Plamen Kostadinov

Plamen Kostadinov Senior WordPress Developer

I develop custom
WordPress features
and integrations.

API imports, custom database tables, Gutenberg blocks and WordPress maintenance.

Explore the timeline View experience

01 / What I work on

Custom WordPress development

I develop WordPress features, connect websites to external services and build blocks for content editors. My experience also includes database design, performance troubleshooting, deployment workflows and server configuration.

Plugins, data and integrations

Custom plugins, API imports and integrations. Where the data requires it, I design custom SQL tables instead of using WordPress post meta.

Blocks and content editing

Reusable Gutenberg blocks and custom fields that let editors build pages and update content themselves.

Performance and deployments

Website performance, caching, deployments and Nginx/PHP-FPM configuration.

02 / Development experience, year by year

What I’ve worked on
and learned.

  1. Learning web development

    Learned HTML/CSS, JavaScript, PHP and custom WordPress development.

    • WordPress
    • PHP
    • HTML/CSS
    • JavaScript

  2. Custom WordPress sites

    Built basic custom sites and content structures in WordPress.

    • Custom themes
    • Content structures

    Integrations and commerce

    Worked on basic integrations and WooCommerce features.

    • WooCommerce
    • Integrations

  3. WooCommerce customisation

    Extended checkout, catalogue and integration behaviour in custom WordPress sites.

    • WooCommerce

    Working with unfamiliar code

    Learned to trace unfamiliar code and debug recurring problems.

    • Debugging

  4. Independent backend development

    Handled assigned WordPress backend tasks independently.

    • WordPress hooks

    Extending Carbon Fields

    Extended Carbon Fields with new field types and reusable features needed by client projects.

    • Carbon Fields
    • Custom fields

  5. Shared custom-field features

    Continued adding reusable features to Carbon Fields for client projects.

    • Framework development

    Multilingual sites and online shops

    Worked on custom features, online shops, multilingual sites and existing WordPress code.

    • WPML
    • Multisite

  6. Native admin interfaces

    Built custom admin interfaces with metadata handling, validation and sanitisation.

    • Metadata
    • Validation
    • Sanitisation
    • Composer

    AJAX content and third-party scripts

    Implemented dynamically loaded content with third-party script reinitialisation.

    • AJAX
    • Third-party scripts
    • JavaScript

    Development on Ubuntu

    Used Ubuntu, Apache, SSH and logs in everyday development and troubleshooting.

    • Ubuntu
    • Apache
    • SSH
    • Logs

  7. WordPress server configuration

    Maintained WordPress and its Nginx/PHP-FPM server configuration.

    • Nginx
    • PHP-FPM
    • AWS

    Forms and CRM integrations

    Connected website forms to marketing and sales tools.

    • Gravity Forms
    • ActiveCampaign
    • Pipedrive
    • Zapier

  8. ACF and Gutenberg blocks

    Built ACF blocks for Gutenberg, with PHP rendering on the frontend. Website rebuild

    • Gutenberg
    • ACF
    • PHP

    Webpack build configuration

    Built and maintained npm and Webpack configuration for website scripts and styles.

    • npm
    • Webpack
    • Sass
    • JavaScript

    Technical marketing integrations

    Implemented forms, automation, tracking and CRM connections.

    • GTM
    • Universal Analytics

  9. Deployment automation

    Helped establish and maintain branch-driven Jenkins/Ansible deployments.

    • Jenkins
    • Ansible
    • rsync
    • Git

    Frontend code review

    Reviewed frontend code and helped colleagues improve their implementations.

    • Code review

  10. Server configuration and performance

    Worked on Nginx, PHP-FPM and CloudFront configuration, website performance and security.

    • EC2
    • RDS
    • CloudFront

    Reusable editorial blocks

    Built reusable blocks that let the marketing team create pages themselves.

    • Custom blocks
    • Gutenberg
    • ACF

  11. Technical marketing operations

    Implemented tracking, consent, analytics migration and connected lead flows.

    • GA4
    • Cookiebot
    • GTM

    HubSpot and Salesforce integration

    Configured HubSpot and resolved synchronisation issues with Salesforce during transition.

