Senior WordPress Engineer (Freelance)

XWP is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all team members. We’re proud of the high levels of inclusion that our distributed team reports and we work hard to support each individual doing their best work together at XWP.

About XWP

XWP has collaborated on some of the most ambitious and successful WordPress projects and has partnered with the likes of Google, Vox Media, News Corp, and Penske Media Corporation (PMC) to bring richer technologies and delightful user experiences to the open web.

Our team of 50+ experts (from 20+ countries and five continents) enjoy challenging work, service-focused and collaborative teammates, and many opportunities to grow and learn. We have a passion and enthusiasm for what we do and a sincere care for each other and our clients.

We are are always looking for the right people to join our engineering team. Our engineers will support XWP’s mission of building a better web at enterprise scale by delivering exceptional software and great client experiences, working within a supportive and growth-oriented environment. While we may not have an immediate job opening, we are proactively speaking with candidates for potential future opportunities. This means that, depending on the outcome of our conversation, we may invite you to complete our evaluation process to be considered for upcoming projects as they arise.

*Kindly refrain from reaching out to the Recruiters directly as we only consider applications that are submitted via the application form.

Who You Are

• You have a keen eye for details, even the small ones
• You are an enthusiastic WordPress advocate who is curious about how emerging technologies - including AI - can enhance the platform
• You are fueled by a balanced blend of humility and confidence
• You appreciate order and efficiency but have an action-oriented approach
• You have an appetite for learning and self-development
• You value autonomy and have the self-management skills to operate dependably in a fully remote role
• You're actively exploring how AI tools can improve your productivity and code quality
• You think beyond the code - you're comfortable making architectural decisions, evaluating trade-offs, and guiding technical direction for a project

What You've Done

• 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

What You'll Do at XWP

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

What Success Looks Like

• Delivery of quality code, on time, and as estimated
• Collaborative and effective communication across global time zones and cultures
• Proactive approach to learning, growth, and sharing
• Having the trust and confidence of your teammates
• Leading by example and treating others with respect
• Thoughtful adoption of AI tools that demonstrably improves code quality, security, and overall quality of work

Payscale & Benefits

• 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.
• $35 to $60 USD per hour