be a candid, respectful and supportive teammate and leader
Work closely and collaboratively with others to develop solutions
Shape technical direction in collaboration with teammates, balancing client needs, maintainability, and long-term scalability
Champion Engineering Best Practices
Review and write unit, integration, and regression tests when appropriate
Write and maintain unit tests with PHPUnit, enforce static analysis with PHPStan, and build end-to-end tests with Playwright
Conduct architectural peer reviews for code created by other engineers
Set up build and test environments as well as deploying code
Implement PHP and JavaScript Linting
Setting up CI/CD workflows with Github Actions
Implement standard Docker local development environments
Monitor and optimize application performance using tools like Sentry for error tracking, New Relic for application logs and performance metrics, and Lighthouse and Core Web Vitals for frontend performance
Write Secure, Performant, Scalable Code
Develop custom WordPress plugins for use at enterprise scale
Object Oriented Programming
Create custom React-based Blocks
Utilize WordPress technologies like WP-CLI and REST API
Build custom, performant SQL queries
Package management tools like NPM and Composer
Responsive interface development and interface extension using JavaScript
Debugging across a wide range of browsers and devices
Develop and maintain plugins and themes that meet WordPress VIP coding standards and deployment requirements.

Requirements

What you’ll need

You’ve had your hands deep in complex, large scale web technology projects
You’ve actively participated in mentoring and guiding less experienced developers to follow best practices through code reviews
You’ve built complex custom WordPress plugins and themes from scratch
You’ve worked extensively with PHP, WordPress, JavaScript, HTML, and CSS
You've built custom Gutenberg blocks, Block Editor panels, and sidebar plugins to extend the editing experience
You've used performance monitoring and error tracking tools to diagnose issues in production environments
You have experience developing for enterprise WordPress hosting platforms such as WordPress VIP, including familiarity with their coding standards, deployment workflows, and code review requirements.

Benefits

Comp & perks

Trust and support from your colleagues (we look out for each other and work together towards our shared goals and vision)
The rewards of a highly collaborative culture (we’re a team, not a working group)
The joys of remote work done right (schedule flexibility, skip the commute, and more time for family and interests outside of work)
The chance to play an important part in helping XWP achieve its full potential and make a meaningful difference for our clients, team members and the open web.

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills & Tools

PHPJavaScriptHTMLCSSWordPressObject Oriented ProgrammingUnit TestingIntegration TestingRegression TestingSQL

Soft Skills

Team CollaborationMentoringLeadershipCommunicationRespectfulnessSupportivenessCandidnessProblem SolvingAdaptabilityEngagement