As a WordPress-based online business grows, it experiences a greater need to hire developers who are skilled at WordPress theme development, plugin customizations, programming, and more.
But it can be a taxing process to shortlist WordPress developers, designers, or even programmers for that matter, given the huge talent pool online. These days, many platforms and websites promise to give you the right candidate. But not all are trusted or reliable sources.
Finding a skilled and professional WordPress developer becomes even more difficult when millions of individuals are fighting for projects and misquoting prices to lure in individual clients and businesses.
Whether you wish to hire a WordPress developer for your team, or you have an important project underway, you need a knowledgeable candidate who can fulfill requirements like writing custom codes to enable custom features and functions, to customizing themes and plugins, handling migrations, as well as application optimization.
Without a concrete plan to find the best candidate, your business will compromise on its deliverables (project reports, performance, and progress) and lose your customers’ confidence in its development process.
Our aim is to help you hire the right candidate for either your team, or your underway projects. After careful research, we have curated a list of trusted platforms that you can now use to select better candidates, save project redo costs, and attract experienced professionals without having to test out multiple developers.
Here you’ll find the top talent to help you set up a WordPress site using the best WordPress themes or create a custom site from scratch.
In this article, we will highlight 12 trusted platforms and sources, and some tips on how to find and hire the best WordPress developers. Once you find a suitable developer, you can look into Cloudways for the best developer hosting platform.
- 12 Best Places to Find and Hire WordPress Developers
- What About Freelancer.com, Upwork, or Fiverr?
- How to Hire a Top Quality WordPress Developer (5 Tips/Steps)
- Create a comprehensive outline of the project prior to hiring WordPress developers
- Finalize a detailed job description to hire WordPress programmers
- Conduct a background check, check reviews and ratings, then shortlist
- Aim for seamless collaboration and communication
- Assign a paid trial task period and discuss the offer package
10 Best Places to Find and Hire WordPress Developers
We want you to skip the hurdles that surface when you hire sub-par WordPress developers. No business can afford to overpay WordPress developers and still have unsatisfied, confused, and frustrated customers on their website. Your ideal developer should be capable of managing everything from hosting agency websites to seamlessly creating top-tiered ecommerce stores. Here is a list of trusted sources you can use to find and hire WordPress Developers of top caliber.
1. Codeable.io
Codeable is specifically designed to serve as a WordPress Freelancer Platform. It follows a strategic and careful six-step screening process to find WordPress experts and hire the best one.
The elements in the screening process include a professional review, technical exam, live coding tests, interviews, and a 45-day trial period, all to carefully select a handful of WordPress developers. Hence, the WordPress developers they allow on their platform are brilliant in their craft, which involves WordPress theme development, plugin customizations, coding and more.
Codeable helps its customers with their WordPress related problems and makes it easy for them to hire the best WordPress developers through its platform.
2. Cloudways Experts [BETA]
At Cloudways, you can conveniently find and hire an expert through our Cloudways Expert Program. Cloudways experts are handpicked developers, designers, and marketers, who are well-versed with the Cloudways Platform and have the skills to meet your business needs.
Whether your problem lies in website/store setup, design and development, custom plugins, agency hosting migration, or application optimization, Cloudways Experts can seamlessly solve your problem. You just have to find an expert that fits your project requirements, get in touch with them to discuss the scope, and then hire them to collaborate with you until your work is done.
With a simple three-step process, you can hire a WordPress Developer backed by the Cloudways Expert Program. The program offers trust and transparency, and lets you network with quality web professionals to potentially develop long-term relationships.
The Cloudways Expert Program has a list of credible and experienced Experts in the domain that you can choose from depending on their profiles and their areas of expertise. These dedicated professionals will not abandon you in the middle of your project, nor will they misquote prices, exploit you, or run off after submitting a sub-par website project.
Cloudways Experts deliver quality web projects that lead to a smooth revenue stream and better customer retention. You can discuss your job scope and requirements with them more before hiring the expert.
