Websites, stores and web apps that ship.
Web engineer in Portugal, working with teams in the US and Europe. Fourteen years building for the web: WordPress sites, WooCommerce stores, custom web apps, and the AI features on top of them. In your stack, in your repo, in production.
- Free 30-min call
- No obligation
- Reply within 1 business day
Vetted on Toptal and Codeable. Speaker at WordCamp Europe 2026. WordPress Core contributor.
What I build
Five kinds of work, one standard: it has to run in production
Websites and redesigns
Fast, accessible WordPress sites built to last, and redesigns that keep your SEO and your content intact.
WordPress, block themes, Core Web Vitals, migrations
E-commerce
WooCommerce stores that convert: catalog structure, checkout, performance, search and the integrations behind them.
WooCommerce, Shopify, payment and ERP integrations
Web apps and integrations
Custom plugins, APIs, dashboards and the glue between your site and the tools your business runs on.
PHP, Node, TypeScript, REST and GraphQL
AI features
Semantic search, recommendations and assistants that answer from your own content, built to run in production, with evals and cost control.
Embeddings, pgvector, Pinecone, OpenAI and Anthropic APIs
Security and performance
Hardening, audits and incident response for WordPress and WooCommerce. Sites that stay fast under real traffic.
WAF rules, rate limiting, caching, monitoring
14 yrs
building for the web
4.98/5
client rating on Codeable
90+
projects delivered
1,000+
sites running my plugins
How we’ll work
From first call to shipped work
Intro call, 30 minutes
You explain the product and the problem. I tell you honestly whether AI is the right tool and what it would take.
Proposal within two business days
Scope, timeline, price. Fixed price for well-defined work, hourly for ongoing engineering.
Build in your repo
Weekly check-ins, async updates, documentation your team can read. You own everything.
Recent work
Work that shipped
AI Search: vector search for WordPress and WooCommerce
Semantic search and live results for WordPress and WooCommerce sites without a dev team: architecture, cost decisions and what production taught me.
Client case studies
Redesigns, stores, web apps and AI features for US and European teams, being written up with real numbers.
What clients say
“Sam is an excellent programmer who I would have no hesitation recommending and look forward to working with again. He really thinks things through carefully and delivers great work.”
Client via Codeable, 5/5
“Samuel was an excellent developer to work with and a great communicator. Not only did he solve my troubleshooting task with ease, but clearly shows a lot of pride in his work, doing a great job of documenting cleanly all his changes made to my site.”
Client via Codeable, 5/5
“Samuel was fantastic, very responsive, even over a weekend and across opposite time zones. He has helped me manage all issues within the project, answering any and all of my questions. Would definitely recommend.”
Client via Codeable, 4/5
Working with a US company
Built to work with teams in the US
Time zone
Portugal is on UTC. I overlap with US East until 1 pm ET and with West Coast mornings. Async the rest of the day.
Invoicing
USD invoices, W-8BEN on file, payment by ACH, Wise or Stripe. Net-15.
Contracts
Standard independent contractor agreement and NDA ready to sign, or yours.
Procurement
If a marketplace is easier for your finance team, I’m on Toptal and Codeable.
Writing
Recent notes
Have a project in mind?
Thirty minutes is enough to know whether it’s worth building, and how.
Or email hello@samuelsilva.pt