If you’ve stumbled across this page, it’s either from a link that I’ve forgotten exists somewhere on my site or a third-party is linked to it. Either way, hello there.

I’m a remote software developer living in a small town east of Atlanta, Georgia. My wife and I have three daughters, two dogs, and five cats (last I noticed :).

When I’m not in front of a computer, you’re likely to find me running, listening to music, reading, or playing around with one of my guitars.

If you’re looking for me on social media, you won’t find much but I lurk on X/Twitter at @tommcfarlin. I also use Instagram occasionally.

For Work

I’m a senior developer for Awesome Motive where I work with incredibly talented people on a suite of products that help to small businesses compete with larger businesses.

You can find a lot of my open source work both in the WordPress Plugin Repository as well as on GitHub (though some of it’s quite old and outdated so be mindful of the dates in the repository). I generally try to keep as many repositories as updated as possible, but work comes first so those projects generally take a backseat.

About This Blog

I’d say this is my personal blog, but that’d be somewhat of a misnomer. I’d also call it my professional blog, but I’m concerned that a liberal use of memes and other such images may disqualify it from that, as well.

Either way, this is where I share articles, notes, tips, resources, and more. Generally, I try to cover topics related to PHP, software engineering, WordPress, and web development. When possible, I also try to talk about some of the projects that I’ve completed.

Throughout my time maintaining this blog, I’ve posted daily, every other day, once a week, once a month, and sometimes less. The frequency has more to do with life outside of work than anything else. Further, I no longer offer comments as they became simply too much to manage, but I’m always interested in hearing from readers.

Occasionally, I speak at various meet-ups and WordCamps about WordPress both as a blogger and as a developer. If you’re a developer, designer, or a blogger who is passionate about WordPress, I invite you to subscribe.

A Bit of History

I graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology with a degree in Computer Science focused in Software Engineering. Shortly thereafter, I worked for CareerBuilder.com as a software engineer and as a team lead primarily working with .NET.

In 2010, I moved to self-employment where I wanted to focus on building software and sites for small businesses, teams, and individuals. Since then, I’ve built products for others using PHP, Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, and WordPress.

In 2019 I started working at WebDevStudios doing a variety of things with WordPress and object-oriented programming.

In 2021, I started working at Awesome Motive as a Senior Developer. I primarily work on backend tools, cloud-based systems, DevOps, and integrations.

I was a Microsoft MVP since 2011 – 2015 which was interesting back then given that Microsoft wasn’t as invested in open source as they are today.

When it comes to engineering, I believe in going deep rather than wide and have since begun to narrowly focus my professional development efforts.

I believe that WordPress is the best content management platform on the planet, and I also believe that it can serve as a tremendous foundation for building applications. Through blogging, projects, and speaking, I aim to help other bloggers and developers get involved with the WordPress community.

Writing & Speaking

Aside from my personal blog, I also aim to contribute to the WordPress community by providing various tutorials and articles on other blogs.

As time and schedules allow, I enjoy speaking at a variety of events in the Atlanta area covering all things WordPress. You can check out my speaking page for more information.

Under The Hood

For the technically curious:

  • This blog is hosted on Kinsta and the Hemingway theme by Anders Norén.
  • If you’re curious about WordPress but don’t know where to start, then I recommend checking out WPBeginner.

Those are the finer details.

For Questions, Comments, and More

I’m available for hire and enjoy partnering with others for fun and interesting projects. If you’re interested in hiring me, please contact me.