Looking for an Experienced WordPress Developer?
Browse a list of profiles and choose an expert that best fits your project requirements
You can read Cloudways’ interview with Lee Jackson, lead web developer at LeeJacksonDev, and our interview with Stefan Mischook, developer and founder of StudioWeb to learn about their professional journey, skills, projects, and career endeavors.
3. WisdmLabs
WisdmLabs is a leading WordPress Development agency specializing in e-learning and e-commerce. With over a decade of subject matter expertise and industry knowledge, they specialize in providing custom WooCommerce and LearnDash solutions.
They are a well-trusted group of developers who are WordPress Core Contributors, platinum level WooCommerce Experts, and come recommended by LearnDash. They have successfully completed 800+ projects – ranging from website setup to custom plugin development and API integration to website migration. WisdmLabs is most comfortable working on custom solutions for small and medium businesses. They have maintained a commendable customer satisfaction rating of 94% across projects. Their WordPress expertise is also reflected in the fact that their plugins have been downloaded over 40k+ times.
In conclusion, you can be sure your project is in safe hands with WisdmLabs. Contact them today to start off with a free consultation and they will be happy to work out a sustainable, scalable solution for you.
4. Elementor Experts
Elementor experts is a network for web designers and developers. To hire a WordPress expert, look through the listed profiles showcasing best design, marketing, and development projects..
The platform can help you hire developers who can perform WP installations, migration, and full stack development. You’ll find people who can work with HTML, JavaScript, and assist you with web hosting as well.
While the Elementor experts charge a set price for the services they offer, you can still select the one that fits your budget and project needs best.
5. WordPress Jobs
WordPress Jobs is a job listing page specific to WordPress design, development, performance, migration, plugin development, and theme customization. It also offers writing, translation, and support job listing to facilitate other members of the community as well.
As an official WordPress job listing website, it offers a simple solution to those finding WordPress experts to hire. You post a job under one of the project categories and then skilled WordPress developers in the community apply for the opening.
You have the freedom to hire high quality applicants from around the globe for full-time and part-time positions, or even for a project you have underway. The job listing remains active for 21 days after the website reviews and approves it, so you have plenty of time to find quality WordPress developers.
WordPress developers earn more when they package websites with top-notch hosting services.
You can generate more cash as a developer by reselling Cloudways hosting for a custom price. Doing so leaves you with a recurring cash stream and your clients with the best managed hosting platform. A win-win for all!
6. Smashing Jobs
Smashing Jobs is an initiative by renowned website and eBook publisher, Smashing Magazine, to help WordPress designers and developers find quality jobs and connect with great companies, especially those looking to hire developers for startups. It attracts top web professionals who apply for the listed jobs.
Moreover, companies cannot post a job on the platform for free. The fact that this job listing platform charges $225 for posting full-time jobs, and $75 for freelance gigs, is enough proof for web designers and developers that the job listings are serious. This builds an environment of trust between businesses and the talent pool of web professionals, which eliminates the gap between the two parties.
The job listings stay active for 60 days, and the website has around 4 million monthly users, which promises a large audience and talent pool of WordPress developers. Smashing Jobs enjoys a good reputation with employers like Tesla Motors, Amazon, Electronic Arts, MIT, and Activision, all of which are giant companies.
7. Toptal
Toptal freelancers are among the top 3% of freelance talent, and many top companies rely on the platform to hire freelance software developers, coders, designers, project managers, product managers, finance experts, and more.
Every Toptal freelancer is rigorously tested and vetted so you can build an on-demand team quickly in a short time frame of 48 hours. You can enjoy the flexibility in terms of payments as Toptal offers both hourly and full-time pay, and you can scale up or down anytime as per the need of your business.
Toptal has an active collaboration with Microsoft, Motorola, and Salesforce, and offers highly skilled, qualified and elite independent contractors. You can easily find and hire qualified WordPress developers that fit your financial scale.
