Senior WooCommerce + Google Merchant Center Developer Needed – GLA / Sale Price Sync Debugging

We are looking for a senior WooCommerce developer with genuine hands-on experience debugging Google Merchant Center / Google for WooCommerce (formerly Google Listings & Ads) product-price synchronisation issues. This is not a Google Ads management, SEO, basic Merchant Center setup, or general WordPress job. I specifically need someone who understands the technical path between: WooCommerce product pricing Google for WooCommerce / Google Listings & Ads (GLA) Google Merchant Center Content API / Merchant API WordPress Action Scheduler / WP-Cron WooCommerce price hooks/filters Custom pricing/API integrations PHP-level debugging I already have an experienced WooCommerce developer investigating the issue. His work has been excellent and he is actively working on it. However, because this pricing problem is currently affecting our Google Shopping advertising and ability to generate sales, I would like a second experienced pair of eyes with specific WooCommerce → Google Merchant Center integration experience. The initial engagement will be diagnosis/review only. I do not want two developers simultaneously making changes to the production website. I want an independent technical assessment first. If your investigation identifies the cause and we agree on the solution, I would be happy to extend the contract to implementation and potentially ongoing/long-term WooCommerce development work. Current problem We operate a WooCommerce store with approximately 130 products and a custom pricing setup that uses Amazon pricing data as part of calculating our selling prices. WooCommerce and the customer-facing website can currently contain the correct customer-facing prices. However, we are experiencing an intermittent issue where Google Merchant Center receives the regular price correctly but loses or fails to receive the WooCommerce sale_price for some products. For example, one product should contain: Regular price: £238.68 Sale/customer-facing price: £187.99 Following certain synchronisations, Merchant Center correctly receives both values: price = £238.68 sale_price = £187.99 However, later the sale_price can disappear from Merchant Center, leaving only the £238.68 regular price. Google Shopping/Ads can therefore advertise the wrong price even though the website itself is displaying the correct customer-facing price. This behaviour is inconsistent across the catalogue. At one point, approximately 35–40% of products had the correct sale price populated in Merchant Center while the remainder did not. We have also observed an important pattern: Products can become correct following one scheduled synchronisation and subsequently become incorrect again. Relevant history – WooCommerce performance work There is important background that may or may not be related. Earlier this year, our existing developer carried out a detailed WooCommerce performance audit of the website. The audit identified significant backend activity, including unusually heavy scheduled/background processing associated with Google Listings & Ads / Google for WooCommerce. Following the audit, several performance/backend changes were implemented to improve the reliability and performance of the website. This included work relating to areas such as: WordPress/WooCommerce scheduled jobs Action Scheduler / cron behaviour Google for WooCommerce synchronisation activity Caching/performance Database/query performance Other WooCommerce backend optimisation The performance work itself successfully improved the website. I want to make clear that I am not claiming these changes caused the subsequent pricing problems. However, the chronology is relevant because I was not experiencing these recurring pricing/synchronisation problems before this period of backend work. I therefore want the relationship, if any, independently investigated rather than assumed. First pricing problem – WooCommerce prices dropping approximately 20% After the performance/backend work, we began experiencing a recurring WooCommerce pricing issue. Approximately every 3–4 days, virtually all of our in-stock products would suddenly drop in price by roughly 20%. Our external Amazon pricing system/database still contained the correct calculated prices, but the prices actually stored/displayed by WooCommerce became incorrect. Importantly, manually rerunning our price-sync jobs would immediately restore the correct WooCommerce prices. Our existing developer investigated this and was able to reproduce the behaviour on staging. The investigation initially identified behaviour involving the Import Products from Amazon plugin. Further investigation indicated that there appeared to be a loop/interference between our Amazon pricing synchronisation and an older discount/pricing plugin. During certain price reads, the discount logic appeared capable of returning a figure approximately 20% too low. The synchronisation process could then save that value back into WooCommerce. This explained why: many products changed at approximately the same time; the change was approximately the same percentage; our external pricing system still contained the correct values; and manually rerunning the price synchronisation immediately corrected WooCommerce. Changes were subsequently made to prevent the discount logic from affecting those price reads. The recurring ~20% WooCommerce price-drop problem now appears to have been resolved. What happened afterwards – Google Merchant Center mismatch After the WooCommerce pricing problem was corrected, we subsequently began experiencing the current Google Merchant Center pricing problem. The distinction is important: Previously, WooCommerce itself was receiving/storing incorrect prices. Now, WooCommerce and the customer-facing website can have the correct price, while Google Merchant Center receives a different representation of the product. In particular, Merchant Center may receive the regular price but fail to retain/receive sale_price. For