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Self-Employed (Independent Consultant)

Director – E-commerce Development & Automation

📅 Jan 2025 - Present
📍 Orange County, California
🏢 E-commerce, Photography, AI & Automation
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Position Overview

As an Independent Consultant, I engineered aliarshadphotography.com, a fully custom WordPress/WooCommerce e-commerce platform for global print sales, architected for scalability, high performance, and automated order fulfillment. I designed and coded a custom portfolio theme with dynamic meta boxes for structured content management and developed bespoke WordPress plugins using Claude Code, leveraging ChatGPT as a technical reviewer. I integrated Make.com workflows to automate multi-platform product metadata handling, reducing manual work by 80% and accelerating time-to-market for new products. This work reflects my ability to blend AI-assisted development, full-stack engineering, and automation strategy to create future-proof, self-sustaining systems that deliver operational efficiency and exceptional user experiences.

Key Responsibilities:

  • E-commerce Development: Designing and building custom photography e-commerce platform (aliarshadphotography.com) using WordPress and WooCommerce for global print sales
  • Technical Innovation: Focusing on site architecture, user experience optimization, and automated order fulfillment workflows
  • AI & Technology Experimentation: Continuing hands-on learning in GenAI applications, web architecture, and automation tools through personal projects

Key Responsibilities

• Designed and built a custom photography e-commerce platform (aliarshadphotography.com) using WordPress and WooCommerce for global print sales.
• Architected site structure, optimized user experience (UX), and implemented automated order fulfillment workflows for print labs.
• Developed custom WordPress plugins using Claude Code, integrating with WooCommerce to extend functionality.
• Created a fully custom portfolio theme with dynamic meta boxes to support structured project data entry — the same theme currently being populated collaboratively with Claude Code and ChatGPT as reviewers.
• Implemented process automation via Make.com for product metadata management across multiple sales platforms.
• Conducted continuous experimentation in Generative AI, web architecture, and automation tools, maintaining technical fluency with emerging technologies.

Major Achievements

✓ Delivered a fully custom e-commerce website with automated workflows, reducing manual fulfillment effort to near-zero.
✓ Built a dynamic portfolio theme enabling structured content management and rapid updates without code changes.
✓ Automated multi-platform metadata handling, eliminating repetitive manual uploads and increasing publishing speed.

Impact & Results

📈 Reduced manual product management effort by 80% via Make.com automation.
📈 Enabled ordering and fulfillment for prints with end-to-end automation.
📈 Reduced content update time from hours to minutes through meta box automation.

Key Projects Delivered

🎯 aliarshadphotography.com e-commerce platform – custom WordPress/WooCommerce build for global print sales.
🎯 Custom portfolio theme with meta boxes – dynamic WordPress theme to structure portfolio data.
🎯 Custom plugin development – Claude Code–built plugins to enhance WooCommerce.
🎯 Automation workflows – Make.com processes for metadata distribution across platforms.

Challenges Overcome

Manual product metadata handling → automated through Make.com integrations.
Static portfolio management → replaced with dynamic meta box–driven system.
Global print order fulfillment complexity → resolved with automated workflows.

Skills Developed

Full-stack Web Development: Custom WordPress/WooCommerce theme and plugin development.
Automation & Workflow Design: Multi-platform product metadata automation using Make.com.
AI-assisted Development: Leveraged Claude Code and ChatGPT for plugin/theme development and review.
E-commerce Architecture: Designed scalable site architecture for global order handling.
User Experience Optimization: Structured content layouts for speed, clarity, and ease of updates.