Byron Keet, Developer in Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa
Byron is available for hire
Hire Byron

Byron Keet

Verified Expert  in Engineering

WordPress Developer

Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa

Toptal member since February 24, 2022

Bio

Byron is a full-stack web developer specializing in WordPress, including developing and maintaining custom themes and plugins and building custom Gutenberg blocks. As a highly qualified investment manager, he made the change to the magical world of web development because of the wonder and excitement of bringing ideas to life in the digital world and using open-source software to uplift and empower all, including those with the most limited means.

Portfolio

Freelance Web Developer
JavaScript, PHP, WordPress, HTML, CSS, React, Gutenberg Editor

Experience

  • PHP - 4 years
  • WordPress - 4 years
  • MySQL - 3 years
  • HTML - 3 years
  • JavaScript - 3 years
  • CSS - 3 years
  • React - 1 year
  • Gutenberg Editor - 1 year

Availability

Part-time

Preferred Environment

MacOS, Apache, NGINX, PHP, Linux, MySQL, React, WordPress, Gutenberg Editor, WordPress Plugins

The most amazing...

...thing I've built was a stream-based backup solution. An average site took one minute to backup without using any disk space and limited max memory to 50 MB.

Work Experience

Full-stack Web Developer

2019 - 2022
Freelance Web Developer
  • Built custom themes and plugins using the Understrap theme as a base.
  • Developed custom Classic and Gutenberg block-based plugins.
  • Provided customer support, troubleshooting client-specific issues and bugs.
Technologies: JavaScript, PHP, WordPress, HTML, CSS, React, Gutenberg Editor

Experience

Hello Charts

Hello Charts is a block-first and beautiful way to add charts to a WordPress website. As part of Hello WP, a 3-person team, we create block-editor native plugins for WordPress. I am one of two developers building out the Gutenberg-based plugin. We use Chart.js to bring each chart to life and make it fully customizable for the user's needs. Hello, Charts is in continuous development.

See the Git repo here: https://github.com/hello-wp/hello-charts.

KoalaBoss

http://koalaboss.com
KoalaBoss is a WordPress maintenance platform solution. I was involved in building the file and database backup and restore stream on the WordPress plugin side, which uses the AWS SDK and interfaces with the KoalaBoss API. Instead of a traditional zip file backup solution, which takes a lot of time and memory to zip large files and needs additional disk space to store the zip files, I used the Amazon S3 stream wrapper to connect directly to an AWS S3 bucket and stream the files unzipped to AWS for storage. Not only did it take seconds to stream the files (limited to the bandwidth speed supplied by the host), but it also used very limited memory to do so by restricting 50 MB to be stored in memory at any time. This also meant that the client didn't need any additional disk space to run backups on their server.

Visser Labs

http://visser.com.au
I handled all client support and feature development of the WooCommerce Store Exporter for two years. These plugins are exclusively for exporting and importing WooCommerce data. I did major upgrades, such as integrating Google Sheets and migrating from old libraries to PhpSpreadsheet, fixed bugs, and delivered custom jobs.

https://wordpress.org/plugins/woocommerce-exporter/ - and Product Importer

https://wordpress.org/plugins/woocommerce-product-importer/ - free and pro plugins.

Australian Turf Club

I worked as part of the WordPress team to develop a plugin that interfaced with Microsoft Dynamics CRM as we built out a new members portal. The WordPress theme made use of the Sage Roots file structure. The plugin was called Caviar and pulled in information from the user database in Dynamics to direct members to different portals based on their membership. The membership determined which login page to use, which products they could buy, and what benefits they were entitled to. I was initially brought in to handle all WooCommerce matters, but I contributed to additional areas inside the WordPress space as the project grew.

Crankit Fitness

Crankit Fitness was a freelance job to make design and SEO improvements on the existing site and add more features to the existing WordPress theme. I used ACF and CPT to display post data and SCSS for styling.

Safari Frank

I assisted in the maintenance and feature development of the complex WordPress theme for Safari Frank. The site specialized in providing custom wildlife adventures in Africa for international tourists. The theme used ACF, WPML, Gravity Forms, interactive maps, and more.

Dead Drop Productions

DDP was my first-ever site built from the ground up using Node.js, Express.js, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. The site is for a music producer to download raw tracks from clients and mix and master the files before uploading the finished product to the cloud for downloading.

https://github.com/byronkeet/DeadDropProductions

Education

2008 - 2010

Bachelor's Degree in Bcom Finance

University of Johannesburg - Johannesburg, South Africa

Certifications

MARCH 2021 - PRESENT

Programming Languages, Part B – Dan Grossman

Coursera

FEBRUARY 2021 - PRESENT

Programming Languages, Part A – Dan Grossman

Coursera

JANUARY 2021 - PRESENT

How to Code: Complex Data – Gregor Kiczales

edX

DECEMBER 2020 - PRESENT

How to Code: Simple Data – Gregor Kiczales

EdX

JUNE 2014 - PRESENT

Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA)

CFA Institute

Skills

Libraries/APIs

React, WordPress API, Node.js

Tools

Gutenberg Editor, Apache, NGINX, Advanced Custom Fields (ACF), WPML

Languages

PHP, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, SCSS

Platforms

WordPress, WooCommerce, DigitalOcean, MacOS, Linux, Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Frameworks

Express.js

Paradigms

Functional Programming

Storage

MySQL, MongoDB

Other

WordPress Themes, WordPress Plugins, Financial Management, Investments & Risk Management, Tax Accounting, Statistics, Asset Valuation, Investment Manager, Planning, Data Representation, Code Architecture, Custom Post Types, Finance

Collaboration That Works

How to Work with Toptal

Toptal matches you directly with global industry experts from our network in hours—not weeks or months.

1

Share your needs

Discuss your requirements and refine your scope in a call with a Toptal domain expert.
2

Choose your talent

Get a short list of expertly matched talent within 24 hours to review, interview, and choose from.
3

Start your risk-free talent trial

Work with your chosen talent on a trial basis for up to two weeks. Pay only if you decide to hire them.

Top talent is in high demand.

Start hiring