You get a risk-free trial, painless communication, cost-effective weekly pricing, and carefully-screened candidates like at Codeable. You just have to submit a job, and then Toptal will review it and try to match you with the suitable candidate. This matching process may take up a few days, but once you review and sign Toptal’s recommended freelancers, your work begins. A deposit of $500 is applied to your first bill when you find and hire a suitable WordPress developer through Toptal.
8. Stack Overflow Careers
Every developer has a tab open to Stack Overflow. Apart from being a technical help forum providing answers to several technology related queries daily, it also offers a job board in forum format to assist employers, WordPress developers, mobile developers, game developers, data scientists, system admins and more.
Stack Overflow Careers is a top-notch place where you can find a WordPress developer and communicate easily with them through email or the forum itself. You can post about your need to hire a WordPress developer, and then your desired candidates can apply for the job through the forum board. Stack Overflow experiences 100+ million monthly visitors so you have a lot of chances at finding a WordPress expert.
However, since there is no proper ecosystem like workroom or escrow, you can find yourself being charged a high price by WordPress developers.
9. WPhired
WPhired is a WordPress specific job board that aims to connect small to large scale businesses with the relevant WordPress talents. Through this job board, you can easily find and hire 1000+ certified developers & WordPress experts, whether your requirement is WordPress migration, performance optimization, plugin development, programming, theme development and more.
Jerome Degl’innocenti, a WordPress fanatic, founded WPhired in 2010, with the aim to help the employers find WordPress professionals without having to pay the job board any commission. This has simplified the talent hunt process for many businesses and allows them a hassle-free way to hire WordPress developers from across the world.
10. Remote OK
Remote OK is a platform that allows WordPress professionals to live anywhere and work anywhere as well. This freedom allows many WordPress specialists to register here and then apply to job postings by renowned companies.
As a business looking for a WordPress developer, you can post a WordPress job by creating a comprehensive job description, mentioning eligibility requirements, offering bonus points and perks, and salary compensation to attract the best candidates. Also, there are many other remote job boards Remotewokr, Flexjobs, and No Desk to hire WordPress developers remotely.
11. Dice
Dice is a leading database for technology professionals managing over 9 million profiles in the United States. The fact that the platform helps employers connect with high-skilled tech talent means that technology professionals can now find it easier to manage their careers.
Through Dice, you can hire WordPress specialists for services like website design, WordPress development, Woocommerce development, web application development and more.
Because making a Dice profile is free of cost, many WordPress professionals like web designers, WordPress developers, web optimization experts, and web strategists can use Dice’s advanced data tools to look at insights such as estimated salary and data insights to boost their career.
You can browse Dice and find a WordPress developer by title, skill, and category so you can build and design your WordPress site and online store according to your specific needs to earn you the sales your excellent products deserve. A specialist can extend the functionality of your Woocommerce store, and therefore, Dice is trusted by both tech talent and employers.
12. 1840 & Company
1840 & Company is a vetted, global marketplace for outsourcing and hiring expert WordPress developers and other freelancers. There’s no job posting or sorting through endless lists of applicants. Upon creating a client account with them, you’ll receive access to a dedicated account manager who takes the time to learn about your specific needs and then matches you with the WordPress experts you need. This makes finding the right WordPress developer on 1840 easy and the odds of success are much higher than going to larger platforms like Upwork or Fiverr.
In addition to finding and hiring WordPress developers, 1840 has a global network of freelance experts skilled in other professions as well. For example, you can hire freelance graphic designers, web designers, digital marketers, and any other role you may need in addition to your WordPress developm
How About Freelancer.com, Upwork, or Fiverr?
There is no doubt that freelancers on these platforms post frequent gigs around WordPress development and design. In fact, because of how popular these platforms are, most freelancers find it fruitful to display their skill sets and work portfolio to employers here. However, there is a catch.
