Full-Stack WordPress Developer Needed — Premium Digital Storytelling Platform/Editorial

Senior WordPress Designer & Developer Needed — Premium Storytelling Website We are looking for an experienced WordPress Designer & Developer to build a premium, highly visual, editorial-style storytelling website from existing Figma designs. The project requires someone who can go beyond simply installing a WordPress theme or reproducing a template. We are looking for a freelancer with a strong eye for design who can translate the provided Figma designs into a distinctive, polished, responsive, fast, and scalable WordPress website. The website is primarily focused on written storytelling and long-form editorial content. It is not a video platform or streaming website. Occasional short video clips may be used as supporting visual elements, but written content, photography, typography, composition, and storytelling are the primary experience. What We Need The freelancer will be responsible for taking existing Figma designs and developing the complete experience in WordPress. The final website should feel: Premium Modern Sophisticated Editorial Immersive Human-designed Fast Easy to navigate Fully responsive We do not want a generic WordPress template or a website that looks like it was assembled from repetitive pre-built blocks. Design & Figma Implementation You should have strong experience converting Figma designs into production-ready WordPress websites. Responsibilities include: Accurately interpret and implement Figma designs. Maintain typography, spacing, proportions, imagery, hierarchy, and visual details. Create responsive layouts for desktop, tablet, and mobile. Develop reusable design components. Maintain consistency across the entire website. Make appropriate design adjustments where necessary for responsive behavior. Ensure the final WordPress implementation retains the quality and character of the original design. You should have a strong understanding of UI/UX, typography, composition, visual hierarchy, responsive design, and editorial layouts. WordPress Development Strong experience with custom WordPress development is required. You should be comfortable with: WordPress PHP HTML5 CSS3 JavaScript Custom themes Gutenberg/block architecture Custom post types Custom taxonomies Custom fields Dynamic templates Reusable components WordPress media management WordPress REST API where appropriate We want a scalable WordPress architecture, rather than manually designing every individual content page. The CMS should allow non-technical users to manage and publish content easily. Story / Article Experience The website will contain substantial written content, so the individual story/article experience is extremely important. The design and development should support features such as: Large editorial imagery Strong headline hierarchy Author information Publication date Reading-time estimate Categories and tags Related stories Recommended content Social sharing Content warnings where appropriate Table of contents where appropriate Accessible reading experience Future read-aloud functionality Future multilingual/translation functionality The article experience should prioritize reading immersion and clarity, without unnecessary interface distractions. Media & Video — Important This is not a video website. Written stories and images are the primary content. We may occasionally use very short video clips of a few seconds as visual enhancements. These should not become a major part of the site's infrastructure. The developer should therefore understand how to: Optimize images. Use responsive images. Lazy-load media. Avoid unnecessary video hosting costs. Prevent large media files from slowing down pages. Embed short videos efficiently when appropriate. Link users to longer video content hosted on social-media platforms when applicable. Keep video loading from negatively affecting the reading experience. Where possible, short videos should be embedded or externally hosted, rather than turning the WordPress hosting environment into a large video-storage or streaming system. Performance is a major priority. Performance The website should be visually rich without becoming slow. Strong knowledge of: Core Web Vitals Image optimization Lazy loading Caching CDN configuration Font optimization CSS/JavaScript optimization Database optimization Efficient WordPress development Plugin management Mobile performance is required. We want to avoid unnecessary plugins and bloated themes/builders wherever possible. Animation & Interaction The site may include subtle, cinematic interactions such as: Image movement Hover effects Text reveals Scroll-based reveals Section transitions Subtle parallax Typography movement Card interactions Animations should be minimal and intentional. The goal is sophistication, not excessive animation. Animations must also respect accessibility preferences such as prefers-reduced-motion. Accessibility Accessibility must be considered during development. The website should aim for a strong WCAG-compliant foundation, including: Semantic HTML Keyboard navigation Proper heading hierarchy Screen-reader compatibility Accessible navigation Accessible forms Focus states Sufficient color contrast Alt text Accessible modals and menus Accessible media controls Reduced-motion support Accessibility should be incorporated into the actual implementation rather than treated as a final checklist. SEO The WordPress architecture should have a strong technical SEO foundation. Experience with: SEO-friendly URLs Meta titles Meta descriptions Canonical URLs Open Graph XML sitemaps Robots configuration Structured data/schema Breadcrumbs Internal linking Author metadata Categories and taxonomies Related-content architecture is required. The structure should be capable of supporting a large