$> whoami

Gabriel de Tassigny

Senior Staff Engineer · PHP, Symfony & WordPress · since 2012

I build and maintain web platforms for publishers and product teams, from REST APIs and headless WordPress to Gutenberg blocks and Core Web Vitals work. I'm based in Poitiers, France, and have worked remotely with teams in Dublin, London and beyond.

Open to freelance projects

For employers

Hiring a senior engineer?

14 years across agency, product and media companies. Backend depth, frontend fluency, and product-owner experience.

For clients

Need a WordPress or PHP developer?

Plugins and themes, site migrations and upgrades, performance audits, and long-term maintenance.

$> git log --career

Experience

  1. Sep 2021 – now(HEAD -> remote)Remote

    Senior Staff Engineer & Product Owner · XWP

    • Builds modern WordPress plugins and themes for large publishers (Evolve Media, Are Media) and tech companies (Twitch), with Gutenberg, React, PHP 8, Sass and TypeScript.
    • Improves web performance and Core Web Vitals on high-traffic sites.
    • Acts as product owner, writing user stories and managing and prioritizing the backlog.
    • Works with internal and client stakeholders across several projects at once, in Scrum and Kanban teams.
    • Uses AI-assisted development workflows day to day.
    • WordPress
    • Gutenberg
    • PHP 8
    • React
    • TypeScript
    • Sass
  2. Jan 2019 – Aug 2021(london)London, UK

    Senior Backend PHP Developer · Immediate Media

    • Migrated sites to headless WordPress and a service-oriented architecture.
    • Built REST APIs with PHP 7.4, API Platform (Symfony), MongoDB and Docker.
    • Developed AWS Lambda functions with Bref for Amazon Alexa.
    • Set up automated testing at every level, from unit and API tests to load and end-to-end tests.
    • Contributed to the JavaScript side with Node.js and React.
    • Mentored and coached mid-level developers.
    • PHP 7.4
    • API Platform
    • Symfony
    • MongoDB
    • Docker
    • AWS Lambda
    • Node.js
    • React
  3. Feb 2018 – Nov 2018(dublin)Dublin, Ireland (remote from South Korea)

    Senior Backend Engineer · Distilled SCH

    • Built microservices with Java 8 and Spring Boot, deployed on OpenShift.
    • Worked fully remote from South Korea with three overlapping hours a day, in a Scrum team.
    • Java 8
    • Spring Boot
    • OpenShift
  4. Dec 2014 – Feb 2018(dublin)Dublin, Ireland

    PHP Developer on daft.ie · Distilled SCH

    • Developed and maintained daft.ie, Ireland's largest property website, through the upgrade from PHP 5.3 to 7.1.
    • Led development on several medium-sized projects.
    • Was the main contributor to the internal REST API, built with Slim and OpenAPI.
    • Introduced best practices such as TDD, design patterns and SOLID.
    • PHP 5.3–7.1
    • Slim
    • OpenAPI
    • MySQL
    • PHPUnit
  5. Jan 2012 – Sep 2014(paris)Paris, France

    Full-stack Web Developer · DirectStreams

    • Built an extranet with Ruby on Rails, jQuery and Bootstrap.
    • Developed REST APIs.
    • Was the main maintainer of the legacy PHP 5.3 platform.
    • Worked in a Scrum team of four developers.
    • Ruby on Rails
    • PHP 5.3
    • jQuery
    • Bootstrap

Education

$> ls ~/projects

Projects

$> git log --author=gdetassigny --all-repos

Open source

On wordpress.org

Contributions

$> tail ~/blog

Writing

Read the blog →

$> composer show --tree

Skills

Backend
  • PHP 5.3 → 8.5
  • Symfony
  • API Platform
  • Slim
  • Java
  • Ruby
  • Node.js
WordPress
  • Plugins
  • Block themes
  • Gutenberg blocks
  • Headless
  • WP-CLI
  • Core Web Vitals
Frontend
  • React
  • TypeScript
  • JavaScript
  • HTML
  • CSS / Sass
Data
  • MySQL
  • PostgreSQL
  • MongoDB
  • SQLite
Testing
  • TDD
  • PHPUnit
  • Playwright
  • API tests
  • Load tests (Artillery)
DevOps
  • GitHub Actions
  • Docker
  • AWS
  • Kubernetes
  • Terraform
  • Linux
Languages
  • French (native)
  • English (fluent)
  • Korean (conversational)

$> man hire

Freelance services

I work in small, reviewable steps, write tests, and leave documentation so you're never locked in.

$> mail contact

Contact

The quickest way to reach me is by email, for job opportunities and freelance projects alike.