The reason we don’t recommend platforms like Freelancer.com, Upwork, or Fiverr is that skimming through these sites for WordPress development related gigs would exhaust you. You might not have the time to evaluate and assess the background of all those freelancers because there is just so much information and people of all skill-levels.
Not being able to perform due diligence on them can lead you to comply with misquoted prices, over commitment, under performance, and on rare occasions even fraud. Hence, if you want to hire a reliable, trusted WordPress developer, look at the websites we have mentioned earlier in the blog, or have a look at Cloudways Experts Program.
Apart from these freelancers, you can also outsource a developer team through agencies if you do not want to spend a huge amount of budget to build an in house one. For example, UnlimitedWP offers managed WordPress developer teams to digital agencies. Their team helps with new site development, maintenance, plugin development, day-to-day WP help, and more. With their unique fixed monthly price model, you can get unlimited tasks done each month.
You get 2,4, or 8 hours of help every day from a managed WordPress white label development team to work on any number of your client websites.
Think of it like hiring an in-house developer but managed by UnlimitedWP. You don’t just get a developer but a fractional team consisting of a front-end developer, back-end developer, QA, and project manager.
UnlimitedWP is solving WP developer recruitment and management problems for digital agencies.
Want to Hire an Experienced WordPress Developer?
Browse a list of profiles and choose an expert that best fits your project requirements
How to Hire a Top Quality WordPress Developer (5 Tips/Steps)
Hiring a WordPress developer can take a toll on you, especially if you have a growing business. You have strict time constraints, a budget you can’t exceed, project requirements, and customer satisfaction goals. To meet all of these, you need to follow a planned roadmap to hire a top quality WordPress developer in the least amount of time, with full clarity on what you need to look for in a potential candidate.
You can even choose to hire some rising WordPress Development Companies and Design and Development Agencies for your project. But if you decide a WordPress developer is the most appropriate choice for your business’s web development needs, here’s a carefully thought out plan you can follow for smooth sailing when hiring a WordPress developer.
1. Create a comprehensive outline of the project prior to hiring WordPress developers
For clarity about the project outline and requirements, create a comprehensive outline for the brief you’ll give to your WordPress developer. This kind of clarity in vision will help you identify the skills you require in a WordPress developer. Then you can also create a WordPress developer test to assess the capabilities of individual candidates.
Here is a basic format that you can build on and follow as per your project to create a comprehensive project outline before hiring WordPress developers.
— Planning
This is the right time to use previous project briefs and any current ones too. Note down the unique requirements to create a comprehensive project brief to assess your goals.
— Research
Once you have created your own project brief, research on other WordPress development projects too and see if there is any new trend that businesses are demonstrating in their project requirements. The digital world is growing faster than ever before and new ideas and concepts are unrolling on a regular basis. Stay up to date with any new findings.
— Design Ideas
After creating a thorough WordPress project brief, sketch some rough designs and concepts. The idea behind is to give the WordPress developer a fair idea about the kind of design you expect. There are basic level, mid-level, and even advanced level web designs that businesses or companies go with, so you need to communicate what level of design you expect from the WordPress developer you hire.
— Design Development
Make a list of the tools and softwares you would expect your WordPress developer to be comfortable working on. This will help you filter out the right candidate who would be equipped with the expertise to complete your project in less time duration.
— Implementation
Make a list of techniques and strategies that you use in your business to implement your design ideas and ensure your design is what you need. This can be a process that you can base your questions on when you are interviewing a potential candidate. Ask them what process they follow after they win a project to take it to the completion stage.
— Completion
Assess whether the WordPress developer you choose to hire would be responsive enough to make any adjustments or revisions to the project on a timely basis while altering the website as per the business’s needs.
2. Finalize a detailed job description to hire WordPress programmers
Once you have made a comprehensive project brief, create a job description to post on the platforms we have mentioned earlier in this blog. A standard job description would include a summary, responsibilities, and eligibility requirements section. We have a standard template for a WordPress developer job description that you can follow.
