Senior Wordpress Systems & Automation Engineer

SENIOR WORDPRESS AUTOMATION & TECHNICAL SEO DEVELOPER

We are looking for a senior technical developer to take over and complete an existing internal website operations and automation platform for a large international WordPress website.

This is not a web design assignment or a standard WordPress maintenance position. The platform connects website monitoring, technical SEO, task processing, evidence submission, quality control and several external data sources.

The selected developer must first understand the existing architecture and codebase. The system must be completed and stabilised, not unnecessarily rebuilt from scratch.

TECHNICAL ENVIRONMENT

* Large multilingual WordPress website with thousands of pages
* 16 language versions
* PHP 8.x
* Hostinger hosting
* LiteSpeed and CDN caching
* Custom WordPress functionality
* Google Apps Script
* Google Sheets
* REST APIs and webhooks
* Google Cloud services
* Google Search Console
* Google Analytics 4
* Google PageSpeed Insights
* Screaming Frog
* Existing Vercel read-only management dashboard
* Automated monitoring, evidence and QA workflows
* n8n or similar workflow automation where appropriate

MANDATORY SKILLS

1. Advanced WordPress development

* Strong PHP 8.x experience
* WordPress core architecture
* Custom plugins and functionality
* Themes and child themes
* WordPress hooks, filters and actions
* WordPress REST API
* WP-Cron
* MySQL and WordPress database structure
* Template-level debugging
* Multilingual WordPress websites
* Security, version control and rollback
* Safe staging and production deployment

Applicants whose WordPress experience is limited to page builders or installing plugins are not suitable for this project.

2. Google Apps Script and Google Sheets

* Maintaining and debugging existing Apps Script projects
* Building reliable triggers and automated workflows
* Reading and writing structured Google Sheets data
* Data validation
* Locking and concurrency control
* Preventing duplicate execution
* Error handling, retries and recovery
* Detailed execution logging

3. APIs, webhooks and automation

* REST APIs and JSON
* OAuth 2.0
* Secure API authentication
* Webhooks
* Event-driven architecture
* Idempotency and deduplication
* Retry logic and exponential backoff
* Rate-limit handling
* Queue processing
* Secure credential management
* n8n or comparable workflow-automation platforms

4. Google Cloud integrations

* Google Cloud services
* Pub/Sub or comparable messaging systems
* Push notifications
* Secure webhook endpoints
* Event processing
* Logging and monitoring
* Automatic renewal and recovery processes

5. Technical SEO

The developer must have proven technical SEO experience with large multilingual websites, including:

* Canonicals
* Hreflang
* Language and regional codes
* XML sitemaps
* Robots.txt
* Crawling and indexing
* Redirects, 404 and 410 responses
* Duplicate-content management
* Metadata
* Structured data and JSON-LD
* Internal linking
* Semantic heading structure
* Image alt text
* Crawl-efficiency optimisation
* Google Search Console
* Rich Results Test

The developer must understand how a single error in a shared template, plugin or translation configuration can be reproduced across thousands of pages.

6. Screaming Frog automation

* Scheduled website crawls
* Automated exports
* Importing crawl data into Google Sheets or another operational system
* Comparing current and previous crawl results
* Mapping issues to the correct URLs
* Preventing stale crawl data from being accepted as current
* Automated re-crawling and validation

7. Performance and Core Web Vitals

* Lighthouse and PageSpeed Insights
* LCP, CLS, INP, FCP, TBT and TTFB
* WordPress performance profiling
* JavaScript and CSS optimisation
* Reduction of excessive HTML output
* Image and font optimisation
* LiteSpeed, CDN and browser caching
* Cache invalidation
* Mobile performance
* Root-cause analysis

Performance improvements must not break navigation, forms, analytics, structured data, content or commercial functionality.

8. Front-end development and functional QA

* HTML5 and semantic HTML
* CSS and responsive layouts
* JavaScript and DOM debugging
* Browser-console analysis
* Unique HTML IDs
* Accessible forms
* Cross-browser testing
* Mobile and desktop testing
* Fixed and sticky elements
* Z-index and overlap issues
* Form and link validation

Strong visual design skills are not the main requirement. However, the developer must be able to implement approved designs accurately without making unapproved changes.

