Paul Bearne (@pbearne) – WordPress user profile

Paul Bearne

Senior WordPress Full Stack Developer at Paul & Gina Bearne (Freelance Consultancy)

@pbearne Southern Ontario joined Nov 2006

bearne.ca github.com/pbearne Slack: @pbearne

Maintains Date/Time

Teams Core Test

Languages en-ca en-au en-nz en-za en-gb

Bio

I am fueled by a passion for new developments in technology and how the application of these can deliver an awesome user experience while effectively meeting business needs.

Although, over the years I have developed a number of complementary skill bases, my focus is now WordPress architecture, concept design, coding for complex projects and integrating external data sources.

I have made core commits to every version of WordPress since 3.9 and continue to support the wider WordPress community through meetups, WordCamps, etc.

In 2018 I co-founded Matador Sorftware and launched a commercial WordPress Plugin for the recruitment industy, adding to my growing list of plugins.

Interests

Walking, Kayaking, Reading, Theater, PHP, Javascript, CSS

WordPress Origin Story

I discovered WordPress in 2006 when asked to explore the use of collaborative tools internally for a multinational corporation, setting up a 200+ multi-blog site using WPMU on IIS7. As part of this project, I created my first plugin, Author Avatars, (https://wordpress.org/plugins/author-avatars/ ), which currently has 8,000+ active installs. I recently updated this to include Gutenberg support.

From this point on, the community, the flexibility and the velocity of WordPress has made it my platform of choice.

I specialize in creating highly performant scalable, accessible and SEO friendly code (plugins and themes) for large WordPress sites that are often multi-site, multi-language, VIP and/or e-commerce.

In 2018, with a partner, I launched a premium plugin for the recruitment industry, Matador Jobs (https://matadorjobs.com/) and in June Matador Jobs became an official Bullhorn partner (https://www.bullhorn.com/marketplace/matador-jobs/).

I continue to support my growing list of plugins (https://profiles.wordpress.org/pbearne/#content-plugins ) and the wider WordPress community, founded the Kingston WordPress Meetup and speak regularly at WordCamps.

Badges

CODE

5 badges

C Core AI Contributor '26 Core Contributor '15 C Core Performance Contributor '22 C Core Performance Team '22 Plugin Developer

CONTENT

1 badge

Documentation Contributor '17

COMMUNITY

4 badges

Meetup Organizer '18 WordCamp Organizer '16 WordCamp Speaker '14 WordCamp Volunteer '25

PRACTICE

3 badges

Support Contributor '26 Test Contributor '21 Test Team '21

POLYGLOTS

2 badges

Translation Contributor '15 Translation Editor '15

Current Job

Senior WordPress Full Stack Developer

Present

Paul & Gina Bearne (Freelance Consultancy)

Recent impact

Score weights high-impact work (commits, releases, approved translations, props) at 3x routine activity.

Last 30 days

17contributions

high7

medium10

score31

Last 90 days

96contributions

high55

medium41

score206

Last 12 months

329contributions

high163

medium166

score655

Team focus

Share of contributions across teams during the last 365 days

WordPress releases

Contributed to 29 releases

Time commitment

10 hours per week of sponsored contribution time

Contributions

Type

October 2026

Oct 02 Fri · 22:05

Core med

Submitted pull request #13943 to WordPress/wordpress-develop:
65208 action namespace validations test files

Oct 01 Thu · 20:46

Forums med

Posted a reply to Increase name font-size, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
It's not the author avatar shortcode try this .gb-block-profile .gb-profile-name{font-size: 1.5em;}

Oct 01 Thu · 19:58

Meta med

Wrote a comment on the post I am the plugin author…, on the site Translate WordPress:
CA done

Oct 01 Thu · 18:10

Core med

Submitted pull request #13908 to WordPress/wordpress-develop:
65208 action namespace validations

September 2026

Sep 30 Wed · 00:20

Core high

Mentioned in [64011] on WordPress SVN:
Tests: Add unit tests for more Ajax handlers.

Sep 29 Tue · 22:10

Core high

Mentioned in [64008] on WordPress SVN:
Tests: Cover newline preservation in wpautop().

Sep 17 Thu · 15:59

Core med

Submitted pull request #13585 to WordPress/wordpress-develop:
Tests: Modernize PHPUnit tests in tests/phpunit/tests/wp-includes/functions/ - Trac #53010, #65208

Sep 14 Mon · 14:54

Meta med

Wrote a comment on the post #editor-requests Hello, I am the…, on the site Translate WordPress:
CA done

Sep 12 Sat · 06:10

Polyglots high

Translated 9 strings on translate.wordpress.org.

Sep 11 Fri · 16:38

Meta med

Wrote a comment on the post Hello, I’d like to be…, on the site Translate WordPress:
CA done