Milana Cap
Verified Expert in Engineering
WordPress Developer
Novi Sad, Vojvodina, Serbia
Toptal member since January 9, 2017
Milana is a self-taught WordPress/PHP engineer. She started learning PHP in 2008, WordPress in 2009—and has been working as a freelance WordPress theme developer since 2010. She's been a full-stack engineer since 2011 and a full-time WordPress theme developer and project lead since March of 2015.
Portfolio
Experience
Availability
Preferred Environment
Git, Linux, Konsole, MySQL, Apache
The most amazing...
...project I've made is a table for inserting values and calculating the average/totals, populated on the front end by automatically creating a new post on submit.
Work Experience
WordPress Engineer
XWP
- Extended WordPress core blocks to serve specific purposes.
- Built custom Gutenberg blocks and extended custom blocks made by others.
- Performed regular code reviews and paired programming sessions.
- Improved internal documentation, both technical and non-technical.
- Completed web performance training for Web Vitals.
- Performed code optimization and applied best practices for enterprise clients.
- Led the migration of enterprise clients to diverse hosting providers, including WPCOM VIP.
- Set up PHPCS for WordPress for the project to match the code sniffer from the WP VIP repo.
- Set up various GitHub workflows with 3rd-party GitHub actions.
API Integrations Expert
GHK Companies LLC
- Built a custom connection between a WordPress website and the Molnify platform.
- Integrated an EDD payment checkout with a Molnify app. Added customer-unique data to the purchase confirmation, receipt, and order history pages.
- Added custom data to the EDD customer/WordPress user for easier consumption in various places.
Freelance WordPress Engineer
Harvard Medical School - HR
- Built a plugin with custom nested Gutenberg blocks with four variants.
- Created a child theme and extended the parent theme to fit the client's layout and other visual requests.
- Extended the premium plugin to fit the client's functionality needs.
Freelance WordPress Engineer
Dialogue Theory
- Established continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) with GitHub Actions and the WP Engine.
- Set up Webpack to run tasks for building and minifying assets.
- Customized AMP templates to meet the design decisions.
- Built AMP navigation sliding in with a sidebar component.
- Performed bespoke development, building custom templates for CPT, custom archives, Ajax pagination, and mega menu.
- Created a custom referral workflow with Mailchimp API, ACF, custom post type, and meta.
- Worked on Airtable API integration for creating and updating content by authors without access to WordPress.
- Performed custom REST API integration between two WordPress instances for exchanging and reformatting data, automated with cron jobs.
- Integrated the Primer.ai API for displaying refined search queries in real time.
Freelance WordPress Engineer
Calibrium Marketing, LLC.
- Added custom data to the views for the WooCommerce shop and single product.
- Added custom data to YITH WooCommerce Request a Quote and YITH WooCommerce Compare plugins' functionality.
- Replicated WooCommerce Analytics (WooCommerce Admin) on the front end.
- Customized the checkout form for collecting additional data, saving that data to various places, and using it for different purposes, including but not limited to content personalization for the logged-in visitor.
Freelance WordPress Engineer
Platform9
- Created a custom form for collecting email addresses that are then stored locally for usage during the user's flow. Also, built the flow depending on the user's choices along the way.
- Connected WordPress with the HubSpot API and set an auto-login to the platform demo via API tokens.
- Connected WordPress with the Segment.io API for tracking user's workflow.
- Set ACF to enable the easier management of sign-up flow content.
Freelance WordPress Engineer
Welcome Family
- Completed the refactoring of legacy PHP code in a WordPress theme.
- Updated assets to the newest versions (Bootstrap, FontAwesome, and so on) and adapted the code to work with them.
- Replaced old and unsupported JavaScript libraries with new ones, optimized code, and enforced reusability.
- Introduced Webpack and its possibilities for the front-end assets—splitting code and loading only when needed, merging and minimizing JavaScript and CSS files.
- Replaced existing FontAwesome fonts with inline SVGs.
- Replaced Classic Editor and Advanced Custom Fields Pro with Block editor.
- Built custom block templates for easy content editing.
- Created custom blocks to match the client's needs for complex content sections.
Freelance WordPress Engineer
Rubix Health
- Automated complex medical workflow through 14 connected Gravity Forms.
- Automated flagging and calculations of a long and complex medical survey.
- Built custom views of submitted data with Gravity View.
- Automated email templates with or without custom PDF attachments based on specific values submitted by Gravity Forms.
- Automated the process for obtaining digital signatures for the consent form.
- Integrated ICPC-2 Plus database via its API with Gravity Form.
Freelance WordPress Engineer
Rooster Money
- Connected WordPress with a custom referral API in both ways: GET and PUT.
- Refactored the existing code and applied WordPress coding standards.
- Created customized templates for various referral workflows.
- Implemented GDPR settings and custom localization.
- Integrated Mailchimp API, Waitlisted API, Twitter API, and Webpack.
- Implemented a multilingual setup for different English-speaking areas.
