Job Title: WordPress Web Engineer
Location: New York City, NY Local Candidates Only Client: Versant
Rate: $55/hr
Experience: 5+ Years
Work Arrangement: Onsite / Local Candidates Only
Job Summary
We are seeking an experienced WordPress Web Engineer with 5+ years of hands-on experience to develop, maintain, and optimize high-performance WordPress-based web applications.
The ideal candidate will have strong expertise in custom WordPress plugin and theme development using PHP, along with modern React, JavaScript/TypeScript, GraphQL, REST APIs, content modeling, caching, accessibility, SEO, and web performance.
Experience running WordPress at scale, particularly on WordPress VIP or comparable high-traffic managed platforms, is highly valuable. The candidate should also be comfortable troubleshooting production issues across CMS, frontend, APIs, caching layers, and third-party integrations.
Core Responsibilities
WordPress Engineering
- Develop and maintain scalable WordPress applications using PHP.
- Build custom WordPress plugins and themes based on business and technical requirements.
- Design maintainable and reusable WordPress components and functionality.
- Configure and optimize WordPress for high-traffic production environments.
- Work with WordPress VIP or comparable managed WordPress platforms where applicable.
React & Modern Frontend Development
- Develop modern frontend experiences using React and JavaScript/TypeScript.
- Design reusable component architectures.
- Implement efficient state management and data-loading strategies.
- Write unit, integration, and frontend tests.
- Optimize frontend performance and accessibility.
- Build responsive web experiences across desktop, tablet, and mobile devices.
GraphQL Development
- Design and maintain GraphQL schemas.
- Implement GraphQL resolvers and data-access patterns.
- Optimize GraphQL query performance.
- Implement caching strategies for GraphQL APIs.
- Manage authentication and authorization for GraphQL services.
- Support backward-compatible schema evolution and API versioning.
- Create and maintain GraphQL API documentation.
- Support mobile engineering teams through GraphQL contracts, mocks, schema introspection, versioning, and integration testing.
WordPress Content Modeling
- Design and manage WordPress content models using:
- Custom Post Types
- Custom Fields / Meta
- Taxonomies
- Gutenberg Blocks
- Support revision and publishing workflows.
- Implement redirects and content-management processes.
- Optimize search and indexing functionality.
- Design content structures that support scalable publishing workflows.
API & Systems Integration
- Integrate WordPress with REST and GraphQL APIs.
- Work with scheduled jobs, cron processes, and webhooks.
- Integrate third-party content feeds and external services.
- Implement and maintain caching layers.
- Troubleshoot integrations between WordPress and external platforms.
- Ensure reliable data exchange between CMS, frontend, APIs, and downstream systems.
Production Support & Troubleshooting
- Debug production issues across CMS, frontend, API, caching, and external integrations.
- Analyze application performance and identify bottlenecks.
- Troubleshoot cache-related issues and cache invalidation problems.
- Monitor application health and production performance.
- Participate in incident resolution and root-cause analysis.
- Implement long-term fixes to prevent recurring production issues.
Performance, Accessibility & Security
- Implement web accessibility best practices aligned with WCAG.
- Develop responsive and mobile-friendly web experiences.
- Apply SEO fundamentals across web applications.
- Optimize Core Web Vitals and overall website performance.
- Implement secure coding and development practices.
- Support performance and load testing activities.
- Design effective caching and cache-invalidation strategies.
Collaboration & Documentation
- Work closely with product managers, designers, content teams, editorial teams, and other stakeholders.
- Communicate technical concepts clearly with non-engineering partners.
- Participate in technical design and architecture discussions.
- Create and maintain clear, maintainable technical documentation.
- Collaborate with mobile engineering teams on GraphQL contracts and integrations.
Required Technical Skills
- 5+ years of hands-on WordPress engineering experience.
- Strong PHP development experience.
- Hands-on experience with custom WordPress plugin and theme development.
- Strong React experience.
- Strong modern JavaScript/TypeScript experience.
- Strong understanding of component architecture.
- Experience with frontend state management and data loading.
- Experience writing and maintaining automated tests.
- Strong GraphQL experience including schema design and resolver implementation.
- Experience with GraphQL query optimization, caching, authorization, and API documentation.
- Experience with REST APIs and GraphQL APIs.
- Strong knowledge of WordPress content modeling.
- Experience with Custom Post Types, Custom Fields/Meta, Taxonomies, and Gutenberg Blocks.
- Experience with revision and publishing workflows.
- Experience with redirects, search, and indexing.
- Experience with scheduled jobs/cron and webhooks.
- Experience integrating third-party content feeds.
- Experience working with cache layers.
- Strong production debugging and troubleshooting experience.
- Strong understanding of WCAG, responsive design, SEO, Core Web Vitals, and web security.
Strongly Preferred Skills
- Experience in media, publishing, streaming, newsroom, or high-traffic consumer web environments.
- Experience with WordPress VIP or comparable high-traffic managed WordPress platforms.
- Experience with live-streaming and VOD integrations.
- Experience with DRM-protected content.
- Experience with identity and authentication systems.
- Experience with subscription and entitlement flows.
- Experience with Node.js.
- Experience with modern build tooling.
- Experience with CI/CD pipelines.
- Experience with Docker.
- Experience with cloud services and observability tooling.
- Experience with Elasticsearch and search technologies.
- Experience with CDN and image optimization.
- Experience with ad-tech and analytics platforms.
- Experience with community/commenting platforms.
- Experience supporting mobile engineering teams through GraphQL contracts, mocks, schema introspection, versioning, and integration testing.
- Experience with performance and load testing.
- Strong understanding of cache invalidation strategies.
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