LAHIRU SENARATH
Senior WordPress & PHP Developer | E-Commerce & Full-Stack WordPress Solutions
Sri Lanka (Open to Remote/On-site) | +94 71 542 7502 | lahiruspriyankara@gmail.com
Portfolio: https://lahirusenarath.site/#portfolio
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/lahiru-senarath/
PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY
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Senior WordPress and PHP developer with 8+ years building, optimizing, and maintaining WordPress and WooCommerce websites for e-commerce, tourism, membership, and academy clients. Proven record of solving high-impact performance issues (e.g. eliminating 504 timeout errors via custom database indexing), building custom themes from Figma designs, and integrating payment gateways across international and local banking systems. Combines consulting work with independent freelance client delivery, including AI-assisted site builds (Replit) and Cloudflare/DNS-managed domain launches. Comfortable owning a project end-to-end — from server/hosting setup through launch and post-launch support — in fully remote, async team environments.
CORE SKILLS
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WordPress Development:Custom theme development, Figma-to-theme conversion, Elementor, ACF, Gutenberg, WPBakery, Divi, custom post types, plugin development
E-Commerce:WooCommerce, Shopify, Contact Form 7, addon/product configuration, cart & checkout customization
Payment Gateways:Stripe, PayPal, local Sri Lankan bank gateways, Onepay/Ogano integration
Server & Hosting:Kinsta, Hostinger, shared hosting management, FTP/SFTP, mail server configuration, site migrations (staging to live)
Site Maintenance:Ongoing WordPress maintenance, scheduled backups, core/plugin/theme updates, uptime monitoring
Domains & DNS:Cloudflare, DNS record management, SSL configuration, custom domain connection
Transactional Email / SMTP:WP Mail SMTP, Resend, Sendinblue (Brevo), SendGrid, Mailgun
AI-Assisted Development:AI website builders (Replit), converting Figma/image layouts into live AI-generated site builds, custom domain integration
Responsive Web Development:Mobile-first, cross-browser and cross-device responsive builds
Languages & Tools:PHP, HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, MySQL, Git, REST API integration, Visual Studio Code
Digital Marketing & SEO:Off-page SEO, responsive email template development, ActiveCampaign, Mailchimp, Market Samurai, Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Yoast SEO, Rank Math
Project Management:Jira, Trello, Bordio, ClickUp, Clockify • FTP/Remote: FileZilla, Cyberduck, Termius • Testing: Litmus
Design Software:Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, After Effects, Figma
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
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Independent Freelance Web Developer
2026 – Present
Self-Employed / Freelance
- Delivered complete website builds for independent clients, as measured by successful handoff from initial scoping through post-launch support, by managing WordPress, WooCommerce, and AI-assisted builds directly with no intermediary.
- Ran every stage of freelance projects solo — requirements gathering, hosting/DNS setup, build, and launch — while keeping delivery on time across client time zones.
- Protected client sites from downtime and data loss, as measured by sites kept current and recoverable, by providing ongoing maintenance and scheduled backups as ongoing freelance retainer work.
Software Engineering Consultant (Part-Time)
2026 – Present
Beyond Technologies Lanka Private Limited
Previously: Development Team Lead (2023–2026) • Senior Software Engineer (2020–2023) • Mid-Level Software Engineer (2019–2020)
- Progressed from Mid-Level Engineer to Consultant over 7 years, as measured by promotion through four roles, by taking on increasing ownership of architecture decisions, client scoping, and mentoring of junior developers.
- Eliminated recurring 504 timeout errors on a high-traffic academy website's search function, as measured by search requests completing without server timeout, by designing a custom FULLTEXT database index plugin to replace WordPress's default LIKE-based full-table scans.
- Refactored a fragile multi-instance search implementation into a single AJAX live-search widget covering 3 post types (posts, events, team members) — resolving a dual sticky-header JS conflict along the way by moving from ID-based to querySelectorAll-based handling.
- Delivered pixel-accurate custom WordPress builds, as measured by successful Figma-to-live-site conversions across 5 page builders (Elementor, ACF, Gutenberg, WPBakery, Divi), by adapting the build approach to each client's tech stack.
- Took client Figma/image layouts from design to fully live, custom-domain websites using AI-assisted builders (Replit), handling SSL and DNS configuration through Cloudflare along the way.
- Enabled clients to accept payments across multiple markets, as measured by successful integration of 4+ payment gateways (Stripe, PayPal, Onepay/Ogano, local Sri Lankan banks), by configuring webhook and callback URLs end-to-end.
- Built and maintained WooCommerce and Shopify storefronts with full cart/checkout customization, and ran staging-to-live migrations on Kinsta and Hostinger with minimal client disruption.
- Protected client sites through regular maintenance and scheduled backups, cut repeat support tickets by tracing PHP/media/Elementor issues to root cause, and kept delivery on schedule using Jira/Trello/ClickUp with Litmus-tested email campaigns.
Web Development Team Lead
2018 – 2019
The Brand Agency – Moratuwa
Previously: Web Developer (2017–2018)
- Kept a small development team's output consistent, as measured by successful delivery of Namecheap-hosted client sites, by leading the team while remaining hands-on with WordPress builds.
- Owned client meetings and requirements gathering directly, translating briefs into finished builds without back-and-forth losses in translation.
SEO Analyst
2017
Ceygate Technologies (Pvt) Ltd
- Improved client campaign visibility, as measured by off-page SEO execution across client accounts, by conducting keyword and competitor research using Market Samurai.
- Monitored organic traffic and indexing health across client sites using Google Analytics and Google Search Console, surfacing technical issues before they affected rankings.
- Improved on-page SEO health for WordPress clients, as measured by optimized content and metadata across site pages, by configuring and managing Yoast SEO and Rank Math.
IT Trainee
2016 (6 months)
Disaster Management Center – Sri Lanka
- Preserved continuity of disaster-loss records, as measured by a completed production database migration, by migrating the DesInventar server from MSSQL to MySQL.
EDUCATION
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Bachelor of Information Technology (External Degree) — University of Moratuwa, 2016–2021
Higher National Diploma in Information Technology — Sri Lanka Institute of Advanced Technological Education (SLIATE), 2013–2015
National Certificate in Information & Communication Technology — Vocational Training Authority (NCICT)
REFERENCES
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M.N.N. Ahamad
Dev Team Lead, COD SPIDER Private Limited
+94 77 402 2427 • nasmyayyash100@gmail.com
Supun Chandula Illeperuma
CTO, One Ceylon (Pvt) Ltd
077 448 8571 • chandula@oneceylon.space