- Detected a visitor's geolocation serving the correct localized version.
- Guided client's in-house developers on how to solve various problems, performed code reviews, and delegated tasks.
Freelance Expert WordPress Theme Developer
LyraThemes
- Built free and premium WordPress themes for hosting on WordPress.org and online markets.
- Developed Ariel Pro; the theme was built based on an existing front end.
- Created an Elara Pro WordPress theme based on a PSD design.
Freelance WordPress Engineer
Glassdoor
- Replicated a client's jobs board from Jobvite.com to WordPress.
- Gathered all the job data from Greenhouse.io using their API at app.greenhouse.io.
- Developed a custom theme on top of Sage (roots.io/sage).
- Created a custom Cron job for fetching data from greenhouse.io.
- Built a custom search jobs functionality that combines data from greenhouse.io and searches for terms within WordPress.
Freelance WordPress Developer (via Toptal)
Gatemore
- Created customized templates in an existing WordPress theme.
- Analyzed and refactored the existing code to ensure it follows best practices.
- Built custom components to fit client's visual requests.
Freelance WordPress Multisite Developer (via Toptal)
Aledor
- Migrated theme options to a customizer for a multisite installation.
- Refactored the existing code.
- Integrated Facebook Open Graph META tags.
Freelance Senior WordPress Plugin Developer (via Toptal)
WPChef
- Implemented a new feature in the existing plugin.
- Created a new event in Google Calendar using the custom syntax (wording scheme), getting this event into WordPress and creating new booking post based on data from a custom syntax.
- Used as much as possible the functionality available from the plugin (DRY).
- Wrote clean and well-documented code so that other developers can continue the plugin development swimmingly.
Freelance Full-stack WordPress Developer (via Toptal)
EduOpinions SL
- Developed a child theme.
- Heavily customized a commenting system.
- Customized an automated mailing system based on user level and action.
- Implemented a custom integration with Mailchimp.
- Built a social login.
- Created a multilingual functionality.
- Guided a junior developer in Git, deployment, and various WordPress areas.
WordPress Theme Developer | Project Lead
The House London
- Developed small-to-medium business websites in WordPress.
- Implemented third-party APIs (Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Mailchimp, Eventbrite, and Meetup).
- Built custom user groups and permissions for viewing, editing, and administrating user groups and content.
- Created various data models for building content with Advanced Custom Fields PRO.
- Built various custom plugins which were reusable for different projects.
- Conducted code reviews and guided junior developers.
WordPress Theme Developer | Project Lead
Creative Agency Egzote
- Automated the content creation with the Twitter and Instagram feeds (Twitter and Instagram API).
- Worked onsite RSVP events via the Eventbrite and Meetup APIs.
- Enabled onsite subscription via the Mailchimp API.
- Implemented various WordPress REST APIs (related posts, Masonry filters by categories, and more).
- Created content on the front-end via Advanced Custom Fields PRO.
Freelance WordPress Theme Developer
Freelance Work
- Built small, personal, and business websites using WordPress.
- Created web designs in Photoshop.
- Developed an audio-and-video playlist in WordPress via an HTML5 audio and video player.
- Set up domain hosting (domain name, DNS, emails) and website hosting (cPanel, phpMyAdmin, and FTP).
- Implemented Google services (webmaster tools, analytics, reCAPTCHA, and more).
Experience
Public Speaking
https://joind.in/user/zzap• PHP Serbia 2024
· "WP-CLI for PHP developers"
• IPC Berlin 2024
• PHP Day Verona 2024
• WordCamp Asia 2024, Taipei, Taiwan
• WordCamp Europe 2023, Athens
· "Alias WP-CLI"
• IPC Berlin 2024
• WordCamp Vienna 2024
• PHP UK 2024
• WordCamp Skopje 2023
· "WordPress Through The Terminal"
• WordCamp Finland 2023
• WordCamp Lisbon 2023
• WordCamp Torino 2023
• WordCamp Asia 2023
• Longhorn PHP 2022
• WordCamp Nederland 2022
• WordCamp US 2022
• WordCamp Europe 2022
• PHP Berlin 2022
• PHPkonf 2021
• PHP Serbia Conference 2021
• Bulgaria PHP Conference 2019
• WordCamp Skopje 2019
· "Docs or it didn't happen"
• WordCamp Italia 2022
• Longhorn PHP 2022
• PHP Berlin 2022
• PHPDay Verona 2022
• WordCamp Athens 2022
• Open Source 101 2022
• Conference 2021
Documentation Focus Lead for WordPress 5.8 Release
https://wordpress.org/news/2021/07/tatum/• Keep track of changes within the release that require dev notes.
• Coordinate with the participants of the tickets who have the best understanding of the changes (the committer, the component maintainers, the contributors who own a ticket and lead the charge) to draft dev notes.
• Ensure all dev notes are written with enough time to be proofread, reviewed, and published prior to the field guide (which is published at the same time as release candidate one).
• If a ticket participant is not available to write a dev note, finding someone to write one, or write one myself.
