If you follow the WebDevStudios (WDS) blog (and you should!), by now, you will have noticed that we have been hiring like crazy and announcing new employees on a pretty regular basis. Well, here’s another one of those announcements. Meet our newest Backend Engineer, Michael “Mico” Joseph Panaga. Michael is based in Quezon City, Philippines, and prior to joining the WebDevStudios team, he founded his own startup called HelpeeApp, a mobile app marketplace designed to help users request helpers. Now that he’s joined our team, here’s what you should know about him.
Michael “Mico” Joseph Panaga
Michael has been working with WordPress for the past nine years and was always a freelancer. He says that during this time, his most challenging and rewarding website project that he worked on was for one of the largest real estate sites in Thailand.
“The website was running on WordPress and had more than 200,000 listings. My responsibility was to recreate the listing submission process to make it more user intuitive, create a real-time search capability using Google Maps, and to make sure that the website is responsive under heavy spikes in traffic,” he explains. “I had to learn new techniques, embrace new technologies, and be knowledgeable in many aspects—from analyzing databases and creating more complex and efficient queries, to dev-ops, server administration, and using Google Cloud Products and Amazon Web Services. I had to explore and come up with solutions.”
While there are certainly perks to working as a freelancer, Mico found it difficult to find big projects. Joining the WebDevStudios team would finally satiate that desire.
“I want to work with enterprise clients, to solve challenging problems, and to further improve my skills,” Michael elaborates. “And, I see no better way to achieve these other than to be a part of one of the world’s leading WordPress development firms.” Yes, he’s referring to us!
And now that he is with us, Mico hopes to work on projects that are being used by many people and projects that solve real complex problems. “I also hope to build tools that businesses or developers can use to help lighten their work,” he adds.
In the few weeks that he’s been with WDS, there are a couple of things Michael has noticed. Firstly, the WebDevStudios team has really stood out to him.
“The team is comprised of highly talented and expert individuals,” Mico says. “Being a distributed company, one might assume that communication is hard, but here at WDS, I immediately feel at home. In a magical way, the WDS team has been able to make communication organized for projects, insightful and helpful to fellow colleagues, and random and fun.”
For example, Michael recently attended one of our Lunch & Learn events in which Mike England, Frontend Engineer, imparted knowledge about Gutenberg Filters. “I immediately learned new things!” exclaims Michael.
Another thing that Mico has noticed is how WDS takes on a project, saying, “WDS is highly professional and meticulous when working on a project. We have great project managers that handle and document everything needed to make sure that our team fully understands our clients’ needs. Our team also uses the latest tools and best practices in all of our projects. WDS is a team of pure awesome and I’m sure that each projects our team takes on is in capable hands.”
That’s quite a testimony. Are you interested in partnering up with our team for your website project? Contact us now and let’s chat. Did Michael pique your interest in working for WebDevStudios? We’re hiring. Take a look at our job positions today.
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