David Smith
Software Engineer at Automattic
Bath, England, United Kingdom
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolDavid Smith is a senior software engineer with 15 years’ experience specialising in frontend and full-stack web development, currently contributing to Automattic on WordPress core (Gutenberg) and Calypso. He combines technical leadership and hands-on engineering—having led teams and built processes for responsive, performance-focused sites using HTML5, CSS3/SASS, JavaScript (React/ES6), PHP/Laravel and Git tooling. His open-source work includes UX and accessibility improvements to WordPress’s block editor and building features like a Podcast Player in Jetpack, showing a knack for shipping polished product-facing components. David’s background in managing digital teams and standardising workflows means he selects pragmatic stacks that deliver commercial results as well as developer velocity. He’s also a WordPress YouTuber and published industry writer, bridging community education with production engineering. Based in Bath, UK, he brings a rare mix of editorial communication skills and deep front-to-back WordPress expertise.
14 years of coding experience
4 years of employment as a software developer
BA Joint Honours History/Music, History, BA Joint Honours History/Music, History at The University of Birmingham
Stackoverflow
208reputation
5kreached
5answers
4questions
Github Skills (26)
javascript10
plugin-development10
wordpress10
css10
s610
ui-design10
uid10
php10
front-end-development10
wordpress-plugin10
html10
react10
accessibilityservice9
acc9
accessibility9
Programming languages (8)
Github contributions (5)
WordPress/gutenberg
Jan 2019 - Jan 2023
The Block Editor project for WordPress and beyond. Plugin is available from the official repository.
Role in this project:
Front-end Developer
Front-end DeveloperContributions:3316 reviews, 741 commits, 1027 PRs in 4 years
Contributions summary:David primarily worked on the image block within the WordPress Gutenberg editor. Their contributions included adding UI components for rich link previews with various features such as tooltips, loading indicators, and visual styling. They also addressed layout and accessibility issues, with the goal of improving the user experience for link insertion and editing. These improvements involved a variety of code changes that focused on the visual presentation and overall functionality of the link UI.
block-editorwordpressgutenbergwordpress-pluginbeyond
Automattic/wp-calypso
Jan 2019 - Mar 2021
The JavaScript and API powered WordPress.com
Role in this project:Front-end Developer
Front-end DeveloperContributions:163 reviews, 118 commits, 173 PRs in 2 years 2 months
Contributions summary:David primarily contributed to the front-end development of the WordPress.com platform, focusing on UI enhancements and bug fixes within the `wp-calypso` repository. Their commits addressed layout and styling issues related to modal windows, page templates, and various components. They demonstrated a good understanding of React, JavaScript (ES6), and potentially related technologies by working on front-end components and integrations, as well as the use of tools like eslint.
apireactwordpressjavascriptes6
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