Azhar Ali (@softglaze) – WordPress user profile

Azhar Ali

Founder & Full-Stack WordPress Developer at SoftGlaze LLC

@softglaze Multan, Punjab joined Jan 2026

softglaze.com github.com/softglazee Slack: @softglaze

Teams Community Core AI Core Core Performance Photos Test

Languages ur

Bio

I’m Azhar, a full stack web developer specialising in WordPress, based in Multan, Pakistan. I run SoftGlaze as a small studio.

7 years of client work. 150+ projects under my own name, more than 60 of them WordPress builds. Before that, agency years where I shipped 200+ more. I do the development myself and bring in specialists I have worked with for years when a project needs them, named before the work starts.

Since the 7.1 cycle, I contribute to core testing. I focus on patch testing, bug reproduction, and tracing regressions back to the changeset that caused them. I’ve filed eight detailed test reports across seven tickets covering Media, Toolbar, Query, the REST API, and admin UI. I show my work every time: DevTools traces, before-and-after screenshots, and PHPUnit runs.

Six props on committed changesets so far. The majority of these came from meticulously testing and verifying patches, which I think says something useful about how accessible core testing actually is. Alongside verifying other contributors’ patches, I have authored a regression test that shipped in core, reported a core defect (#65802), and currently have an open PR with unit tests.

Two plugins live on the directory: SoftGlaze Maintenance Mode & Coming Soon, and SoftGlaze PDF Invoices for WooCommerce. A third, SoftGlaze Click to Chat, is in the review queue. I’ve also shipped several private plugins and custom themes running on client sites today.

I also contribute to Polyglots, translating and reviewing Urdu strings, and I’m a translation editor for Urdu on both of my plugins.

I’m in #core and #core-test on Slack. Feedback on my tickets is always welcome.

Interests

Web development, SEO, wordpress plugin development, wordpress theme development, WooCommerce, Custom Website development, Ai Website Creation

WordPress Origin Story

I came to WordPress a skeptic. I wrote everything from scratch in PHP and Laravel and figured a CMS meant giving up control. Then a deadline landed that I couldn’t hit hand-coding. I gave WordPress an honest try. It shipped early. That was seven years ago. I never went back.

Since then it’s been plugins, WooCommerce builds and admin tooling for real businesses. Now I test core itself. After seven years of earning a living on this platform, that feels fair.

Badges

CODE

2 badges

Pattern Author '26 Plugin Developer

CONTENT

1 badge

Photo Contributor '26

POLYGLOTS

2 badges

Translation Contributor '26 Translation Editor '26

Current Job

Founder & Full-Stack WordPress Developer

Jun 2019 – Present

SoftGlaze LLC · Full-time

I run SoftGlaze as a small studio: I do the development myself and bring in specialists I have worked with for years when a project needs them.

Custom WordPress and WooCommerce development, Shopify builds, and bespoke applications in PHP, Laravel and React. 150+ projects delivered under my own name, 60+ of them WordPress builds and 20+ WooCommerce or Shopify stores, mostly for small businesses in the UK, Europe and Pakistan.

Alongside client work I contribute to WordPress core through the Test Team, and I publish my plugins to the directory with every premium feature free.

Job History

Senior WordPress Developer

Jun 2017 – May 2019

Devhive · Full-time

Delivered client websites and web applications in a team environment, working across PHP, WordPress and front-end development. Contributed to 200+ projects over this period, covering new builds, redesigns, custom functionality and ongoing maintenance for clients in USA, Asian Countries and more.

This is where I learned to work to a brief, hit deadlines set by someone else, and hand work over to people who had to maintain it after me.

Since the 7.1 cycle, I contribute to core testing.

WordPress

Key Accomplishments

Discovered and reported a dormant core bug (#65802) where a media upload function had been assigning an error flag to an undeclared variable since WordPress 6.7.0. Found it by reading the source, proved it by forcing the environment condition and measuring the direct return value, and submitted the fix (PR 12830) along with two PHPUnit tests.

Delivered 150+ projects under my own name over seven years, including 60+ WordPress builds and 20+ WooCommerce and Shopify stores, for clients in the UK, Europe and Pakistan.

Translated 1,040 strings and reviewed 1,037 strings into Urdu on translate.wordpress.org, earning Translation Contributor and Translation Editor recognition.

Published and maintain two plugins in the WordPress.org directory: SoftGlaze PDF Invoices for WooCommerce and SoftGlaze Maintenance Mode & Coming Soon. Both ship every premium feature free, with no locked settings, dashboard ads or upgrade prompts.

Produced the first reproduction of a REST API failure that had gone unreproduced (#64921) by building an mu-plugin simulation, confirmed a hard 400 response, and demonstrated that the proposed patch did not resolve it. Another contributor later used the same technique and credited it.

Root-caused a WordPress 7.0 Media Library layout regression to the exact changeset that introduced it ([61757]), then posted the only test report on the fix a seven-case matrix that independently verified the patch author's stylesheet print-order argument. A core committer thanked me by name for the research.

The Filesystem API fix I verified ([62854]) shipped with a new PHPUnit regression test in the core test suite that I authored, so the behaviour I checked is now permanently guarded against reintroduction.

Six props on committed WordPress core changesets in the 7.1 cycle: [62854], [62865], [62967], [62968], [62976], and [63007]. The majority of these came from meticulously testing and verifying other contributors' patches rather than authoring the core fixes myself.

Recent impact

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

Last 30 days

59contributions

high45

medium14

score149

Last 90 days

59contributions

high45

medium14

score149

Last 12 months

59contributions

high45

medium14

score149

Team focus

Share of contributions across teams during the last 365 days

Time commitment

5 hours per week

On my own time 5 hrs/wk

Contributions

Type

August 2026

Aug 07 Fri · 00:06

GitHub med

Submitted pull request #769 to WordPress/wordpress.org:
Plugin Directory: Change pre block overflow to auto.

Aug 06 Thu · 11:42

GitHub med

Submitted pull request #723 to WordPress/wporg-main-2022:
Home: Add alt text to homepage feature images

Aug 06 Thu · 03:45

GitHub med

Created issue #180 in the WordPress/test-handbook repository:
[Issue Reproduction] Missing guidance on testing unexecutable code paths by forcing conditions

Aug 06 Thu · 03:04

Documentation med

Created issue #2457 in the WordPress/Documentation-Issue-Tracker repository:
[Theme Handbook] Submitting Your Theme to WordPress.org - Missing information on name…

Aug 06 Thu · 01:31

Meta med

Completed the course Develop Your First Low-Code Block Theme on learn.wordpress.org

Aug 06 Thu · 01:31

Meta med

Completed the course Using the WordPress Data Layer on learn.wordpress.org

Aug 06 Thu · 01:21

Meta med

Completed the course Beginner WordPress Developer on learn.wordpress.org

Aug 06 Thu · 01:09

Meta med

Completed the course Intermediate Theme Developer on learn.wordpress.org