9. Vercel and live-data dashboards

* Existing Vercel deployments
* API endpoints
* Environment variables
* Live-data binding
* Google Sheets integration
* Production debugging
* Error and unavailable-data states
* Read-only dashboard restrictions

The developer must maintain the existing dashboard and architecture. Creating an unrelated replacement system or sample database is not part of the assignment.

WORKING METHOD

The project follows strict milestone-based quality control.

For every phase, the developer must:

1. Investigate and document the root cause.
2. Propose the smallest safe correction.
3. Explain the risks and affected components.
4. Implement only the approved scope.
5. Test the change properly.
6. Submit complete technical evidence.
7. Wait for independent validation.
8. Correct rejected or incomplete work before continuing.

The developer may not approve their own work or mark incomplete work as completed.

EVIDENCE REQUIRED

Every milestone submission must include:

* Root-cause explanation
* Exact files, functions, settings or templates changed
* Before-and-after evidence
* Relevant logs
* Test URLs
* Source-code or commit references
* API responses where applicable
* Desktop and mobile test results
* Tests across multiple page types and languages
* Regression-test results
* Rollback instructions
* Confirmation that unrelated functionality remains unchanged

Screenshots alone are not sufficient when source code, logs or live technical tests are required.

REQUIRED PROFESSIONAL PROFILE

We need someone who:

* Has senior-level debugging ability
* Can understand and continue an existing system
* Investigates before changing code
* Distinguishes symptoms from root causes
* Follows written instructions precisely
* Communicates clearly in English
* Tests all work before submitting it
* Provides complete technical evidence
* Accepts independent quality control
* Reports blockers immediately
* Does not make unapproved architectural or design changes
* Can work carefully on a large live commercial website

APPLICATION QUESTIONS

Please answer all the following questions:

1. Describe a WordPress automation or monitoring system you personally built.
2. Describe your experience with PHP 8.x and custom WordPress development.
3. Provide an example of a Google Apps Script integration you developed.
4. Describe your experience with webhooks and event-driven processes.
5. How do you prevent the same webhook event from being processed twice?
6. Describe your experience with Google Cloud messaging services.
7. Explain how canonicals and hreflang should work across multiple language versions.
8. How would you determine whether an error exists on one page or in a global template?
9. Describe your experience with Screaming Frog automation.
10. Describe your experience with Google Search Console and GA4 integrations.
11. Explain how you safely change a large live WordPress website.
12. Describe your testing, evidence and rollback procedure.
13. Provide links to relevant projects, case studies or code samples.
14. State your availability, timezone and hourly rate.

SHORTLISTING

Shortlisted candidates may be asked to complete a small paid technical test. This may involve reviewing a limited existing component, identifying a root cause, proposing a safe correction and supplying a testing and rollback plan.

The test is intended to verify actual technical ability and will not involve unpaid production work.

PROJECT STRUCTURE

* Existing system takeover and completion
* Initial architecture and codebase review
* Milestone-based delivery
* Independent QA for every milestone
* Potential long-term cooperation after successful completion

IMPORTANT APPLICATION INSTRUCTION

Only apply if you genuinely possess the technical skills and experience described above and can provide clear evidence of your previous work.

To confirm that you have read the complete project description, your application must begin with the exact words:

OPEN THE SEA

Applications that do not begin with these exact words, contain only a generic proposal or fail to answer the required technical questions will not be considered.

A technical questionnaire is attached to this project. Completing this questionnaire is a mandatory part of the application process.

To apply:

1. Download the attached Word document.
2. Answer all 15 questions directly in the document.
3. Add your complete CV/resume in the designated section of the same document.
4. Return the completed document through Freelancer in editable Word (.docx) format.
5. Begin your Freelancer proposal with the exact words: Open the Sea

You may use reference materials or AI tools, but you remain fully responsible for every answer. Shortlisted candidates must be able to explain and defend their answers during a live follow-up interview.

Applications that do not begin with “Open the Sea”, do not include the completed questionnaire, or submit the CV separately will not be considered.

Please apply only if you have genuine senior-level experience in WordPress, systems automation, APIs and webhooks, Google Apps Script, technical SEO, multilingual website architecture, performance optimisation and evidence-based QA.

The questionnaire is designed to assess practical reasoning, technical judgement, risk awareness and the ability to identify incorrect assumptions—not only theoretical knowledge.