Ongoing WordPress Dev (AI-Fluent / Claude Code) — Speed, Maintenance & Rebuild | Med Spa | AZ MST

We're a boutique medical spa looking for an ongoing WordPress developer to join our team — someone we can rely on for hourly work as things come up, and who will lead a full site rebuild when our new design is ready (about a month out). This is NOT a one-off gig and NOT a junior role. We want a developer who works the modern way — using Claude Code and AI tooling in their actual workflow — not someone doing it old-school by hand. We have a non-technical marketing lead and other contractors; you'd be the WordPress technical expert on the team. IMMEDIATE WORK (starting now): • A paid site-speed / Core Web Vitals audit of our current site (Salient theme + WPBakery), with a written cleanup plan. This is your first engagement and our way of getting to know your work. • Improving mobile page speed without breaking conversion elements. • WordPress adjustments and fixes our marketing lead can't handle. LARGER PROJECT (~1 month out): • Rebuilding our site from a new design (delivered by our designer) on a clean, fast WordPress setup — open to your recommendation on theme/builder (we're evaluating Breakdance) and host. • Migrating ~30 existing pages with content and EXACT URLs preserved (we are NOT changing URLs — SEO must be protected). • Wiring a new navigation + internal link structure we'll provide; setting up a defined redirect list; embedding a booking widget (a simple script tag). NON-NEGOTIABLE REQUIREMENTS: • You use Claude Code / AI tooling in your real workflow (tell us how, specifically). • Real WordPress + page-builder depth (WPBakery/Salient a plus; Breakdance a strong plus). • Core Web Vitals / LCP fluency — diagnose and fix mobile speed without breaking conversion. • SEO-safe discipline — you understand changing URLs or thinning content destroys rankings, and you protect against it. • Working-hours overlap with US Arizona (MST). We strongly prefer Latin America or Eastern Europe. • Clear written English and proactive communication (we work async). AUTOMATIC REJECTION if you: guarantee "100/100 PageSpeed"; suggest changing our URLs to "clean them up"; can't explain how you use AI tooling; or send a generic copy-paste proposal that doesn't reference this specific job. HOW WE START: your first paid hours are the site-speed audit + cleanup plan. If that's sharp, we continue into ongoing work and the rebuild.