3 → 1
Three sites, one codebase
Consolidating three marketing websites into a single maintainable platform, so every change ships once instead of three times.
Hi, I’m Kate Kulikova · Tech Lead
Senior
WordPress
Developer
8+ years owning complex WordPress and WooCommerce platforms end to end — architecture, business logic, integrations and releases.
Recent work: a regulated UK online pharmacy, a Swiss digital asset bank and a multi-site EdTech platform.
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8+ Years in WordPress
engineering -
3 Developer team
led hands-on -
~80 Developers
trained
- Role
- Senior WordPress Developer
Tech Lead - Experience
- 8+ years
2 as team lead - Tech stack
- PHP 8 · WordPress · WooCommerce · ACF Pro · REST API
- Location
- Elche, Spain · CET/CEST
- Work format
- Remote only
full-time or B2B - Work authorization
- Authorized to work in Spain
- Notice period
- 2 weeks
- Languages
- English (B2)
Ukrainian, Russian (native)
Spanish (A1)
About me
A WordPress engineer who takes ownership
I’m Kate (Kateryna) Kulikova, a senior WordPress developer based in Elche, Spain, working remotely with product and engineering teams across the UK, US and Europe.
For more than eight years I’ve worked on WordPress projects that go well beyond themes: regulated e-commerce, fintech, multi-site platforms and legacy codebases that needed a steady hand. I’ve been the sole engineer responsible for a company’s entire web ecosystem, and the hands-on lead of a three-developer team — owning estimates, code review, releases and communication with stakeholders.
What teams value most is judgement: knowing what should be custom, what should stay a plugin and what isn’t worth building at all — and explaining those trade-offs clearly to people who aren’t developers.
Currently open to senior and lead WordPress roles — fully remote, full-time or long-term B2B contract.
What I bring to your team
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Platform ownership
Architecture, estimates, implementation and releases — end to end. I’m used to being the person who knows how the whole platform fits together and keeps it that way.
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Complex WooCommerce logic
Custom checkout, cart and subscription flows, role-based dashboards, payments and delivery integrations — business rules built as reliable code, not a stack of plugins.
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Integrations & architecture
REST API design, WebSockets, Elasticsearch and third-party services, plus multi-site and multilingual platforms on a maintainable Composer and Blade codebase.
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Legacy modernization
I stabilize codebases other developers left behind, introduce standards and documentation, and refactor where it actually pays off.
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Performance & stability
Caching strategy, media offloading, query optimization and Core Web Vitals work — with releases planned so production stays calm.
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Technical leadership
Task breakdown, code review, technical interviews, onboarding and mentoring — the work that makes the whole team faster, not just my own tickets.
Highlights
What I’ve delivered
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4
Role-based dashboards
Designed the full prescription workflow of a regulated UK online pharmacy across four user roles.
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Real-time
Patient support chat
Built live chat between patients and pharmacists over WebSockets inside a WooCommerce platform.
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20+
Websites launched
Developed and shipped 20+ custom WordPress websites, from design handoff to launch and support.
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Fintech
Security-reviewed platform
Built a reusable Gutenberg block library and hardened a high-traffic site together with the in-house security team of a Swiss digital asset bank.
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10+
Integrations delivered
Worldpay, DPD, Royal Mail, CoinGecko, Elasticsearch, CRMs and custom REST APIs connected to WordPress and WooCommerce.
Experience
8+ years in WordPress engineering
Full-Stack WordPress Developer @ Flexreality
Aug 2025 – Present
- Sole developer for the web ecosystem of an AR EdTech company (ARBook): architecture, estimates, implementation and releases, aligned directly with the marketing team.
- Consolidating three marketing websites into one maintainable codebase built with Blade templating and Composer.
- Integrated the ARBook REST API and Elasticsearch across the ecosystem and support the connected WooCommerce store.
- Stabilized a legacy codebase and defined ACF Flexible Content and theme architecture standards.
- Onboard part-time developers and review their estimates and code before release.
WordPress Developer & Project Lead @ Instandart
Jun 2023 – Aug 2025
- Led a three-developer team (two backend, one frontend) on a UK online pharmacy platform while staying hands-on.
- Owned task breakdown, estimates, deadlines, client communication and production releases.
- Architected dashboards for four user roles and the full prescription workflow; integrated Worldpay payments and DPD and Royal Mail delivery APIs.
- Built real-time patient support chat over WebSockets.
- Ran technical interviews for WordPress developer candidates and wrote assessments that informed hiring decisions.
WordPress Developer @ S-PRO
Apr 2022 – Aug 2023
- Developed and optimized features for scalable WordPress projects, including the high-traffic website of a Swiss digital asset bank.
- Built custom solutions with ACF Pro, Gutenberg, Elementor, WooCommerce and REST APIs.
- Worked in a Scrum team: sprint planning, estimation and retrospectives.
WordPress Developer @ URICH
Nov 2020 – Apr 2022
- Improved site performance through Amazon S3 media offloading, caching and targeted WordPress optimization.
- Developed custom WooCommerce subscription and cart logic.
- Introduced an internal QA process and documentation that made project handover and onboarding consistent.
Web Developer @ GROM Branding Agency & Freelance
Nov 2018 – Oct 2020
- Delivered 20+ custom WordPress websites for small businesses and personal brands, from design handoff to launch and support.
