Outdated: About Me

My Years in Review#

If you’d like to know who I am and what I stand for, then read the following:

• 2019, 20, 21, and the rest? Read why I’m not writing Year In Review posts anymore. Hint: Burnout.
• 🐺 2018 Year in Review: Open Source, Node.js, & Developer Relations
• 🦁 2017 Year in Review: Open Source, TheDevCouple, & What’s Next
• 🦊 2016 Year in Review: WordPress, Business, & Getting Married
• 🐼 2015 Year in Review: Commitment to WordPress & Epic Moments

Experience#

• WordPress: Core contributor to WordPress and several other plugins like WooCommerce, EDD, etc. Over ten years of design and development experience. Built frameworks, Gutenberg Boilerplate, WPSass, plugin boilerplates, an advanced starter theme called Neat, open-sourced my advanced Gulp workflow, built WPGulp and WPGulpTheme boilerplates, etc. I made 25+ complex responsive and CMS-based websites with complete strategy, wireframing, design, and marketing.
• UI/UX & Front-end: Experience designing User Interface to eradicate User Experience issues through A/B testing. Front-end development junkie, with HTML5 (Semantic, Accessibility), CSS3 (Flexbox, SVG), Sass (SCSS, Mixins), Gulp (prefer), Grunt, JavaScript, jQuery, Backbone.js, Underscore.js, Thorax.js, Meteor (JavaScript MVC) knowledge.
• Blogging: I am blogging for more than 14 years now; being an e-junkie was always a passion, which made me work to the extent of creating a massive network of 30+ blogs. After which, I started working over SEO & SMM. Nominated in Best 100 Bloggers All over Pakistan. Ranked #1 in Top 10 Younger Pakistani Bloggers’ List at IKB.
• Developer: 12 years of development experience where I learned 10+ programming languages. It was never enough for me. Programming skills in C, C++ (OOP), Data Structures C, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, PHP, MySQL, Visual Basic, Assembly language, Ladder logic and tools like Xilinx, Proteus, Altium, Matlab, SCADA, PLC, Electrical Transient and Analysis Program (ETAP), Power World Simulator (PWS).
• Design: 7 years of design experience. I have played around in the design niche with 8-11 different design tools—Adobe CC Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, After Effects, Dreamweaver (left using it).
• Public Speaking: I was one of the speakers at TEDx, Topic: Need of an Alternate Career Path. A few other events and seminars where I spoke include TechnoFest, Brainiac, FoundersConfo, etc.
• Startups: I am running two startups as my side projects, FinkTanks & WP-Pakistan (Due mid-2015). Won the first ideas battle at Plan9 Sep 16. 2012.
• Web design/Dev Agency: I started a Web Design/Development Agency in 2012, where I worked as a consultant in UI/UX/SMM/SEO/BRAND Marketing with global software agencies.
• Featured and Published at Envato Tuts+, Torque Mag by WPEngine, SitePoint, SmashingMagazine, CreativeMarket, HongKiat, SpeckyBoy, wpMail, Post Status, WPBeginner, WPLift, TemplateMonster, TheLayout by FlyWheel, etc.

Jobs#

Last updated in 2013.

• Past Jobs: Project Manager/Lead Sr. Software Engineer at Off-Road Studios. Consultant with multinational firms including Pepsi, Coke, Standard Chartered, Orient, BBDO, Chevron, GSK, GE, etc.
• Marketing Projects: Crafted and executed the marketing campaign for WAAR, the movie, which made it to the Top-rated movie at IMDb in 2013 and the most rated Pakistani movie ever.
• Featured Marketing Project: I also crafted and executed a mega marketing campaign for WAAR the movie. With more than 20,000 ratings that averaged a 9.4 rating, WAAR ranked as #1 in Highest Rated Feature Films Released In 2013. It kept ranking for almost two years; that’s one year after I had left the position. It’s still the most voted movie in the history of Lollywood* and still has about 20K more votes than the film in the second place.

