Engineering Head and WordPress Expert
I’m Yoren Chang, currently the Head of Engineering at CosmicGiant as my full-time job, and I’m also running my own WordPress plugin development business on the side. Switching back and forth between the two roles keeps me always on top of the industry and benefits both my employer and clients, as I pass knowledge from both sides so we all grow together.
Journey from Political Science to Software Engineering
Being a professional software engineer has been my dream job when I was just graduating from the university 20+ years ago. Coming from a Political Science background, it was seemingly impossible to switch gears at that time. But soon I realized it was actually my advantage because I’m much more communicable and approachable than regular developers and engineers, which hugely benefited my freelancing business in the first ten years. And eventually, when I shifted my focus to WordPress plugin development, it led me to the great team at Rocketgenius for the role of a senior developer, and now a manager role at CosmicGiant, to sum up my past experiences in software engineering.
Highlighted Works
Gravity Forms Add-ons
I’ve worked at Rocketgenius for four years (2018-2022) and was heavily focusing on third-party API integrations. My works include: Stripe, PayPal Checkout, Mollie, and other CRM add-ons. Now I’m working at CosmicGiant with two of my former colleagues from RG, and we keep building solid Gravity Forms solutions. Be sure to check our products to see if you can find something that suits your needs.
Client Portal
Client Portal is the very first commercial WordPress plugin I’ve built. I was hired by Laura in 2016 to turn her idea into a WordPress plugin business, and we’ve worked together on it ever since. CP is a unique product in the WordPress space, the founder is non-technical, and the target audience is also very non-technical. In 2024, we are going to bring it to another level by completely rewriting it to utilize the Block Editor. I’m very proud of what will be released in late March.
Other WordPress Plugins
I have built several small plugins and hosted them on the wp.org repo. Most of them are not receiving updates nowadays, but one or two of them still are. Seeing them still being used and trusted by hundreds of websites is very satisfying as an open-source enthusiast.
Freelancing Services Offered
I’m open to take WordPress related development work on a freelancing basis. There are two collaborating styles I’m offering:
Pay as You Go
USD $600 as a unit for 5-hour of development work. Once you fund the payment, I will code your WordPress project for five hours. This would be ideal for clients who have a minimum amount of development work like website or plugin maintenance.
Moonlighting
USD $3,000/month: to hire me as a part-time developer in your team. This is not on a subscription just I will send out the invoice every month and the work will start once payment is funded. There will be no guaranteed working hours per week or month, but I offer a FULL refund for the month if you’re not happy with the deliverables.
This is ideal for clients who run a WordPress-related business and have the capacity to hire a part-timer to work on the products in a professional manner, like adding automated tests and ensuring its security. Basically, stabilize the products and also enhance its features.
Unique Selling Propositions
What makes my offerings unique in this freelancing market are:
Self-Management and Results
You don’t have to manage me: I’ve hired employees and also freelancers, and the best of the professionals are people who manage themselves well, and you only have to deal with the results. With almost 20 years in the web industry and most of the time as a freelancer, I’m very good at managing myself, and optimize my workflow so my clients can all get the best results.
Flexible Payment with Guaranteed Results
According to talent.com, a senior WordPress developer’s average salary in 2024 is USD $95,000 per year, this does not include other benefits or health care. For many of you that are not ready to hire a full-time in-house developer yet but do have the need to work with talent who can deliver or maintain your project, I’m the best available option in the market.
Passion for Building Products
I’m passionate about building products and have firsthand experience in top-notch teams: I’ve learned all the best practices on software engineering back when I was in the product team at Rocketgenius. I write secure, accessible, and testable code. I’ve always been passionate about building software but instead of coming up with ideas by myself, I enjoy more of fulfilling someone else’s vision. If you’re more of a designer or a general non-technical founder, I’m the person you’re looking for.
Commitment to Your Project’s Success
I commit and help your project across the finish line: Starting a new project is exciting, but if you’ve been there, you know how hard it is to ship it. It may be perfectionism, or scope creep, or your cat accidentally deletes everything from your computer 🐈. In the past, I’ve helped big projects to cross the finish line no matter what. Like the GravityForm.com redesign in 2021, several major Gravity Forms add-ons’ initial releases, including PayPal Checkout and Mollie, also most recently, I pushed the launch for CosmicGiant OTP add-on along with Client Portal Five.
Ready to Collaborate?
If you’re interested in working with me, especially to ship your first WordPress plugin, shoot me an email at yoren [at] 1fix.io, and we can go from there. Or if you fancy a physical meetup, I now live in Tokyo, Japan, and sometimes I travel back to my hometown Taipei, Taiwan, we can always grab a drink and chat.
Oh and if you still call that thing “Twitter”, please definitely follow me and I will follow you back.