- Managed hosting, SSL, domain email and production support.
- Coordinated freelance teams of two to four people on larger projects.
WordPress Developer · part-time @ Darly Solutions
Jun 2023 – Mar 2026
- Delivered custom WordPress projects alongside full-time roles, including the Watermark Creative portfolio platform.
- Built custom user roles, self-managed artist portfolios, tag-based artwork search, access controls and content protection for private creative work.
WordPress Developer · part-time @ Secret Stache
Nov 2023 – Sep 2024
- Developed complex WordPress websites for US-based clients on a custom Laravel-like framework, part-time alongside a full-time role.
- Used Extended CPTs, ACF Builder and FacetWP to build maintainable content structures and advanced search and filtering.
- Collaborated with design and backend teams across time zones to keep implementation and delivery consistent.
Technical skills
WordPress, WooCommerce and the stack around them
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WordPress Architecture
Custom themes and plugins, ACF Pro and Flexible Content, CPTs and taxonomies, custom roles and capabilities, bespoke Gutenberg blocks, Blade and Composer, WP-CLI.
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WooCommerce & Business Logic
Custom checkout, cart and subscription logic, role-based dashboards, order lifecycle automation, payment and delivery integrations.
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Performance & Scale
Core Web Vitals, caching layers (WP Rocket, WP Super Cache, EWWW), Amazon S3 media offloading, Elasticsearch and FacetWP search, high-traffic environments.
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API & Integrations
REST API design and consumption, WebSockets, payment gateways (Worldpay), delivery APIs (DPD, Royal Mail), CoinGecko, CRM forms, multilingual and multi-site platforms.
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Engineering Practices
PHP 8+ and OOP, JavaScript ES6+ and TypeScript, Docker, Git, GitHub Actions and GitLab CI, release management, security hardening.
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Leadership & Standards
Technical estimation, code review, technical interviews and hiring, documentation, developer onboarding, stakeholder communication, Scrum.
Leadership
Leading teams.
Beyond my own tickets.
I like making the people around me faster — through clear tasks, useful code review and standards that outlast any one project.
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Team lead
Led a three-developer team on a regulated platform, hands-on.
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Technical hiring
Ran interviews and wrote assessments for WordPress roles.
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Onboarding
Brought new and part-time developers up to speed.
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Code review
Reviewed estimates and code before every release.
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Standards
Defined theme and ACF architecture standards.
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Documentation
Wrote docs and QA processes that made handover easy.
Teaching & mentoring
Sharing knowledge.
Building developers.
10 cohorts · ~80 students
- Designed a full course from scratch: turning finished HTML layouts into custom WordPress themes.
- Taught around 10 cohorts of 8–10 students over a year.
- Reviewed every assignment with individual written code feedback.
- Several students went on to work in IT professionally.
- One former student is now a trusted collaborator on client projects.
How I work
How I work in a team
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Understand the problem
Before estimating, I want to know what breaks today, who it affects and what “done” actually means. Most bad estimates start as questions nobody asked.
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Decide what to build
Core business logic is worth owning and testing; commodity features can safely stay a plugin. I make that trade-off explicit for the team.
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Estimate honestly
A written breakdown with the risky parts named out loud. Where something is uncertain I say so, rather than quietly padding the number.
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Build in visible slices
Work lands in reviewable pieces on staging, so product, design and QA can react while change is still cheap.
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Release without drama
Deployment steps, checks and a rollback plan agreed in advance. A release should be the least interesting part of the week.
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Hand over properly
Documentation, coding standards and onboarding notes, so the next developer isn’t starting from zero.
Testimonials
What managers and colleagues say
FAQ
Common questions
Do you need visa sponsorship?
No. I’m authorized to work in Spain and don’t need visa sponsorship. I work on a B2B contract through my own registered business.
What’s your notice period?
Two weeks. If a project needs a longer handover, I plan it with my current team so nothing is left half-finished.
Are you open to relocation?
Not at the moment — I’m looking for fully remote roles and work from Elche, Spain. I’m happy to travel for occasional team meetups.
Which time zones can you work in?
I’m on Central European Time and comfortably overlap with UK and US East Coast hours. For West Coast teams we can agree on a shared window.
What’s your English level?
B2 — I run stand-ups, technical interviews and client calls in English every day. Ukrainian and Russian are native, Spanish is A1 and improving.
Do you have leadership experience?
Yes. I’ve been the hands-on lead of a three-developer team — owning estimates, code review, releases and communication with stakeholders — and I’ve interviewed WordPress candidates and onboarded new developers.
What technologies do you work with?
WordPress and WooCommerce first of all: PHP, MySQL, REST APIs and WebSockets, Sage/Blade and Composer-based codebases, plus JavaScript on the front end. I pick tools for the problem, not the other way around.
Anything else I should know?
I care about ownership: I’d rather understand the business problem than just close a ticket. If that sounds like your team, tell me about the role — the form below is the quickest way.
Get in touch
Let’s talk about
your team
Hiring for a senior or lead WordPress role? Send me the job description or a few lines about the team and the stack.
I reply within two working days.
- kulikovka.kyki@gmail.com
- Telegram / WhatsApp
- +34643251865
- linkedin.com/in/katekulikova
- Location
- Elche, Spain