Education#

• Web Application Architectures MOOP — University of New Mexico.
• Essentials of Entrepreneurship MOOP — University of California, Irvine, United States.
• Executives MBA – present Dropout (COL Uni of Burnaby – Canada).
• Electrical Engineering with CS major subjects in IT/CS (OOP, OS, Algo, C, C++, PHP) and Power (UET LHR – PK). 14+ Distinctions.

I am an entrepreneur who left an orthodox Electrical Engineering career — after graduation — to become a Full Stack Web developer & an accidental writer.

#

Design Community Distinctions#

1. SmashingMagazine: Nothing’s Like A Mango In Summer (My wallpaper design) got published at SmashingMagazine.
2. HongKiat: In 2012, one of my designs, i.e., Freakify.com/404 got featured in “The Basics Of Emotional Design.”
3. The Chris Coyer hearted my pen and added it to his Terrific Tables collection.
4. ParticlesJs based Hero Unit got published at several design blogs.
5. Speckyboy Design Magazine: Got Front-end Login in WordPress featured in the Weekly News for designers N.267.
6. InspiredMag: My article Front-end Login in WordPress got featured in This week in web design – UX design, user psychology, and much more.
7. CodePen: Love CodePen.io, which is where I experiment with frontend stuff.
8. WebDesignerNews: One of my articles, What Every Beginner Is Doing Wrong as a Web Developer, was featured at WebDesginerNews, which later went viral in the design community.

I love The WordPress Community#

1. 1. My Commitment to WordPress and Epic Moments of 2015
   2. 2016 Year in Review: WordPress, Business, & the Big NEWS!
   3. I told my story → This Part of My Life Is Called … WordPress
   4. WordPress Core Contributor: I am a regular WP core contributing dev for about the last ten major WordPress versions; you can read about my contributions in WordPress 4.4 Clifford, WordPress 4.5 Coleman, WordPress 4.6 Pepper, WordPress 4.7 — The Spirit of Regular Core Contribution, WordPress 4.8, WordPress 4.9, etc.
   5. Contributions: I have also contributed to the Twenty Sixteen theme, WP REST API, Chasis, WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, and several other WP products.
   6. WPMetaList designed & developed WPMetaList read about it here.
   7. Core Author at Envato Tuts+ (since 2011). I have written more than 150 in-depth, both beginner-friendly and advanced WordPress tutorials at Tuts+.
   8. WordPress.org: My 6 plugins on WordPress.org have a total of 382,849 downloads.
   9. WPGulp: More than 1764 developers are using my advanced WordPress Gulp workflow.
   10. _child: built a lean and mean WordPress Child Theme Boilerplate.
   11. WordPress Customizer Package for Sublime Text: Built a Sublime Text snippets/completion package for WordPress Customizer. First of its kind. It was featured on the homepage of PackageControl as the 8th most trending package within the first three days of launch. Sarah featured the package at WPTavern: Ahmad Awais Releases WordPress Customizer Package for Sublime Text. Stats:
   12. ManageWP.com; Plugin of the Month: WPMashSocial got featured at #3 in Top 10 Plugins of the Month.
   13. Contributions at TorqueMage by WPEngine, WPLift (2 posts)| WPBeginner (1 post)| TemplateMonster (1 post).
   14. FinkTanks: I teach WordPress Beginners to Advance Course (500+ Students & 10+ Workshops).
   15. WP-Pakistan.com: Built WP­Pakistan non-profit community initiative. Five meetups, 50+ workshops, and a WordPress Week with 700+ participants. Conducted Global WordPress Translation and Contributors days.
   16. WordPress Week Lahore: Under the head of the WP-Pakistan initiative ran an entire week about WordPress in one of the known universities, University of Engineering & Technology Lahore, Pakistan, from April 28th, 2014 to May 3rd, 2014. Read about it here.
   17. WordPress Business Group Started a business-focused WordPress group at Facebook, and it got featured at WPTavern.
   18. Plugin CF7 Customizer to solve a problem and featured in some places like ProductHunt, TF Showcase, t3n, etc.
   19. Theme ProductPress an EDD WordPress Theme, which ranks in the top 10 eCommerce theme at CreativeMarket (Made it to #2 once).

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