Senior WordPress & Open-Source CMS Lead

A warm hello to my fellow humans of WellFound.

Dreamers Inc. is a research and software consultancy built around high performance with low stress. We like working on interesting things, learning from each other, and teaching each other. Sometimes that means self-driving tractors, satellite boards, natural language processing engines, quantum computing, physical robotics, or government systems that need to work correctly for real people. Other times it means web and mobile apps, and those can be pretty cool, too.

We are looking for a senior WordPress and open-source CMS lead who can build excellent publishing systems and also knows when WordPress is, or is not, the right answer. The CMS should serve the editors, the public, and the engineers. It should not become a mysterious ritual everyone is afraid to touch.

What you will bring:

• Deep WordPress engineering experience, including custom themes, plugins, Gutenberg blocks, ACF, migrations, multisite, APIs, and editorial workflows
• Strong PHP, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, database, performance, accessibility, security, and hosting fundamentals
• Experience turning Figma designs into maintainable, responsive, accessible production sites
• Practical ownership of upgrades, testing, deployment, monitoring, backups, and incident response
• The ability to interview editors and stakeholders, design sensible content models, and document the system clearly
• Strong judgment about platform selection, migration risk, integration boundaries, and long-term maintainability

Extra points for:

• Production experience with Payload CMS, the MIT-licensed open-source platform we proposed for one recent engagement
• Experience with Strapi, Directus, Wagtail, Drupal, or another credible open-source CMS
• The ability to compare WordPress with modern headless or hybrid CMS options and defend the choice based on editor needs, accessibility, security, performance, integrations, and total cost
• Direct federal, state, local, tribal, education, nonprofit, or other public-sector delivery
• Complex content migrations, multilingual sites, search, analytics, CRM integrations, or high-traffic public websites
• Strong public-sector references

The contract rate range is $65-$110 per hour, depending on depth, role fit, and the specific engagement. Please share your target hourly rate and availability.

This is a U.S.-remote contract role. Some government engagements require U.S. citizenship, public-trust eligibility, or other client-specific screening, so please state your citizenship and current U.S. work authorization.

We are building relationships ahead of anticipated contract awards. A conversation now may lead to a near-term engagement, but this post is not a guarantee of immediate or continuous hours.

Questions? Curiosity is good. Inquire within.