number of stories without creating an SEO or content-management problem. Privacy & Cookies The website should follow a privacy-conscious approach. The developer should understand the basics of: GDPR CCPA/CPRA considerations Cookie consent Consent management Privacy-friendly analytics Data minimization Secure form handling User-data deletion requirements We do not want unnecessary tracking or unnecessary collection of visitor information. The cookie/privacy experience should also be clean and consistent with the overall design. Security Strong WordPress security practices are required. This includes: HTTPS/SSL Secure WordPress configuration Secure authentication Appropriate user permissions Secure forms Spam protection Plugin/theme security API security Regular updates Backups Secure deployment practices Future Scalability The initial website does not need every possible feature implemented. However, the architecture should avoid making future development unnecessarily difficult. The site should be capable of eventually supporting features such as: Memberships Paid subscriptions Premium content Donations Payment gateways Newsletter/email subscriptions Multilingual content Additional languages Advanced analytics Advertising Recommendation systems Additional content types These do not necessarily need to be implemented in the initial phase. Advertising The architecture should leave room for future advertising without compromising the user experience. Potential advertising areas may include: Between content sections Category pages Article breaks Desktop sidebars Selected mobile placements Advertising should remain visually secondary and should not interfere with reading. We do not want a website filled with intrusive pop-ups, aggressive interstitials, excessive advertising, autoplay advertising, or disruptive elements. CMS Requirements The WordPress backend should be easy for a non-technical content team to manage. The system should allow administrators to easily: Create and edit stories. Manage authors. Manage categories and subcategories. Add tags. Upload and manage images. Feature selected stories. Create related content. Add SEO information. Add content warnings. Organize content into series where appropriate. Manage reusable content components. The goal is to avoid requiring a developer for routine editorial updates. Expected Phase 1 The first phase will focus on: Design Figma-to-WordPress implementation Overall visual system Typography Color system Responsive layouts Navigation Content-card system Multiple page/layout variations Story/article experience Accessibility considerations Motion and interaction system Development Custom WordPress implementation Responsive frontend CMS/content architecture Story/article templates Category and archive templates Custom content structures SEO foundation Accessibility foundation Performance optimization Security configuration Privacy/cookie architecture Core animations Media optimization Content-warning framework where required Who We Are Looking For We are looking for a freelancer who can combine design sensitivity with strong technical WordPress development skills. You should be able to look at a Figma design and understand not only how to reproduce it, but also how to make it work properly as a real website. Required 4+ years of professional WordPress experience. Strong Figma-to-WordPress experience. Strong HTML/CSS/JavaScript skills. Strong PHP/WordPress development skills. Experience creating custom WordPress themes/components. Experience with custom post types and taxonomies. Strong responsive-design skills. Strong understanding of website performance. Strong understanding of SEO fundamentals. Strong understanding of accessibility. Good knowledge of WordPress security. Ability to build scalable CMS structures. Excellent attention to visual detail. Strongly Preferred Experience with premium editorial/content websites. Experience with long-form reading experiences. Experience with sophisticated typography and visual storytelling. Experience optimizing media-heavy websites without sacrificing performance. Experience with subtle web animation. Experience with multilingual WordPress websites. Experience with membership/payment integrations. Experience with privacy-conscious websites. Experience working directly from Figma prototypes/design systems. Important Please do not apply if your approach is primarily: Installing a pre-built WordPress theme. Using a generic template with minimal customization. Building everything from repetitive page-builder blocks. Adding large numbers of plugins to solve basic functionality. Ignoring mobile performance. Treating accessibility and SEO as an afterthought. We are looking for someone who can deliver a custom, high-quality WordPress experience with strong visual execution and solid technical foundations. To Apply Please provide: Your portfolio. 3–5 WordPress projects you personally designed/developed. Examples of projects built from Figma. Examples demonstrating strong visual/editorial design. Your experience with custom WordPress themes and content architecture. Your experience with website performance optimization. Your experience with accessibility and technical SEO. Your estimated timeline. Your estimated project cost or preferred pricing structure. A brief explanation of how you would approach this project technically. Please clearly identify which parts of the submitted projects were designed and developed by you personally. We value quality, communication, attention to detail, and thoughtful technical decisions over simply completing the project quickly. Please include appropriate hours required/per- hours rate/fixed price. Disclaimer: The above details may be subject to change, as required . Disclaimer: The above requirements may subject to changes, accordingly, as/if needed.