Project Overview: Supporting a Dynamic Brand
Upstate is a premier real estate agency in Sydney's Northern Beaches, with a powerful brand and a history spanning over 100 years. As a "dynamic and progressive" agency, their custom WordPress website is a critical tool for marketing and operations, and it constantly needs to evolve.
From 2019 to 2021, I acted as a dedicated frontend developer, providing remote support for their in-house team. My role wasn't about a single large build, but something just as critical: the consistent, reliable maintenance and feature development required to keep a high-traffic site running flawlessly.
My Role & Contributions
I worked as a flexible extension of their team, collaborating directly with other Senior WordPress Developer. My responsibilities were focused on stability, agility, and new feature implementation.
1. New Feature & Template Development A dynamic brand constantly launches new campaigns and initiatives. I was responsible for taking new designs and turning them into functional, responsive, and performant additions to the site.
- I built new custom page templates, allowing their marketing team to easily launch new landing pages.
- I developed new WordPress custom post types (CPTs) to handle unique content needs, integrating them seamlessly into the existing theme.
2. Key Project: Digital Property Report Integration A major project during my tenure was the integration of a new "Digital Property Report" system. This was a complex, business-critical tool for their agents. I was responsible for building the frontend of this feature, ensuring it was user-friendly for customers and seamlessly integrated with their backend data sources.
3. Maintenance & Bug Fixes I was also a reliable resource for ongoing maintenance. This included:
- Troubleshooting and fixing layout bugs.
- Refactoring legacy SASS and JavaScript to improve stability.
- Ensuring new features were compatible with the existing, complex codebase.
Collaboration & Outcome
This role was a study in effective remote collaboration. I built a strong, effortless partnership with the Senior WordPress Developer, allowing us to be highly productive in a fully remote setup.
For Upstate (The Client):
- Agility: They had a trusted developer on hand to quickly build, test, and deploy new marketing pages and features.
- Stability: Their site remained stable and performant as new features were added, and existing bugs were consistently resolved.
- New Capabilities: The digital property report integration gave their agents a new, valuable tool to engage clients and generate leads.
For Me (The Developer):
- Deep WordPress Expertise: This role expanded my skills far beyond standard theme development. I gained deep experience in custom post types, PHP-driven template logic, and integrating third-party systems into a complex, mature WordPress environment.
- Effective Collaboration: It reinforced my ability to be a highly effective, low-friction member of a remote team, capable of picking up complex tasks and delivering high-quality code independently.