Founder-led studio
Christian Lugatiman builds full-stack web applications, business systems, and WordPress engineering — the connected workflows behind better day-to-day operations.
Digital Solutions is an independent digital engineering studio, founded and led by Christian Lugatiman — one senior engineer, direct access, no account layers in between.
Christian Lugatiman — Founder & Technical Lead.
Founder & Technical Lead
Digital Solutions is an independent studio founded and led by Christian. As Technical Lead he handles scoping, architecture, implementation and delivery directly — there is no account layer between a client and the person building the system.
Background: Senior Full Stack and WordPress Developer with 8+ years of experience delivering websites, web applications and digital systems across Australia, the United States and the Philippines. AI-assisted engineering is a working practice, not a product: AI helps with exploration, documentation and testing while decisions and verification stay with the engineer.
Understand what people are trying to do, make the important state visible, choose a proportionate architecture, and leave the next maintainer a system they can understand.
Responsive builds and custom WordPress: themes, plugins, shortcodes and Elementor, Divi, Avada, Beaver Builder and WPBakery implementations
Site migrations, domains, SSL and cPanel/WHM work in earlier hosting operations; Git-based, CI-built deployment on this website
Core Web Vitals and page speed, technical SEO and accessibility improvements across several roles
PHP and Laravel business systems, JavaScript and TypeScript (React and Vue in client projects), MySQL, REST APIs and webhooks
01 / The studio and its founder
Christian’s professional record spans full-stack university systems from June 2018 to December 2022, alongside freelance and contract work from July 2020 onward. The documented experience covers WordPress, PHP, Laravel, JavaScript, APIs, and relational data.
That range includes HR operations, institutional publishing, business and marketing applications, custom WordPress websites, and managed hosting. The timeline preserves the overlap between full-time and contract engagements.
The throughline is problem solving. That means performance, security, accessibility, SEO, responsive behavior, testing, and QA are part of the work rather than a final layer of polish.
Christian holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the University of Southeastern Philippines.
What clients can expect
Clear thinking before unnecessary complexity.
A senior developer who can work close to the interface, deep in the PHP, or across the boundary between the two.
02 / Career snapshot
8+
years of development experience
3
markets represented in the resume
2
lead specializations: full-stack development + WordPress engineering
Brownstone NYC
Senior WordPress Developer
Led custom WordPress development and maintenance for clients in real estate, finance, consulting, and professional services.
TimelineCaravea Pty Ltd
Senior WordPress Developer
Senior WordPress development for Australian caravan, RV, and automotive brands.
TimelineHeaviside Digital
WordPress Developer
WordPress development for digital marketing agencies and local businesses.
TimelineTorro Media
WordPress Developer
WordPress development for content-rich web projects.
Timeline03 / How I work
Understand / 1 of 8
Clarify the users, the current workflow, and the constraint worth solving.
Follow the connectionsModel / 2 of 8
Define data, ownership, access, and the boundaries between responsibilities.
Follow the connectionsBuild / 3 of 8
Connect interface, application logic, and data in the smallest useful implementation.
Follow the connectionsIntegrate / 4 of 8
Treat external services as independent systems. Account for invalid responses and unavailable providers.
Follow the connectionsAutomate / 5 of 8
Give repeatable work explicit state, observable progress, and a safe path to retry.
Follow the connectionsValidate / 6 of 8
Check behavior, access rules, invalid input, keyboard use, and real interactions.
Follow the connectionsOptimize / 7 of 8
Find the bottleneck before choosing a fix. Consider rendering, assets, queries, and the user experience.
Follow the connectionsShip / 8 of 8
Review configuration, migrations, recovery, and the operating environment before delivery.
Follow the connections04 / AI-assisted development
Explore how AI can support the work while implementation and validation remain engineering responsibilities.
Explore the technical constellation ↗Start with the question worth answering. Clarify the workflow, constraint, and acceptance criteria.
Use ChatGPT, Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, or Cursor to explore options and investigate the problem.
Check assumptions, inspect generated code, and make the implementation decision.
Adapt useful suggestions to the actual application and its existing conventions.
Test behavior and edge cases. Review correctness, security, accessibility, and maintainability.
Review the complete change and document what the next person needs to understand.
Recent engineering work
Each item is labelled by what it actually is. Internal tools and prototypes are shown as engineering evidence, not as products for sale.
This site: a Laravel application with an automated test suite, security headers, accessibility checks and a guarded GitHub-to-Hostinger deployment pipeline where database migrations are opt-in.
How this website was builtA suite of standalone browser utilities that run without accounts or AI services, built as its own Laravel application and linked from this site.
Open ToolsA homepage redesign built for a website assessment, with its own isolated design system. It is a prototype, not a client deployment.
View the prototypeA local task orchestrator that lets AI coding workers propose actions, executes them through its own tools and requires configured tests and an independent review before work is accepted. Not publicly released.
A local-first, browser-based toolbox that indexes a project, runs its own build and test scripts, and defaults to read-only access. Not publicly released.
05 / Selected work
business applications
Human resources, payroll, attendance, and personnel workflows
A Laravel and PHP business system supporting HR, payroll, attendance, leave, and employee information workflows.
Interactive demonstration
WordPress Custom Systems
Interactive demonstration
The project page and available links provide the public reference for this work.
What it covers
wordpress
Reusable functionality for content-rich commercial sites
A body of WordPress and PHP work spanning custom themes, plugins, shortcodes, dynamic templates, AJAX, filters, galleries, brochures, caching, and Elementor integrations.
Interactive demonstration
Unified Messaging Portal
Interactive demonstration
The project page and available links provide the public reference for this work.
What it covers
integrations
Multi-channel communications and campaign workflows
A Laravel/PHP portal integrating messaging and campaign workflows across email, SMS, and WhatsApp-related operations.
Have a workflow worth improving?