3. Conduct a background check, check reviews and ratings, then shortlist
When candidates start applying on your job posting, just their CV is not enough. You must ask them to show you their work portfolio and ask them for their Linkedin profile as well. Look at the reviews and ratings on their work profiles and ask them to provide two recommendation letters as well to confirm their work ethics.
You can shortlist them on the basis of the recommendations they provide, as well as their work portfolio. Do not make the mistake of solely relying on reviews and ratings.
Also certification is an essential component of any successful website project and hiring the right team can be the difference between success and failure. It is the best way to ensure that your project gets off to a quick start and that certified developers have the skills they need to tackle any issue that may arise. With the knowledge and tools gained from certification, you can can be confident that the website project will be completed efficiently and securely
4. Aim for seamless collaboration and communication
Ensure your shortlisted WordPress developer is able to communicate with you and the team regarding the project. Remote work has deepened tenfold the need for seamless collaboration.
While screening, take a language and personality test, a technical exam or live exercises where you assess the applicant’s problem-solving ability, depth of experience, communication ability, and creativity.
Also, managing a team of developers is not as easy as you might think if you don’t have any experience. Watch out for this video to learn how you can manage a team of web devs.
5. Assign a paid trial task period and discuss the offer package
Another way to ensure that your WordPress developer has the required skill set is to give each shortlisted applicant a test project to assess whether they can “walk the walk. “The duration of this project should ideally be 1-3 weeks. This can give you ample time to evaluate the candidate’s competence, thoroughness, professionalism, and integrity in real-world scenarios.
Once they submit their trial task, a team should sit to review it, and accordingly offer a package to the selected candidate. If they have performed outstandingly, they should be hired regardless of their package demand, because one highly skilled WordPress developer is better than five unskilled ones.
Conclusion
Finding and hiring a WordPress developer is not an easy feat; however, with some guidance and some efforts in the right direction, you can easily hire a professional WordPress developer to complete your WordPress projects.
Hiring a WordPress developer is a one-time investment, so handpick an expert wisely. You can even hire a Cloudways Expert to solve your WordPress problems.
Q1. How do I find a good WordPress developer?
Finding a WordPress developer is not as hard as it seems. With some guidance and effort, you can easily vet and hire WordPress developers. The marketplaces that we have mentioned above make it all the more easy for you to find a candidate who best fits your business.
Q2. Where can I find a WordPress designer?
Hiring a WordPress designer requires you to test the candidate a little differently. Although the hiring process is quite the same as that of hiring any WordPress freelancer, you have to vet WordPress designers on the basis of their aesthetic sense and visual design skills. Obviously, the test and trial project you assign them would be different as well according to the work you need.
Q3. What does a WordPress developer do?
WordPress developers use the WordPress API to customize websites as per their clients’ needs. They work on both the front-end and back-end development of your WordPress website and write custom codes to customize themes, plugins, features, and functions.
Q4. How do I outsource WordPress development?
You can easily outsource WordPress development by finding a freelancer on one of the places we have suggested in our blog. However, make sure you perform your due diligence and go through a proper screening process to hire a freelancer for WordPress development.
Q5. What skills should a WordPress developer have?
While it depends on your project, most developers need to have knowledge of front-end technologies like jQuery, HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS3 to develop websites on WordPress. They should be skilled in programming and know how to use code versioning tools like Mercurial, Git, and SVN. In addition, you should be aware of back-end technologies such as Apache, PHP, and MySQL. Also, understand debugging tools and plugins like WordPress Query Monitor as well as website architecture.
Mansoor Ahmed Khan
Been in content marketing since 2014, and I still get a kick out of creating stories that resonate with the target audience and drive results. At Cloudways by DigitalOcean (a leading cloud hosting company, btw!), I lead a dream team of content creators. Together, we brainstorm, write, and churn out awesome content across all the channels: blogs, social media, emails, you name it! You can reach out to me at [email protected].