As reported last month, Maintainn, formerly our WordPress support and maintenance division, was acquired by SiteCare. This allows our website design and development agency to focus on large-scale development, which requires an expansion of our already-talented team.
Last week, we announced the addition of three new teammates. Today, we’d like to introduce you to two new WebDevStudios engineers: Alex Maldonado, Frontend Engineer, and Awais Altaf, Backend Engineer.
Alex Maldonado, Frontend Engineer
Alex started at WebDevStudios (WDS) as a support engineer at Maintainn. When that division was acquired, we added Alex to our team as a frontend engineer because he enjoys that particular aspect of development.
“I love being able to figure out how to take an idea I have in mind and translating it into a something tangible on the web,” Alex relays. “It’s like creating art you can interact with and get utility out of.”
Whether it’s a full-site redesign or developing technology solutions for optimization, Alex finds it all quite exciting.
“Client websites in particular pose an interesting and rewarding challenge in that way, because the initial idea is being refined with a whole team of creative and technical people,” he explains.
What Alex is really looking forward to is getting into the thick of projects and helping out his teammates. He is eager to ensure the success of our clients while positively impacting their customer experience.
Additionally, however, Alex is also enthusiastic about becoming a more proficient engineer simply by learning from his coworkers and the tools WDS uses to build amazing websites.
Of course, Alex has a life beyond the virtual walls of WDS. For the past 16 years, he has played both acoustic and electric guitar.
“I got my first guitar for my 14th birthday and I haven’t been able to put the guitar down since,” Alex says. “I’ll try to play pretty much any style of music I find interesting or technically challenging enough to pique my curiosity, but as of now it’s mostly bluesy stuff or ambient shoe-gazer rock.”
Recently, Alex has taken up piano. His wife surprised him with an upright piano for Christmas 2020.
“It’s about a hundred years old and it plays great, out-of-tune keys and all,” he says.
When Alex is heads-down at work, though, he listens to “energetic stuff,” such as EDM, dubstep, chillstep, J-rock, J-pop, and sometimes K-pop.
“I find it distracts the correct part of my brain that helps me really key into a task,” he explains, “And still leaves a lot of variety to keep up with my sporadic brain.”
Awais Altaf, Backend Engineer
“I always wanted to be a backend engineer because developing WordPress plugins and custom themes, working with databases, and integrating APIs into sites is my passion,” says Awais.
“I started my career with WordPress, converting PSD designs into WordPress custom themes, and then moved towards plugin development,” he explains further.
Although Awais is probably too humble to say it, we’re not. He’s a WooCommerce expert, having developed more than 20 WooCommerce addons to extend its functionality—for example, custom shipping and payment integrations.
Additionally, Awais also has an impressive amount of experience with frontend development, including React and Next.js. Luckily for us, when Awais was looking for a remote work job with a well-known WordPress design and development agency, he found WebDevStudios and applied.
“It’s like working in a dream company for me because everything here has standards like coding, audits, SCRUM meetings, daily standups, etc. And I already learned a lot of tools and new technologies within WordPress. It’s really a privilege working in WDS,” declares Awais.
Awais enjoys engaging with large-scale projects that force him to work outside of is comfort zone and challenge his skillset.
“Every week I am learning new tools and techniques in WDS,” he says.
Like Alex, Awais partakes in fun activities after work. For him, it’s playing first-person-shooter games on his PlayStation.
“Doom Eternal is my favorite game and I am good at it,” says Awais. “Other than that, Sniper Elite, Resident Evil, Horizon Zero Dawn/Forbidden West, and FIFA are also my favorites.”
Join Alex and Awais at WebDevStudios
We’re hiring! Wouldn’t you like to among the team of WebDevStudios engineers? WDS is currently recruiting lead, backend, and frontend engineers, as well as a UX designer. Take a look at our Careers page and apply online.
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