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Shelby DeNike

Today we are going to list the interview of Shelby DeNike from Okemos, Michigan. He is a Sales Engineer at Kinsta and a Seasoned WordPress Support Expert. He is working with WordPress since its preliminary release, creating plugins, themes and he is using it daily. He previously worked for many hosting agencies. Thus he has been part of the IT industry for more than 10 years.

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Q. How did you come into your current field? Share a bit of the background?

Ans: I originally started off using Moveable Type which was working great at the time, then they decide to change their licensing which led me to discovering and switching to WordPress. After switching to WordPress I began to learn PHP, promote WordPress and eventually started to make a living off supporting, and developing sites based on WordPress.

Q. What’s the most interesting project you have done to date in WordPress?

Ans: While note the most exciting, I few years ago I had to convert a DotNetNuke site over to WordPress that had thousands of posts. This was not a fun project by any means but it was interesting to see it all come together and having the client on WordPress instead.

Q. Have you ever been to any WordPress meetups or WordCamps? If yes did you learn anything useful?

Ans: I have been to multiple WordCamps and meetups, WordCamp US a couple of times, and have helped organize WordCamps as well as being the head organizer of WordCamp Las Vegas one year.

Q. What does your workstation look like?

Ans: I try to keep things minimal when it comes to my work space, as I find the less things sitting out to distract me the more work I accomplish. If you want to know more about my setup you can read all about it here https://fauxzen.com/about/my-setup/

Q. What kind of tools/software do you currently use for your creations?

Ans: I use Safari, Chrome and Brave for browsing and testing sites. I also use iTerm, Textmate and Transmit on a regular basis. I also depend heavily on Alfred for launching applications, and text completion.

Q. What interesting feature do you think you would like to see in WordPress and is currently missing?

Ans: While I like to hope that WordPress stays lean, with the recent addition of adding in sitemaps it would be nice to see some built in caching so users would not need to rely on 3rd party plugins for this.

Q. Out of the current plugins and themes which one do you like the most and why?

Ans: When it comes to themes I started using Generate Press for all of my sites, and client sites as its really well written and is very fast compared to many of the other themes and frameworks out there.

Q. Which WordPress hosting do you use and would you recommend for your clients and others?

Ans: For all of my clients I try to host them on my own platform so I have full access and can maintain all of my customer sites via WP-CLI scripts I have written. When not using mine I always suggest Kinsta, I may be a bit biased since I work for Kinsta as a Sales Engineer but their platform is rock solid, and optimized for WordPress all built on top of the fantastic Google Cloud Platform.

Q. Do you like/love what you currently do in WordPress?

Ans: Absolutely, before I got into WordPress I was working in a cubicle at an ISP and it was not fulfilling in any way. After getting into WordPress I wake up each morning excited to see what project will come my way next!

Q. What would you like to do in the future in the current field or somewhere else?

Ans: I love what I am currently doing and wish to continue in the same direction I have been moving. I would love to expand on my side projects and would love to find time to actively blog more on my personal blog as well as my WordPress related tips site.

Q. Can you give us some reference for whom we should conduct an interview next and why?

Ans: Brad Williams