Donn Regalado
Available for new projects — SEA & remote

Senior Full Stack Developer specializing in headless WordPress + Next.js

I take WordPress past its theme-and-plugin ceiling — decoupling the CMS from a fast, modern React/Next.js frontend, without disrupting your editors’ workflow.

Start a projectSee the work
7+
years full-stack
96
Lighthouse, this site
SSR/SSG
rendering, not client dumps
TH-based
SEA & remote clients

How I can help

Three ways this usually starts

01 — Slow WordPress

Your WordPress site is slow, dated, and getting harder to maintain

Plugins have piled up, page speed is tanking your SEO, and every redesign means fighting the theme. We keep WordPress as the CMS your editors already know, and put a fast Next.js frontend in front of it.

  • Headless it behind Next.js with SSR/SSG
  • No retraining — editors keep the WP dashboard
  • Ship a measurable Core Web Vitals improvement
02 — New Build

You're launching something new and want WP's content tools, not its frontend

You want non-technical people to manage content, but you don't want a theme-and-plugin frontend. We build the API layer and the React frontend together, end to end, from day one.

  • WPGraphQL or REST API layer
  • Custom React/Next.js frontend, built for the brand
  • Preview, drafts, and content modeling planned upfront
03 — Infra & Deploys

You need the pipeline and infrastructure around the stack sorted out

The code is only part of it — you also need it deployed, repeatable, and not held together by manual FTP uploads. We set up the CI/CD and hosting so shipping changes is routine, not risky.

  • GitHub Actions for build, test, and deploy
  • Containerized with Docker where it earns its keep
  • AWS basics — Lambda, API Gateway, S3 — wired correctly

7+ years full-stack, currently leading web development at BrandStromX.

Next.jsFrontend
ReactFrontend
TypeScriptLanguage
Node.jsBackend
NestJSBackend
GraphQLAPI
WordPressCMS
DockerInfra
GitHub ActionsInfra
AWSInfra

Infra work stays to what holds up in production — Docker, GitHub Actions, and core AWS services. If a project needs deeper Kubernetes or Terraform ownership, I’ll say so up front rather than learn it on your invoice.

Selected work

Representative projects

Illustrative case studies based on the kind of work this positioning covers — real client names and numbers shared on request.

01 — E-commerce / Retail

Regional Retail Group

Load time
6.1s → 1.4s
Lighthouse
38 → 96
Editor-built pages
0 → 40+

Problem

A WordPress + WooCommerce storefront was loading in 6+ seconds on mobile, and every marketing campaign landing page needed a developer to build from scratch.

Approach

Decoupled the storefront behind a Next.js frontend using WPGraphQL for content and product data, with ISR for catalog pages and a reusable landing-page block system editors could assemble themselves.

02 — SaaS / Marketing site

B2B SaaS Startup

Time to ship a new page
~2 days → 1 hour
Engineering tickets / mo
-70%
Core Web Vitals
All green

Problem

Pre-launch team wanted a marketing site the content/growth team could fully own, without engineering becoming a bottleneck for every headline change.

Approach

Built the API layer and Next.js frontend together from scratch — WordPress as a pure content backend, custom blocks matching the design system, and preview links for drafts before publish.

03 — Agency / Client delivery

Design Agency Partner

Project setup time
2 weeks → 3 days
Deploys
Manual → CI/CD
Client projects shipped
5

Problem

An agency needed a repeatable way to hand clients a fast, modern site while keeping WordPress as the thing client teams already knew how to use.

Approach

Set up a headless WP starter template with GitHub Actions CI/CD and containerized environments, so new client projects could be spun up in days instead of weeks.

About

Donn Lester Regalado

Senior Full Stack Developer · Based in Thailand

Seven-plus years building full-stack products across Next.js, React, Node, and AWS — now focused on bridging WordPress into modern frontend architecture.

Most of that time has been spent on the same problem in different clothes: a business has content or commerce that needs to move fast, and the tooling around it is either too rigid for the team or too slow for the users. WordPress solves the first half well. It usually loses the second.

I currently lead web development at BrandStromX, where the same pattern shows up constantly — and where headless WordPress paired with a Next.js frontend has become the default answer when a client wants both a CMS their team can actually use and a site that performs the way modern users expect.

I work with agencies, startups, and SMEs across Southeast Asia and internationally, usually async and remote-first.

Get in touch

Let’s scope your project.

Tell me what’s slow, what you’re building, or what needs to ship. I reply within one business day, usually faster.

donn.regalado@gmail.comWhatsApp — +66620169745Line / Call — +66620169745