My First Wonder-Job as a Freelancer

Waking up one morning, checking the mail and suddenly reading “Freelance Job”, as it happened to me.

As usual, waking up that morning I checked my cell phone before finally getting out of bed. I read the WhatsApps, the DMs on Instagram, and I read the emails.

I was struck by the email that I had a private message on Discourse Meta, as I hadn’t received any notifications in a while. Fueled by curiosity, I decided, after breakfast, to grab my laptop and go inside to see what it was all about (having the “Freelancer Work” spoiler).

I had received a message from Jonathan Hale (aka “Squareys”), engineering developer of Wonderland Engine.

He was looking for someone who could add Discourse to main wonderlandengine.com website, as well as set up additional integrations and create a brand-based theme.

I had theoretical knowledge and some experience in what was requested, so I decided to get in touch through Discord and take the job.

I liked Jonathan’s positive reaction due to my quick response, since the email had arrived no more and no less than 20 minutes ago. Although I must admit that I felt a little strange when he asked if I was available to have a call to discuss details and talk about numbers: I don’t speak English and I don’t really know about “numbers” 😅.

Finally, after discussing the requirements in detail, I decided to get to work, I had free time haha.

Following the order, I installed Discourse within the platform agreed with Jonathan. At first I had some problems related to sending email, which is a fundamental part of Discourse. Finally, after mitigating that detail and keeping Squareys updated on the situation, I decided to start with the Discourse <-> Wonderland Account integration (In other words, SSO).

This was the most difficult part during that day, since I had to modify a bit of code, an api, that was already in production and being used by many people. Thinking about the fact that something would go wrong because of me terrified me, since theoretical knowledge is not the same as practice.

I was fortunate that Jonathan was on hand to help me, as I was also not quite sure what “system” they had (can’t think of another word at the time of writing). Taking a couple of hours of tests, errors, modification, we arrived at the desired result! 😄. Thus arriving at the last part of what was requested: the creation of the theme.

I must admit that in all, it was the easiest part. By analyzing the main website, its font, its colors, I was able to create a theme that was pretty close to the current end result.

“I surprised myself because until then I was barely getting to a full day, so it was a job done quickly.” Coming to the end of this post, I only have words left to thank Jonathan and Wonderland Engine in general for the trust and opportunity they gave me. 🤗

Finally I invite you to try Wonderland Engine, it sounds very interesting:

“Wonderland Engine is a development platform for web-based graphics applications. It comes with an accessible 3D editor application — the Wonderland Editor — and an efficient WebAssembly based runtime that runs in the browser.”