My name is Arjan Drees, 34 years old and temporarily residing in my hometown Vroomshoop, the Netherlands. I’m a driven and creative frontend WordPress developer with a keen eye for pixel perfect design and quality code.
For more then 20 years I’ve been crafting websites and doing creative jobs on and off the computer, from graphics and print design to building computers, coding and network engineering. I’ve been working remotely for over five years, managing the domains and websites (which most of them I built myself) simultaneously for more than 100 WordPress customers via DirectAdmin, Plesk, zPanel and cPanel. I love writing HTML & Sass in shorthand, with the help of Emmet.io. Furthermore, I know my way around (custom) WordPress themes; page, post and taxonomy templates; hooks and filters; custom post types in combination with Advanced Custom Fields; Web Accessibility (WCAG 2.1) and more.
For the past half year I’ve taken some time off to change my course a bit. My wanderlust was really starting to itch and in the meantime I have been exploring my options as a remote worker. I soon came to the realisation that it’s definitely part of the lifestyle I’m looking for. And now I've finally decided to take that next step and chase my dreams.
Indian Summer Ultra 2022, 75km
You see, beside al the geeky stuff, I love to run (ultra) long distances, hike up mountains and backpack while capturing all my travels on camera with film- and photography. One of my next goals in life is to combine all of these hobbies in conjuction with my favorite kind of job in the world; creating appealing, accessible user-friendly and responsive websites. For your clients. But before I would start working and travelling (we can discuss exact terms, I'm very flexible), I want to create some time inbetween to get to know my new job, so I can fully get adjusted.
So, for starters, I’d be working from my hometown or in your office. I also would be happy to relocate for a couple of months until fully settled in! I want to understand your company’s workflow, familiarize myself with the tool stack, adjust to the (custom) theming, plug-ins and upgrade other skills if needed. It will also be nice to get to know one another, I think it's important so we can build a foundation of trust.
I was looking at your amazing job opening and saw a direct match with the things I'm looking for in a job. That's why I've sent you my online resume. I’m sure I can be a worthy asset to your team and I would love to work for your company and your clients.
Of course I’ll be more than happy to provide any additional information if needed. Thank you kindly for your consideration and I hope to hear from you soon.
Sincerely,
Arjan Drees
Frontend WordPress developer
I have experience with all of the following skills and tools
You're highly encouraged to click some buttons and find out more!
For over 10 years I've been developing websites with WordPress. I've worked remotely for ESINIT for over 5 years. For my last job I joined up with Team Nijhhuis .
Over time I've build up my own custom workflow. From homemade plug-ins, macro's and packages to an automatic batch script to install WordPress, my custom theme and all needed plug-ins with the press of a button.
I'm also more than capable to use Advanced Custom Fields PRO, so that WordPress is functioning like a full-blown CMS, dedicated to the customer's needs.
Here's a small selection of the websites I've made for Team Nijhuis:
WooCommerce helped me set up multiple webshops and delivery services. I know how to customize the checkout process and have made custom .PDF templates for the invoices and packing slips.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title> ♥ HTML5 </title>
</head>
<body>
<p>For over 20 years I've been working with HTML! </p>
</body>
</html>
I like to use Advanced Custom fields so that I can easily expand the capabilities of WordPress as a content management system (CMS). A simple nice use case for this was for example
SMT Shipping .
There was a lot of data delivered in the form of .PDF files. I wrote a script so that the data was being fed to custom fields on the website. All this data is converted to custom fields and are manageable in the back-end.
Ships are shown in a UIKit powered slider and when navigation, new data is being loaded through AJAX
One of the first things to do when I create a website is defining what Custom Post Types I will use in WordPress.
In combination with Advanced Custom Fields and the frontend magic of UIKit you can easily develop beautiful pages. From sliders, slideshows and different gridviews I can fully customize WordPress' output.
While working for ESINIT I was temporarily outsourced as a front-end developer at the government agency DICTU . Here I've learned among other things how important it is to apply the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to every website.
The web and its contents should be accessible for each and every person.
Definitely one my most used software on my Macbook next to the internet browser. I've personalised Sublime with the use of snippets, macro's, custom packages and custom themes.
With iThemes you have a complete suite with important plug-ins to support your site management.
Security Pro
With the right knowledge you can easily set up Brute Force protection, file change detection and two-factor authentication (2FA)
BackupBuddy
I've set up multiple websites with custom backup schedules and specific destionations. Daily encrypted back-ups in the cloud with ease.
Sync
U can use this plug-in to get a nice overview from all the sites you're managing to see which sites need updates or get a notification that the website is down.
With the use of Trello I've made my own custom workflow, including checklists and reusable cards; starting from the intake interview with a customer to the finalising the project and releasing it on the web
A few of these checks link to other checklists to specify that task in depth. This is how I keep my work structered.
Here's a small selection of a few tasks that keep me busy when a new site goes live (dev-to-prod).
Using Mollie is an smooth way to configure WooCommerce so orders can be paid with iDeal. It's a superb integration and should definitely be included in every Dutch e-commerce website.
When I'm using Windows I always install the Wox Launcher. It uses the ALT+SPACEBAR keys to add a handy Mac's Spotlight Search like service to your toolbelt.
With this plugin I can create a complete workflow in combination with Gravity Forms. You can think of a complex booking system for example with multiple steps between the website and customer, or maybe a communication tool between departments on a local network.
With Balsamiq I've built a lot of proof-of-concepts and prototypes for a variety of projects. While I was working for Profity for example and designed a whole time registration application called Profity Time (Timesplitter)
I've been following Twitter Bootstrap since it was in beta. Used it in various projects over the years.
Work Experience in IT
2006
Public Schools Hardenberg
Internship of six months as a network administrator on multiple municipal public schools
2007
Vilnius College of Higher Education
An internship abroad in Lithuania for six months months as an application developer
2010
Logic4
6 months as a graphics designer using Adobe software. Also worked on WordPress frontend development building CSS stylesheets.
2010
Truzt
6 months internship as a graphics designer, designed multiple branding projects.
2011 - 2014
Profity
Jack-of-all-trades: User interface design, web development, graphics designer
2015 - 2020
ESINIT
Jack-of-all-trades: Frontend developer (WordPress/Joomla) User Interface design, web design, graphics design,
2018
DICTU
Worked as a frontend developer on government projects writing Sass stylesheets for Drupal projects
2019 - 2020
Bebo Parket
Administrator and developer of multiple e-commerce (WooCommerce) websites. One of the main projects that I've set up here was a large e-commerce website for selling laminate flooring
2020 - 2021
Team Nijhuis
Full time frontend WordPress developer. Worked on a range of WordPress projects, including WooCommerce sites
2021 - present
Arjan Drees Media
As a freelancer I'm taking on web development in WordPress and also photography plus cinematography projects
Education
2004
VBMO TL Engineering
C.S.G. Het Noordik, Vroomshoop
2006
Assistant IT management
ROC van Twente, Almelo | niv. 3
2007
Application Development
ROC van Twente, Almelo | niv. 4
2010
Higher Vocational Education Cross Media Concepting
WordPress
WooCommerce
