Wordpress Developer

Senior WordPress Engineer

Location: Fully Remote (UK working-hours overlap required)

Contract Type: 12 months

Industry: Media, Publishing & Technology

About the Opportunity

We are working with a leading organisation in the media and publishing industry that is looking for an experienced Senior WordPress Engineer to join its engineering team.

You will help develop and maintain an enterprise-scale, headless WordPress publishing platform supporting some of the UK's most recognisable media brands.

The platform serves millions of readers across websites and mobile applications, providing journalists and editorial teams with sophisticated content creation and publishing tools.

This is an opportunity to work on a technically complex WordPress environment, combining advanced PHP engineering with modern frontend technologies including React and TypeScript.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, develop and maintain custom WordPress plugins, platform functionality and integrations.
• Build and enhance custom Gutenberg blocks using React and TypeScript.
• Develop and maintain headless WordPress architecture, including REST APIs and structured content models.
• Support a multi-tenant WordPress environment serving multiple brands and digital properties.
• Improve platform performance, scalability, caching and security.
• Build integrations with editorial, content planning and syndication systems.
• Support the migration and consolidation of websites onto shared enterprise infrastructure.
• Write automated tests, conduct code reviews and maintain high engineering standards.
• Collaborate with product managers, engineers and editorial stakeholders to deliver new functionality.
• Mentor other engineers and contribute to architectural and technical decisions.

Essential Skills and Experience

• Strong commercial experience developing enterprise WordPress applications and platforms.
• Expert PHP development skills, including deep knowledge of WordPress core, hooks, APIs and internals.
• Proven experience developing custom Gutenberg blocks using React and TypeScript.
• Experience building custom WordPress plugins rather than relying primarily on themes or page builders.
• Strong understanding of headless WordPress architecture and REST API development.
• Experience with WordPress multisite or multi-tenant architecture.
• Knowledge of performance optimisation, caching, security and scalability.
• Experience with automated testing, particularly PHPUnit.
• Familiarity with Composer and modern PHP development practices.
• Strong understanding of SOLID principles and maintainable software architecture.
• Experience working collaboratively through code reviews and CI/CD processes.

Desirable Experience

• WordPress VIP or similar enterprise WordPress hosting environments.
• Experience building publishing platforms, editorial tools or content management solutions.
• Working with high-traffic websites serving millions of users.
• Content syndication and third-party editorial integrations.
• Experience with CircleCI.
• Previous involvement in platform migrations or consolidating multiple websites.
• Experience using AI-assisted development tools such as Claude Code, Cursor or Codex.

What We're Looking For

We are particularly interested in engineers who understand WordPress beyond traditional website development.

The ideal candidate will have experience building complex WordPress platforms, creating custom functionality and developing scalable solutions for demanding production environments.

You should be equally comfortable working with PHP on the backend and React/TypeScript within Gutenberg, with the ability to take technical ownership and collaborate with both engineering and non-technical stakeholders.

Why Consider This Opportunity?

• Work on a large-scale publishing platform supporting millions of readers.
• Develop sophisticated editorial tools used by journalists every day.
• Work with modern WordPress architecture, React, TypeScript and headless technologies.
• Contribute to technical decisions across a complex multi-brand environment.
• Join an experienced engineering team focused on quality, scalability and innovation.
• Enjoy fully remote working with good overlap with UK business hours.

Interview Process

1. Initial CV review and recruiter screening.
2. Client profile review.
3. Technical take-home assessment.
4. Technical pair-programming interview.
5. Final decision and offer.

Interested?

If you have extensive enterprise WordPress experience and enjoy building complex publishing platforms, we'd be keen to hear from you.