• Ensure any documentation pages required for new features are created before the release.
• Write and publish the release changelog on HelpHub (end-user documentation).
• Update the WordPress versions page on the Codex.
Make.wordpress.org/core/5-8
Mentor for Google Season of Docs Program
https://make.wordpress.org/docs/style-guide/• Successful projects for season 2020: https://developers.google.com/season-of-docs/docs/2020/participants
• Original project proposal: https://developers.google.com/season-of-docs/docs/2020/participants/project-wordpress-tacitonic
• Final project report: https://make.wordpress.org/docs/2021/03/07/wordpress-documentation-style-guide-google-season-of-docs-2020-project-report-tacitonic/
WordPress Theme Development Workshop
https://sr.wordpress.org/2018/08/16/· 20 April 2019 - https://www.meetup.com/WordPress-Serbia/events/260667969/
· 30 March 2019 - https://www.meetup.com/WordPress-Serbia/events/259875933/
· 16 March 2019 - https://www.meetup.com/WordPress-Serbia/events/259472140/
· 2 March 2019 - https://www.meetup.com/WordPress-Serbia/events/259189973/
· 16 February 2019 - https://www.meetup.com/WordPress-Serbia/events/258855119/
· 2 February 2019 - https://www.meetup.com/WordPress-Serbia/events/258499530/
· 19 January 2019 - https://www.meetup.com/WordPress-Serbia/events/258077174/
· 22 December 2018 - https://www.meetup.com/WordPress-Serbia/events/257269881/
· 08 December 2018 - https://www.meetup.com/WordPress-Serbia/events/256920422/
· 24 November 2018 - https://www.meetup.com/WordPress-Serbia/events/256524521/
· 20 October 2018 - https://www.meetup.com/WordPress-Serbia/events/255536576/
· 06 October 2018 - https://www.meetup.com/WordPress-Serbia/events/255169291/
· 29 September 2018 - https://www.meetup.com/WordPress-Serbia/events/254794321/
· 15 September 2018 - https://www.meetup.com/WordPress-Serbia/events/254359061/
WordCamp Organizing and Volunteering
https://profiles.wordpress.org/milana_cap/- Role: Volunteer
· June 2019 | WordCamp Europe, Berlin
- Role: Co-organizer (Community Team Lead)
· May 2019 | WordCamp Niš
- Role: Co-organizer
· March 2019 | WordCamp Nordic, Helsinki
- Role: Volunteer
· August 2018 | WordCamp Nijmegen
- Role: Volunteer
· June 2018 | WordCamp Europe, Belgrade
- Role: Co-organizer (Community Team)
· September 2017 | WordCamp Zagreb
- Role: Volunteer
· June 2017 | WordCamp Europe, Paris
- Role: Volunteer
· June 2017 | Community Summit, Paris
- Role: Co-organizer (Community Team)
· May 2017 | WordCamp Belgrade
- Role: Volunteer
Pluralize-string.php
https://gist.github.com/zzap/b33facbf38815f5cb3fab261ed0aea7cSkills
Libraries/APIs
REST APIs, Mailchimp API, WordPress API, X (formerly Twitter) API, jQuery, Vimeo API, YouTube API, Meetup API, Eventbrite API, Instagram API, Facebook API, LinkedIn API, Custom APIs, Segment.io, WooCommerce API, Google Calendar API, React, Google API, Stripe API
Tools
PhpMyAdmin, Git, Sublime Text 3, GitHub, Trello, Bitbucket, Gulp, Gutenberg Editor, Webpack 4, Adobe Photoshop, Apache, Figma, ACF PRO, Greenhouse, Grunt, Advanced Custom Fields (ACF), Flow, GravityView, Webpack, NPM, WP-CLI, Composer
Languages
JavaScript, CSS3, HTML5, PHP, Sass, HTML, CSS, SQL, PHP 7, Regex, SCSS, AMPscript, Bash
Frameworks
inuit.css
Platforms
WordPress, Linux, cPanel, HubSpot, WooCommerce, Docker, Pantheon, WordPress VIP
Storage
MySQL
Paradigms
Continuous Integration (CI), Continuous Delivery (CD), BEM
Other
WordPress Development, Writing & Editing, WordPress Plugins, Responsive Design, APIs, Performance Optimization, Full-stack Development, ADA Compliance, WordPress Security, Pixel Perfect, API Integration, SVG, Accessibility, WordPress Design, WordPress Website Optimization, Web Accessibility, Figma to WordPress, Konsole, Gravity Forms, Ajax, Open Source, Volunteering, Community, Statistics, GitHub Actions, Technical Writing, Open Source CMS, Documentation, Web Vitals, Front-end, Plugins, Themes, wp-scripts, PHPCS, GitHub Workflows, Live Coding, Command-line Interface (CLI), Easy Digital Downloads, EDD, Molnify API, Lemon Squeezy API, Easy Digital Downloads Pro, EDD Pro, HTML API, Interactivity API
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