James Hamelton

About James

Hi—I’m James. I build software, ship products, and occasionally commit acts of typography. This blog is where the personal and professional intersect: what I’m learning, building, and laughing about—openly.

What I Do (in one breath)

Web developer & software engineer • WordPress plugin architect • Entrepreneur • Published author • Brand & product strategist • Manager of Ophelia Caribbean (tech & ops) • Advocate for fast pages and sane dashboards

My Story

I’ve always loved taking ideas from napkin sketch to “click here.” Over the years I’ve grown from “the person who can fix your site” into a product-minded engineer who ships full experiences: databases, dashboards, licensing, UI polish, and the docs people actually read.

Small but vital clarification: I do not cook the food. At Ophelia Caribbean, the authentic Jamaican food is cooked by my friend and business partner Victor Henigan—VictoryInControl (V.I.C.), a ragga hopp/reggae artist, using his grandma Ophelia’s recipes straight from Jamaica. I manage the operation, build the tech, and make sure the smoke alarm remains a decorative item.

Professional Snapshot

Web Developer & Software Engineer

I build fast, reliable, brand-ready web products—often on WordPress when it’s the right tool, or as standalone apps when it’s not. My sweet spot is turning complex requirements into clean, maintainable systems (and answering, “Can we ship this?” with “Yes, and it won’t catch fire”).

Strengths

  • Custom WordPress plugins with admin panels, shortcodes/blocks, and robust settings
  • Offline-capable PWAs and JS-heavy interfaces (Tailwind, vanilla JS, React when needed)
  • Solid data & infrastructure (MySQL/SQLite, caching, sync/queue logic, licensing)
  • Polished UI/UX that reads clearly and works on every screen

Entrepreneur & Product Builder

Under Hamelton Brands, LLC, I develop and manage a growing ecosystem of tools and brands. I’m hands-on with naming, UX, pricing, go-to-market—and the unglamorous bits like telemetry, anti-piracy, and documentation (I write the docs I wish I’d found yesterday).

Author

I’m the author of An Enchanted Heart—Book 1 of the Heartbound Saga—available on Amazon. I write character-driven fiction with a strong sense of place and a touch of the uncanny. New books are simmering (unlike me in the kitchen).
Amazon Author Profile: James E. Hamelton Jr.

Food & Events (Ophelia Caribbean)

I manage Ophelia Caribbean—scheduling, branding, digital infrastructure, and operations. The star of the show is Victor (V.I.C.), who brings the flavor with his grandma’s Jamaican recipes. My role: keep the events smooth, the menus clear, and the tech invisible (the best kind of magic).

Selected Projects & Plugins

  • IRIE POS — A Metro-style, offline-capable POS for food carts with order history, sync, and a clean, touch-first UI.
  • VIC Events Pro — Event management for music/food pop-ups with responsive blocks, “Happening now!” alerts, and directions links.
  • Author-centric Tools — ARC dashboards, secure delivery, and smart retailer buttons to help authors launch and grow.
  • CodeWished Core — Request-to-release plugin workflow with licensing, distribution, and admin controls.
  • Driver & Civic Platforms — Modular reporting systems and public transparency logs for community work.
  • FSXX Static Hosting — Simple static hosting with subdomains, templates, and an inline code editor.

If you’re here to evaluate fit: I can join an existing stack or create one from scratch—and I document as I build.

How I Work

  • Principled: Clear structure, clean code, strong defaults.
  • Practical: Smallest useful thing → iterate.
  • Performance-minded: Fast pages convert (and prevent midnight support emails).
  • Owner’s mindset: I treat every product like it’s mine—because the users will.

Core Tools: WordPress, PHP, JavaScript, Tailwind, React (as needed), MySQL/SQLite, cPanel/Cloudflare, PWA/service workers.

What I’m Focused on Now

  • Growing Ophelia Caribbean’s footprint with better scheduling, menus, and on-site ops tech
  • Expanding my WordPress plugin suite with first-class docs and licensing
  • Writing the next installment in the Heartbound Saga
  • Publishing more technical and behind-the-scenes articles on this blog

Work With Me

I partner with founders, teams, and organizations that value craftsmanship and clarity.

Services

  • Custom WordPress plugins & admin tools
  • Full-stack web apps and PWAs
  • Brand systems for product launches (naming → UX → rollout)
  • Technical audits, refactors, and “make it fast & stable” engagements

Hire/Collab: Contact page

Reading List & Media

  • Book: An Enchanted Heart — available now on Amazon
  • Occasional interviews, community work, and local features—linked here when useful.

Contact

Quick Facts (now with extra jokes)

  • Title I’m most comfortable with: software engineer (who also designs).
  • Favorite commit message: “It’s faster now.”
  • Coffee consumption: “Yes.”
  • I manage a food brand but don’t cook; this is how we all stay friends.
  • My code is DRY; my humor is occasionally sauce-y (still not cooking).
  • Tab vs Spaces: whichever ships today and still passes CI tomorrow.
  • Dark mode advocate. Light mode used only for jump scares.
  • Favorite kind of project: the kind that ships and gets used (and doesn’t page me at 3am).
  • Superpower: translating fuzzy ideas into shippable roadmaps.
  • Kryptonite: “quick design changes” that somehow require a database migration.
  • API philosophy: predictable in public, interesting in private.
  • Documentation style: write like someone will read it (because Future Me definitely will).
  • Testing style: automated where it counts; manual where humans actually click weird things.
  • Favorite error: the one that never happened because we validated input like adults.
  • Weekend plan: books, bikes, and building—rarely in that order.
  • Life motto: ship it, then make it beautiful, then ship it again.
  • Dad-joke inventory: embarrassingly stocked.
  • Pun tolerance: Jamaican me hungry for wordplay (Victor cooks; I pun—balance).

Thanks for stopping by. If you’re new here, start with a recent blog post or the IRIE POS write-up—it’s a good snapshot of how I think and build.