Senior WordPress Engineer - Enterprise Intranet and Microsoft Integrations

Upwork; Kuwait City; On-site; KWD 34,000 - 53,000; Full time

Job summary

Upwork is seeking a Senior WordPress Engineer to deliver a secure, scalable employee intranet with custom Gutenberg blocks, enterprise search, multilingual and RTL support, and deep integrations across Microsoft Entra ID, Graph, SharePoint, Power BI, HR systems, and a corporate Service Desk.

The role focuses on hands-on development, performance, security, testing, and technical handover, avoiding off-the-shelf themes and plugins to meet enterprise requirements.

Qualifications

• Extensive professional PHP development experience building custom WordPress plugins and themes for enterprise environments.
• Expert knowledge of WordPress core APIs: custom post types, taxonomies, hooks, cron, transients, roles, capabilities, REST APIs, WP-CLI.
• Strong experience building custom Gutenberg blocks with React, dynamic rendering, block patterns, and theme.json.
• Experience implementing OAuth 2.0/OpenID Connect SSO, preferably with Microsoft Entra ID.

Responsibilities

• Implement OpenID Connect SSO with Microsoft Entra ID and MFA, user provisioning and role mapping.
• Build a library of custom React-based Gutenberg blocks for homepage and portals.
• Develop multilingual, RTL-ready frontend components across the intranet.
• Create a notifications plugin with database table, REST endpoints, unread indicators and SMTP notifications.

Skills

WordPress

PHP

React

OAuth/OpenID

Azure

ElasticSearch

Security

Tools

ACF Pro

Polylang

Bedrock

WP-CLI

Job description

An enterprise client is seeking a Senior WordPress Engineer to build a secure, scalable employee intranet with custom Gutenberg components, enterprise search, multilingual and RTL support, and integrations across Microsoft Entra ID, Microsoft Graph, SharePoint, Power BI, HR systems, and a corporate Service Desk.

Job Description

This is a hands-on engineering engagement focused on custom development, systems integration, performance, security, testing, and technical handover. The selected freelancer will work from approved designs and defined enterprise requirements rather than assembling the solution from off-the-shelf themes or plugins.

For this project, the selected candidate will:

• Implement OpenID Connect single sign-on with Microsoft Entra ID as the first major deliverable, including MFA support, automatic user provisioning, and security-group-to-WordPress-role mapping
• Build a reusable library of custom React-based Gutenberg blocks for the homepage and department portals
• Develop responsive, design-accurate components including news cards, event grids, quick-action tiles, document accordions, portal carousels, and regional filters
• Ensure all frontend components support multilingual content and RTL Arabic layouts
• Develop a custom notifications plugin with a dedicated database table, REST endpoints, unread indicators, and corporate SMTP email notifications -Build a configurable spin-the-wheel module with server-side draw logic, prize settings, per-user cooldowns, audit logs, and HR fulfilment notifications
• Create event registration forms that pre-fill employee information from the authenticated user’s synchronised profile
• Develop a cloud-embedded video gallery without storing video files in WordPress
• Implement fast, relevant search across intranet content using ElasticPress, Elasticsearch, or SearchWP
• Add AJAX filtering and server-side pagination to content listings such as News, Events, Directory, Gallery, Success Stories, and Policies
• Implement protected downloads with authorisation checks and download logging
• Build a scheduled employee-directory synchronisation process using Microsoft Graph users, photos, and delta queries
• Store synchronised employee data in a custom read-only table and cache profile images through Azure Blob Storage or a CDN
• Develop a read-only SharePoint connector for policy and procedure metadata while keeping SharePoint as the system of record
• Integrate read-only feeds for new joiners, birthdays, and internal vacancies, including graceful manual-publishing fallbacks
• Connect administrative and IT request forms to the corporate Service Desk through create-only API calls
• Optionally develop a read-only “My Open Tickets” widget
• Embed Power BI dashboards with role-based access controls
• Store secrets securely using Azure Key Vault or an equivalent credential-management platform -Apply least-privilege API scopes, retry and backoff logic, structured failure logging, and operational alerting
• Build custom database tables where WordPress post meta would not scale
• Implement Redis object caching, query optimisation, and other performance improvements
• Develop all custom plugins, blocks, endpoints, and integrations according to WordPress coding standards
• Apply sanitisation, escaping, nonces, capability checks, secure file handling, and other OWASP-aligned protections
• Support QA and UAT, resolve defects, simulate integration failures, and verify fallback behavior
• Maintain a disciplined Git, code review, staging, and production deployment workflow
• Deliver code documentation, an integration runbook, endpoint and field-mapping documentation, an administrator guide, and a complete technical handover

Qualifications

Ideal candidates will have:

• Extensive professional PHP development experience, including several years building custom WordPress plugins and themes for enterprise environments
• Expert knowledge of WordPress core APIs, including custom post types, taxonomies, hooks, cron, transients, roles, capabilities, REST APIs, and WP-CLI
• Strong experience developing custom Gutenberg blocks using React, dynamic rendering, block patterns, and theme.json
• Demonstrated experience implementing OAuth 2.0 or OpenID Connect SSO, preferably with Microsoft Entra ID
• Hands-on experience with Microsoft Graph, employee-directory data, SharePoint files, delta queries, pagination, and scheduled synchronisation jobs
• Experience designing and consuming secure REST APIs with robust authentication and failure handling
• Advanced knowledge of custom database tables, MySQL optimisation, and high-volume WordPress data
• Experience with ACF Pro, Polylang, multilingual websites, and Arabic or RTL interfaces -Strong modern JavaScript, React, responsive CSS, and design implementation skills
• Experience with Azure Key Vault or comparable secrets-management tools
• Practical knowledge of WordPress security, including XSS, CSRF, injection, authorisation, and file-handling risks
• Experience with ElasticPress, Elasticsearch, SearchWP, Redis, Composer, and preferably Bedrock -Strong documentation, communication, troubleshooting, and code review discipline
• Previous experience delivering intranets, employee portals, Power BI integrations, or enterprise platforms in GCC environments is highly desirable