
Leon Chevalier
Verified Expert in Engineering
WordPress Developer
Barcelona, Spain
Toptal member since February 25, 2020
Leon is a talented full-stack WordPress, PHP, and JavaScript developer with expertise in site speed optimization. He's experienced in leading tech teams and completing software development projects on time and within budget. Fluent in four languages, he's a developer who's as happy talking strategy with the board as he is debating standards with coders.
Portfolio
Experience
- PHP - 15 years
- JavaScript - 15 years
- MySQL - 15 years
- CSS - 15 years
- WordPress - 10 years
- jQuery - 10 years
- REST APIs - 10 years
- Site Speed Optimization - 10 years
Availability
Preferred Environment
Slack, Microsoft Project, Adobe Experience Design (XD), Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Visual Studio Code (VS Code), Windows
The most amazing...
...thing I've developed is a turn-key WordPress content generation solution that combined logic-based AI with human microworkers.
Work Experience
WordPress Developer
Discover Healing
- Conducted an extensive initial audit of site issues, including optimization and security.
- Optimized the WordPress installation to diagnose and fix many performance issues.
- Achieved an average Core Web Vitals score of 96/100 sitewide.
- Performed a complete plugin performance review and reduced the number of used plugins by 20%.
- Coded extensive custom changes to the "My Account" area of WooCommerce, including easy user avatars.
- Coded a customized advanced permissions system to extend WordPress's roles and capabilities system.
- Installed security plugins, instigated security procedures, and documented security practices.
WordPress/WooCommerce Optimization Expert
Mood
- Created a holistic site audit to present site issues and clear resolution suggestions with accompanying timelines.
- Built custom database indexes to increase performance and successfully activated enterprise-level object caching.
- Used New Relic to diagnose and resolve issues in the custom codebase, leading to refactoring the theme to solve coding issues and adding a custom caching framework.
- Migrated the site to next.js (React) and a headless CMS with Shopify APIs.
Freelance Full-stack Developer
The Creation Station
- Developed enterprise-level franchise management software, along with a beautiful customer-facing front end—all powered by WordPress.
- Designed the software architecture and framework (Azure, Kubernetes).
- Developed the back end (WordPress with custom plugins).
- Designed the front end (custom WordPress template with Bulma CSS).
- Integrated the system with various third-party providers (InfusionSoft, Stripe, WooBox).
- Streamlined aspects of their current email marketing automation.
- Trained their staff and created comprehensive documentation.
- Performed extensive customization of WooCommerce, including a recurring payments module.
Freelance Web Developer
Clear Factor Ltd
- Created a slick, well-targeted brand for the company and established their web presence.
- Ensured the hosting setup was secure and monitored, with a custom-built WordPress to CDN deployment plugin.
- Designed the logo and branding for the entire company.
- Project-managed the website launch with other developers.
- Designed the documentation (Lightpaper and Whitepaper).
- Set up email marketing (Amazon SES, Email Octopus).
- Created a secure headless CMS setup using GraphQL and Netlify CMS.
Freelance Full-stack Developer
TFC Leisure Ltd
- Designed the Friday Night Fives subsection of the website.
- Set up the WordPress back end with custom post types, fields, and page templates.
- Set up the payment gateway and integrated it with the site.
- Created a super-fast Vue.js front-end to serve fixture results.
- Integrated the site with an aging legacy PHP framework.
- Trained their staff and created system documentation.
- Optimized the SEO of the website and set up analytics reporting.
- Created a new web API using the Laravel PHP framework.
Technical Co-founder
Block Influence Limited
- Co-founded Block Influence and worked as the technical co-founder. I left the company in 2019.
- Designed the logo and created the complete company branding.
- Created and designed the website and set up the WordPress back-end with custom caching and user registration.
- Created a successful off-site SEO campaign with several top-three rankings achieved.
- Used the Twitter API to create a database of influencers in the sphere and ran a custom algorithm to rank them in order of influence.
Technical Co-founder
MatchedBetting.com
- Co-founded Matched Betting and worked as the technical co-founder.
- Handled all design and development.
- Set up an extensive WordPress back end with many custom features.
- Set up and configured the membership system with different levels.
- Set up and ran the email marketing system.
- Built the community forum and ran it successfully (1,000+ members).
- Developed custom WordPress plugins.
- Ran successful SEO campaigns to build traffic and community.
Freelance Technical Lead
Powerleague Group
- Acted as the project manager for the relaunch of Powerleague's website. Worked as a facilitator between the various stakeholders, specifically the design and development agencies and the management team.
- Brought the project in on time and within budget.
- Saw a six-time increase in eCommerce sales and went on to oversee all online demand generation.
- Programmed Playermatch's player-matching system using PHP, CodeIgniter, and jQuery as part of the launch.
