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WordPress is an open-source content management system (CMS) that has been around for about two decades now. Originally created as a simple platform to administer and publish blogs, it quickly became a system capable of building full-fledged websites and powering web-based systems and applications. WordPress today is the backbone of 43% of all websites , and there are about 2 billion websites as of 2022, meaning WP’s market share stands at a mind-boggling 900 million websites, give or take.
WordPress is written in PHP and uses a MySQL or MariaDB database, and SQL queries are inserted into some PHP markup. HTML and CSS help define and style the content displayed to the visitor, while JavaScript enhances functionality. From this foundation, almost any programming language, framework, library, or other technology can be utilized to further adapt WordPress to your specific needs.
With the right freelance WordPress theme developer, you can get your site designed the way you envision, while a great freelance WordPress plugin developer can modify existing functions or enable entirely new features on your site. A knowledgeable WordPress database developer might be what you need if you’re working with massive tables or require additional back-end expertise. But, if you find the right freelance WordPress developer, they’ll likely be able to manage most or all of these areas on their own.
Some of the crucial skills WordPress developers need are PHP, SQL, JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. WordPress theme developers should have considerable experience with tools you may already be using for your projects, like Figma or Invision, and they should also understand basic UI/UX best practices, general site architecture elements, Bootstrap, and current web design principles.
WordPress plugin developers should understand general database administration procedures, be up to date with the latest WP functionality, and be able to work with Ajax, jQuery, JSON, APIs, and other related technologies. All WP developers you’re considering should be able to use or quickly adapt to your chosen project management, version control, and code management systems (e.g., GitHub, Monday, Asana, Bitbucket). And, knowledge of adjacent JS frameworks and libraries is vital, as well, such as React, Angular, Vue, and Node.js.
Aside from these technical skills for WordPress developers, the best freelance candidates will possess important soft skills, as well. As a freelance WordPress coder will probably work remotely, they’ll need to have solid communication skills, time management skills, and autonomy. WordPress releases core updates (usually) every few months, meaning your prospective hire should have the flexibility to adapt to recent changes and a growth mindset that pushes them to stay on top of the latest and greatest when it comes to WordPress development.
The length of a project depends on many factors, including the scope of your project and the technical complexity of it. When you post a freelance WordPress project request on Codementor, you’ll have the option to indicate when you’d expect the project to be completed. We suggest chatting with the interested developers to ensure both sides are on the same page. For more information on how to post a freelance WordPress request on Codementor, check out our article.
We don’t charge anything when you post a freelance hiring request for WordPress developers! You’ll have the chance to determine what the budget for your project is when you post the request. You’ll only need to pay the developer if you’re 100% satisfied with their work. Please know that Codementor charges a small service fee when a developer completes the job.
Though WordPress started out as a simple CMS designed to power personal blogs, you can now build just about anything with it. From e-commerce storefronts and gorgeous company portfolios to community forums and learning management systems (LMS), WordPress can do it all. Many of the world’s most visited websites use WordPress in whole or in part, including such brands as The New York Times , the Walt Disney Company, Toyota Brazil, Wired, Fortune, Facebook Newsroom, and Microsoft News.
WordPress has a great community of paid and volunteer developers pitching in to constantly and consistently improve it. It is extremely versatile, able to handle and do just about anything you might dream up. However, there are some tradeoffs — because of that massive flexibility, WP can get “heavy” and respond slower than purpose-built websites and some other site builders. But, if you have a great WordPress freelance software developer helping you out, you’ll be able to tweak things to spec (hopefully) without sacrificing performance or security.
We do a comprehensive technical and communications screen of all WordPress developers at Codementor. Our network includes book authors, popular open source contributors, top Stack Overflow users and engineers at top tech companies. In addition, to continually ensure the quality of our freelancers, we regularly check in on existing WordPress developers’ user satisfaction rates.
For general freelance WordPress developers, ask candidates questions about their experience with the platform. How long have they been developing for Wordpress? Do they stay up to date with the latest WP practices? Do they actively play around with new versions of WordPress before they’re released to the public? Do they contribute to WordPress?
If you’re looking to hire a WordPress theme developer or WP plugin developer, ask to see samples of past work, either combined into a neat portfolio or simply links to past projects that are now live. For plugin devs, does their past work seem to fit into what you might expect from them? For theme devs, are the past projects in line with how you might envision the layout, structure, and overall look of your project?
Technical WordPress interview questions are important, sure, but don’t forget the others. Focus on soft skills, as well. Use the interview itself to determine how well they communicate, for example. Ask them about their problem-solving skills, how they make decisions, and how well they manage their time and work autonomously. This segues nicely into the freelancer-specific questions to end it off, including how the partnership will work, how payments will work (and how much), etc.
For more answers to frequently asked questions, see here.