This time around we have invited Pierre, web developer and designer to our interview series. He has been freelancing for more than 10 years and currently working at Codeable.io as a freelance WordPress developer. So let’s explore how he started his career with WordPress and what’s the experience so far.
Cloudways: Hi Pierre, thank you for taking out some time for this interview. Before we start this interview, could you please introduce yourself to our readers?
Pierre: Thank you for having me! I am a web developer and graphic designer from France living with my son and two cats in a rural area. I have been freelancing for 10+ years now; nowadays, I mainly focus on custom WordPress development and integration with React JS and React Native.
Cloudways: Our readers would love to know when and how did you start your career with WordPress? Is there an interesting story behind this? What were the challenges you faced in the beginning and how did you tackle them?
Pierre: I’ve studied Graphic Design but I always played around with HTML and CSS for fun. 10 years ago, I moved to Brazil and had to find an activity for the first few weeks to practice my Portuguese. A local NGO called Projeto Ammor was looking for a graphic designer to reposition their identity and website. Their website was using WordPress; that was the first time I worked with WordPress and immediately learned how to customize a theme and implement new features. After that, I started working for a couple of years for an American graphic design studio called Yippa. As a curious geek, I accepted taking on WordPress gigs and started playing around more and more with the CMS we all love! I never really left it since.
Cloudways: You are currently working at Codeable.io as a freelance WordPress developer. What are your responsibilities there? And how do you manage your work?
Pierre: I’ve been working as a WordPress developer on Codeable for more than two years now. It’s a great place to be as a freelancer. I focus on what I enjoy and do best: creating custom WordPress experiences and integrating WordPress with external APIs, mobile apps, etc. I’m starting to have more and more returning clients on the platform which is great, but I do spend time replying to new clients and new projects.
The Slack channel has some excellent content and vibes. The Experts community and the entire Codeable team are both great to work with, making Codeable an awesome place to be as a freelance WordPress developer.
Cloudways: Would you like to share some tips and tricks for those who are just starting with WordPress?
Pierre: Be curious, read the docs, and build your own things with WordPress! And if you ever feel stuck, don’t hesitate and ask the community; Twitter, Slack, Meetups, WordCamps, etc. The best thing about WordPress is its community, so use it and give back!
Cloudways: We would love to see your development workflow? What tools do you use for your WordPress projects?
Pierre: Depending on the project size, I like to use Freedcamp with my non-Codeable clients to gather all the tasks and discussions in one single place. I’ve been using VS Code for years now, it’s a very powerful IDE. I use Git in almost every project. I run my local websites on a Vagrant (VVV) virtual machine. I’m an avid fan of WP CLI (“wp shell” and, more recently, Tinkerwell) to play around with bits of code. I like to use ComposePress as a starter kit for my plugins and Roots Sage for my themes. I sometimes use ngrok to share my local WIP with my clients. I use Sketch and Affinity Designer to create designs and usually share them with my clients using the Marvel App.
Cloudways: As a WordPress developer, you definitely have worked on several projects during your professional career. Could you please tell our readers some of the best projects that you are proud of?
Pierre: Sure! Last year, I worked on a very challenging project where I had to develop a custom offline-first React Native mobile application fully integrated with a custom WordPress backend for agricultural workers to take measurements in seed silos. It involved JWT authentication, lots of custom API routes for the mobile app to communicate with WordPress, and much much more!
I’ve also worked on a full rebuild of the MadeByTeachers.com marketplace; I designed and created a brand new theme, and I had to build a custom dashboard for vendors with many new cool features (front-end products management, sale-throwing system, Q&A and Feedback forms, etc.).
And finally, I’ve sold and refactored one of my WordPress side-projects to create the Miam.store website. It’s kind of a “Uber Eats clone” where restaurant owners from Guadeloupe can publish their own restaurant page and food menu in WooCommerce. I built a complete WordPress e-commerce experience from scratch, integrating with a custom payment gateway, and developed many React JS widgets for the front-end dashboard. It was great fun!
Cloudways: Hosting providers are also helping users to get started with WordPress. Which type of hosting you would prefer for your clients? What are the benefits of hosting a site on cloud hosting than conventional shared hosting?
Pierre: Because I’d rather focus on what I love doing (crafting custom WP thingies), I love when my clients’ hosting is fully managed like on Cloudways. Security, backups and auto-scaling, and many other features are not a problem anymore; we can focus on our own expertise without having to worry about the technical aspects of setting up a performant hosting solution.
Shared hosting performance can be very random and rarely offers proper SSH access to a site. I love to automate things with SSH and WP CLI, so that’s a big plus for me.
Cloudways: Being a WordPress developer and designer, you must be well aware of themes and plugins. Would you like to share your favorite themes and plugins? What makes them stand out from the competition?
Pierre: I’d be honest; I don’t have extensive knowledge of the themes’ ecosystem because I usually craft custom themes for my clients. But when it comes to plugins, I have a few favorites: WooCommerce for e-commerce, Query Monitor for debugging, WP Simple Pay for integrating with Stripe, WP Forms for creating forms, Carbon Fields for custom fields, etc. I always try to find well-coded plugins with lots of hooks to alter and customize their behavior.
Cloudways: Sometimes it is hard to balance work and personal life. So what do you enjoy doing in your spare time? Would you like to tell us about your hobbies? Also, if you read books, can you name your favorite three?
Pierre: This year, I’ve started focusing a lot more on “clearing my mind” to handle stressful situations in my job better. I like going for a run in the middle of the workday to refresh a tangled brain. I also enjoy meditation a few times a day. I also enjoy (and miss) long sessions in a climbing gym for a complete reset, body, and mind.
It could be pretty hard to pick my favorite ones, but I’d go with “Mr. Vertigo” by Paul Auster, “The Shadow of the Wind” by Carlos Ruiz Zafón and “Nous rêvions juste de liberté” by Henri Lœvenbruck.
Cloudways: It would be great if you can share an image of your workstation for our readers. Thank you!
Pierre:
Sajjad Shahid
Sajjad is an Ecommerce Community Manager at Cloudways. He loves helping out Ecommerce store owners, merchants and marketers in establishing their businesses and startups. Sajjad enjoys playing table tennis and cricket over the weekend.