- Handled paid traffic using Adwords, Facebook, and email marketing with Dotmailer and Campaign Monitor for the whole group in 2017/2018.
- Provided ongoing technical support and development for the Powerplay brand over many years.
Experience
Mood Product Group
https://hellomood.co• Helped them gain and maintain site stability to handle the incredible growth they were experiencing.
• Created a holistic site audit to present site issues and clear resolution suggestions with accompanying timelines.
• Created custom database indexes to increase performance.
• Activated enterprise-level object caching.
• Used New Relic to diagnose and resolve issues in the custom codebase.
• Refactored the custom theme to solve coding issues and introduce a custom caching framework.
• Migrated the site to Next.js (React) and a headless CMS with Shopify APIs.
Discover Healing
https://discoverhealing.com/• Diagnosed and fixed hard-to-find issues with rogue plugins.
• Improved the front-end load time by 60%, despite the requirement to stick with a heavy theme and third-party tags.
• Wrote custom code to improve their user permissions.
• Wrote custom code to streamline the WooCommerce My Account system (including easy custom avatars).
The Creation Station
https://www.thecreationstation.co.uk/I helped them create a new product to add to their offering while assisting them in streamlining their current business.
• Designed the website for the new product offering.
• Designed the technical architecture for an enterprise-level franchise management system.
• Co-developed the franchise management system.
• Integrated the system with various third-party providers.
• Streamlined aspects of their current email marketing automation.
• Trained their staff and created documentation.
Clear Factor
https://clearfactor.io/I helped them create a slick, well-targeted brand for their company and establish their web presence. Security is very important for Clear Factor, and I ensured their hosting setup was secure and monitored with a custom WordPress plugin to deploy website changes to a CDN.
• Designed their logo and branding.
• Created a custom WordPress plugin to deploy to secure hosting.
• Created a secure headless CMS setup using GraphQL.
• Co-produced and edited their intro video.
• Created their pre-launch landing page.
• Project-managed their launch website with other developers.
• Designed their documents (their Lightpaper and Whitepaper).
• Set up their email marketing (Amazon SES, Email Octopus).
Powerleague Group
I helped them over many years as a tech lead, marketer, developer, and designer.
I was the lead Powerplay developer for many years, handling front-end design and back-end dev using the Code Igniter Framework. This was a very complex system used to power the entire business. I handled the code evolution over many years, including PHP upgrades.
I project-managed the relaunch of the Powerleague website in 2016. I also handled paid traffic (Adwords, Facebook) and email marketing (Dotmailer and Campaign Monitor) for the whole group in 2017/2018.
Education
Bachelor of Arts Degree with Honors in Modern European Languages
University of Durham - United Kingdom
Skills
Libraries/APIs
jQuery, REST APIs, Vue, Infusionsoft API, X (formerly Twitter) API, WordPress REST API, WordPress API, Google Maps, Stripe, React, Node.js
Tools
Adobe Photoshop, Google Optimize, LearnDash, GitHub, Adobe Illustrator, Git, CasperJS, Google Analytics, Figma, Adobe Experience Design (XD), Microsoft Project, Slack, Infusionsoft, Amazon Simple Email Service (SES), Amazon CloudFront CDN
Languages
PHP, JavaScript, HTML5, CSS, SQL, HTML, Perl, GraphQL
Frameworks
CodeIgniter, Laravel, Bootstrap, Bulma, Divi, Unity3D, Corona SDK
Paradigms
UI Design, Responsive Web Design (RWD), Search Engine Optimization (SEO), DevOps, Jamstack
Platforms
WordPress, WooCommerce, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Linux, Windows, New Relic, Visual Studio Code (VS Code), Kubernetes, Azure, Docker, Android, Vercel, Shopify, Netlify, DigitalOcean
Storage
MySQL, SQLite
Industry Expertise
Web Design, E-learning
Other
WordPress Design, WordPress eCommerce, Landing Page Design, Landing Page Optimization, Site Speed Optimization, Core Web Vitals, WordPress Plugins, WordPress Themes, CSV File Processing, Elementor, Client Portals, User Management, Auditing, Web Security, Infrastructure, Security, WordPress SEO, WordPress Security, Web Development, API Integration, APIs, Booking, Performance, Scheduling, Subscriptions, User Experience (UX), User Interface (UI), SEO Tools, Security Policies & Procedures, Full-stack, Educational Portals, Education, WordPress Customization, Website Audits, Plugins, SEO Testing, WooCommerce Subscriptions 2, Web App Security, Security Analysis, WordPress Multisite, WordPress Multi-user, Avada, Payment APIs, Beaver Builder, Amazon RDS, Worldpay, Headless CMS, OAuth, Development
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