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Bio

I am fueled by a passion for new developments in technology and how the application of these can deliver an awesome user experience while effectively meeting business needs.

Although, over the years I have developed a number of complementary skill bases, my focus is now WordPress architecture, concept design, coding for complex projects and integrating external data sources.

I have made core commits to every version of WordPress since 3.9 and continue to support the wider WordPress community through meetups, WordCamps, etc.

In 2018 I co-founded Matador Sorftware and launched a commercial WordPress Plugin for the recruitment industy, adding to my growing list of plugins.

Interests

Walking, Kayaking, Reading, Theater, PHP, Javascript, CSS

WordPress Origin Story

I discovered WordPress in 2006 when asked to explore the use of collaborative tools internally for a multinational corporation, setting up a 200+ multi-blog site using WPMU on IIS7. As part of this project, I created my first plugin, Author Avatars, (https://wordpress.org/plugins/author-avatars/ ), which currently has 8,000+ active installs. I recently updated this to include Gutenberg support.

From this point on, the community, the flexibility and the velocity of WordPress has made it my platform of choice.

I specialize in creating highly performant scalable, accessible and SEO friendly code (plugins and themes) for large WordPress sites that are often multi-site, multi-language, VIP and/or e-commerce.

In 2018, with a partner, I launched a premium plugin for the recruitment industry, Matador Jobs (https://matadorjobs.com/) and in June Matador Jobs became an official Bullhorn partner (https://www.bullhorn.com/marketplace/matador-jobs/).

I continue to support my growing list of plugins (https://profiles.wordpress.org/pbearne/#content-plugins ) and the wider WordPress community, founded the Kingston WordPress Meetup and speak regularly at WordCamps.

Badges

CODE
5 badges
C Core AI Contributor '26 Core Contributor '15 C Core Performance Contributor '22 C Core Performance Team '22 Plugin Developer
CONTENT
1 badge
Documentation Contributor '17
COMMUNITY
4 badges
Meetup Organizer '18 WordCamp Organizer '16 WordCamp Speaker '14 WordCamp Volunteer '25
PRACTICE
2 badges
Test Contributor '21 Test Team '21
POLYGLOTS
2 badges
Translation Contributor '15 Translation Editor '15

Current Job

Senior WordPress Full Stack Developer
Present
Paul & Gina Bearne (Freelance Consultancy)

Recent impact

Score weights high-impact work (commits, releases, approved translations, props) at 3x routine activity.

Last 30 days
26contributions
high6
medium20
score38
Last 90 days
174contributions
high73
medium101
score320
Last 12 months
237contributions
high107
medium130
score451

Team focus

Share of contributions across teams during the last 365 days

WordPress releases

Contributed to 28 releases
  • 7.0
  • 6.9
  • 6.8
  • 6.7
  • 6.6
  • 6.5
  • 6.2
  • 6.1
  • 6.0
  • 5.9
  • 5.8
  • 5.7
  • 5.6
  • 5.5
  • 5.4
  • 5.3
  • 5.2
  • 5.1
  • 5.0
  • 4.9
  • 4.8
  • 4.7
  • 4.6
  • 4.5
  • 4.4
  • 4.2
  • 4.0
  • 3.9

Time commitment

10 hours per week of sponsored contribution time

Contributions

Type
June 2026
Jun 26 Fri · 17:03
Core med
Closed ticket #57224 on Core Trac:
tests for wp_widgets_add_menu()
Jun 24 Wed · 17:37
Core med
Submitted pull request #12307 to WordPress/wordpress-develop:
65526 tests to move functions folder
Jun 24 Wed · 15:53
Core med
Created ticket #65534 on Core Trac:
test for wp_upload_bits
Jun 23 Tue · 21:50
Core med
Created ticket #65527 on Core Trac:
move the tst test_http_response_code_constants from http.php to ...
Jun 23 Tue · 21:26
Core med
Created ticket #65526 on Core Trac:
last of the tests for functions.php
Jun 22 Mon · 21:25
Core med
Reopened pull request #12094 on WordPress/wordpress-develop:
Add PHPUnit tests for `wp_ajax_save_attachment` and `wp_ajax_save_att…
Jun 16 Tue · 20:20
Core high
Mentioned in [62511] on WordPress SVN:
Comments: Remove `touchstart` event listeners from comment reply/cancel links.
Jun 09 Tue · 12:57
Core med
Submitted pull request #12138 to WordPress/wordpress-develop:
Add unit tests for AJAX actions: `wp_ajax_dismiss_wp_pointer`, `wp_aj…
Jun 08 Mon · 21:04
Core med
Submitted pull request #12130 to WordPress/wordpress-develop:
Ajax: Add unit tests for Site Health, auto-updates, password reset, a…
Jun 08 Mon · 20:36
Core med
Submitted pull request #12129 to WordPress/wordpress-develop:
Ajax: Add remaining unit tests for theme and plugin handlers

Developer

6 plugins

Translations

5 locales
en_ZA English (South Africa) (English) Translation Contributor
en_NZ English (New Zealand) (English) Translation Contributor