some products, a scheduled sync restores the correct sale_price. Later, something appears capable of causing that sale price to disappear again. What our existing developer has found so far Our current developer has confirmed that scheduled feed synchronisation is capable of producing the correct sale prices. For example, he verified products where Merchant Center correctly received the expected customer-facing sale_price. However, something subsequently appears capable of stripping, omitting or failing to supply sale_price for certain products. His current working theory is that Google may be obtaining product data from the website/WooCommerce through another channel or synchronisation path that isn't seeing the discount/sale price correctly, triggering later updates with different pricing data. He has now added logging intended to identify which channel/process is responsible. I do not want applicants simply to accept this theory. I want an independent senior developer to review the evidence and architecture and reach their own technical conclusion. Why I am providing the full history The chronology currently looks roughly like this: WooCommerce performance/backend optimisation → Recurring ~20% WooCommerce pricing problem → Pricing-read/discount interaction identified and changed → WooCommerce pricing stabilised → Intermittent Google Merchant Center sale_price problem This sequence may be connected or it may be coincidental. I specifically do not want someone to assume causation simply because of the chronology. Instead, I want someone capable of determining whether changes involving WooCommerce price getters/hooks, discount logic, our Amazon synchronisation, Action Scheduler/cron, Google for WooCommerce/GLA or another product-data pathway could result in different systems receiving different representations of the same WooCommerce product price. What I need investigated The initial task is diagnosis/review. I can provide: Screenshots and examples Merchant Center access if required Previous developer findings The previous WooCommerce performance audit Examples of affected products Details of the Amazon pricing integration Merchant Center product exports Relevant information from the existing developer's investigation I would like you to determine: Every process/channel capable of supplying or updating our product pricing in Google Merchant Center. Why sale_price is present following some synchronisations but missing following others. Whether the issue originates from: WooCommerce itself Google for WooCommerce / GLA Content API / Merchant API WooCommerce hooks or filters Our custom Amazon pricing integration The previous discount/pricing logic Action Scheduler / WP-Cron Google's own website/product-data retrieval Cached/stale product data Or an interaction between multiple systems. Whether the previous WooCommerce pricing issue and the current Merchant Center issue are technically connected. Exactly what process is responsible for causing Merchant Center to lose/fail to receive sale_price. What you recommend as a permanent fix. How the pricing architecture could be made more reliable so that WooCommerce, the website, Merchant Center, Google Shopping and other integrations consistently receive the same intended customer-facing price. Experience I'm specifically looking for Ideally, you have personally debugged problems involving several of the following: WooCommerce regular_price, sale_price and active _price WooCommerce price getters, hooks and filters Google for WooCommerce / Google Listings & Ads Google Merchant Center Content API / Merchant API WooCommerce → Google product synchronisation WordPress Action Scheduler WP-Cron Custom/dynamic WooCommerce pricing REST APIs Third-party WooCommerce integrations PHP-level debugging and instrumentation WooCommerce product metadata Background/scheduled product updates Intermittent product-feed/synchronisation problems I am particularly interested in developers who have previously dealt with situations where Merchant Center intermittently receives the regular price but loses, overwrites or fails to receive sale_price. Please do NOT apply if... Your experience is primarily: Google Ads campaign management PPC SEO Basic Merchant Center account setup Basic product-feed configuration General WordPress website building Installing/configuring WooCommerce plugins This problem requires someone comfortable going underneath the plugin interfaces and tracing behaviour at the WooCommerce/PHP/API/Action Scheduler level. Initial engagement This will initially be an hourly diagnosis/review engagement. I would prefer to begin with approximately 3–5 hours of investigation. At this stage, I primarily want you to: Investigate → identify likely/root cause → document your findings → recommend the fix. Please do not make changes to the production pricing system without my approval. My existing developer is still actively investigating the issue, so I do not want two people independently modifying the same system at the same time. If your diagnosis identifies the problem and we agree on the approach, I can then authorise implementation. There is also the possibility of a long-term working relationship for someone with strong WooCommerce/backend/integration expertise. IMPORTANT – please answer this when applying Please start your proposal by answering the following: Have you personally debugged a WooCommerce → Google Merchant Center issue where sale_price was intermittently missing, overwritten, removed or different depending on the sync/API path? If yes, briefly explain: What caused it, how you identified it, and how you fixed it. Then please explain how you would approach identifying: Which WooCommerce hook, scheduled action, API request, Google for WooCommerce process or other synchronisation path is causing sale_price to disappear in this case? Please be specific. I'm much more interested in your actual debugging methodology and relevant experience than a generic proposal about how many years you've worked with WordPress.