    • HubSpot
    • Salesforce

  12. Deployment and development tools

    Worked with plugin-based features, Docker development environments and Composer-managed releases deployed through GitLab CI.

    • Composer
    • Docker
    • GitLab CI
    • Immutable releases

    Dynamic Gutenberg rendering

    Built Gutenberg blocks with React editor components, nested blocks and PHP rendering.

    • React
    • InnerBlocks
    • Gutenberg
    • PHP

    Shared build configuration

    Consolidated duplicated pnpm configuration into shared settings with local overrides.

    • pnpm
    • Node.js
    • Build configuration

  13. Custom relational SQL storage

    Designed custom SQL tables for imported data and manual overrides. Added batch processing and retries. Importer project

    • SQL
    • Custom schema
    • Source/override values
    • Batch processing
    • Retry queues
    • WordPress

    Monitoring dynamic content

    Built a plugin that used crawler results to check rendered pages for missing or duplicate content. Monitoring project

    • External crawler
    • Rendered output
    • JavaScript
    • AJAX
    • Geolocation

  14. Freelance WordPress work

    Maintained client websites, fixed bugs, added integrations and built small Gutenberg blocks.

    • Existing-stack maintenance

    AI-assisted development workflows

    Exploring how to use AI coding agents for research, writing, interface prototypes and development.

    • AI-assisted development
    • Agentic workflows
    • Codex

03 / Selected projects

Selected projects

Four examples of my work: an API importer, a company website rebuild, a monitoring plugin and build-tooling work.

IGAMING.COM · API importer

Rebuilding an API importer with custom SQL tables

Rebuilt an importer for multilingual API data using custom SQL tables. Imported values and manual edits were stored separately, so later imports preserved changes made by editors. Added batch processing and retries for failed items.

Full import timeat least two hours about 90 seconds

  • PHP
  • MySQL/SQL
  • API imports
Read the technical approach

Removing a manual override revealed the latest imported value again.

Contribution: database design, import processing, manual override handling and retries. The initial override UI was shared work.

Tick42 / Glue42 · Technical website ownership

Owning the technical rebuild of a company website

As technical owner of the company websites, I designed the WordPress architecture for the Glue42.com rebuild, chose the technical approach and built the backend and block system. I also maintained the Nginx/PHP-FPM setup on AWS, configured CloudFront, and helped establish a branch-driven Jenkins/Ansible deployment workflow.

  • WordPress
  • ACF/Gutenberg
  • Nginx
Read about the rebuild

Performance and maintainability shaped the technical decisions from the start. I added shared code for block registration, templates and layout options, so the marketing team could create pages and landing pages without routine developer help.

Contribution: WordPress architecture and backend implementation, shared block code, the Webpack/NPM build setup, Nginx/PHP-FPM and CloudFront configuration, performance work, and the Jenkins/Ansible deployment workflow. Visual design and frontend HTML/CSS were collaborative work.

IGAMING.COM · Content monitoring

Checking pages for missing or duplicate content

Built a WordPress plugin that checked for missing or duplicate content from several internal plugins. It used results from an external crawler to check rendered pages, including content affected by JavaScript, AJAX and geolocation.

  • WordPress
  • PHP
  • Monitoring
See the monitoring approach

Checking the rendered page avoided reproducing each plugin’s logic inside the monitoring code.

Contribution: the WordPress monitoring plugin and its integration with crawler results. The external crawler was built by others.

iO Bulgaria / Peytz · Build tooling

Consolidating pnpm setup across WordPress projects

The iO Digital portfolio had around 100 client websites. At least five sites had more than 20 separate pnpm setups each. I consolidated duplicated configuration into a shared setup at the project root across multiple WordPress projects.

  • pnpm
  • Node.js
  • Build configuration
Read about the tooling change

The new structure kept local flexibility while giving the project one place to maintain common frontend dependencies and tooling.

Contribution: extracted common configuration from at least five different structures—including blocks, plugins and themes—and moved pnpm setup to the root of each project I updated.

Experience and CV

Roles, responsibilities, technologies, education and languages.

View experience / CV ↗

04 / Contact

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