One developer, a public record, and no layer between you and the code.
I’m Azhar Ali. SoftGlaze is my development studio, and I am the person who writes your code. Everything below is the evidence for that sentence.
Most studio About pages are written to sound bigger than they are. This one is written to be checkable.
SoftGlaze is small on purpose. I take a limited number of projects at a time, I do the development myself, and when a project needs a designer, a copywriter or a second developer, I bring in specialists I have worked with for years — named, and told to you before the work starts.
There is no account manager. There is no handoff to somebody you have never spoken to. If you email SoftGlaze, I read it.
I am not an agency and I do not pretend to be one. You get one developer who is accountable for the outcome, plus specialists brought in by name when a project genuinely needs them.
Seven years, and what is behind the numbers.
150+ projects under my own name since 2019. More than 60 of them WordPress builds, and 20+ WooCommerce or Shopify stores. Before that, two years at an agency where I contributed to 200+ more. Mostly small businesses, in the UK, Europe and Pakistan.
The agency years taught me the parts that are not code: working to a brief, hitting a deadline somebody else set, and handing work over to people who had to maintain it after I left. That last one changed how I write everything.
The honest trade-off
I am one person, so I cannot absorb an unlimited amount of work, and I say no to projects I cannot give proper attention to. I would rather state that up front than let you discover it halfway through a build.
What I do instead of scaling is stay accountable. Standard technology with no proprietary lock-in. Code in a repository you own. Documentation written as I go, so another developer could pick your project up without a rewrite.
Walking away should always be an option you have. That is a deliberate design decision, not an accident.
Four things you can verify without asking me
Most agency sites show award badges. Here is a list of things you can click and confirm yourself, right now.
6 credits in WordPress core
Changesets [62854], [62865], [62967], [62968], [62976], and [63007]. Mostly from verifying patches, plus a regression test.
See my profile →Two plugins on wordpress.org
Published and maintained, with every premium feature free. No locked buttons, no dashboard advertising, no upgrade prompts.
View the plugins →Source code in public
Plugin source, an Electron desktop tool and a Chrome extension. Read the commit history and judge the standard directly.
Browse the code →Seven years on the record
150+ projects under my own name, 60+ WordPress builds and 20+ WooCommerce and Shopify stores, plus 200+ during agency years.
See my profile →Why the name SoftGlaze?
The name describes the standard I try to hold work to.
- “Soft” is clarity, usability, and a smooth experience for the person using the site.
- “Glaze” is the finish — refinement, presentation, and the last layer of polish that makes a brand look considered.
Together they describe the approach:
solid engineering underneath, a refined experience on top.
Why I started SoftGlaze
I came to WordPress a skeptic. I wrote everything from scratch in PHP and Laravel and assumed a CMS meant giving up control. Then a deadline landed that I could not hit hand-coding. I gave WordPress an honest try, and it shipped early. That was seven years ago and I never went back.
What I kept noticing afterwards was a gap. Businesses were paying for websites, content and marketing, and the result still felt fragmented. A site looked decent but did not convert. Development was finished, but nobody in the business could maintain it. The invoice was paid and the underlying problem was still there.
So I kept the studio deliberately small.
Fewer projects at once, one person who understands the whole build, and no layer of account management between you and the person making decisions about your code. Small is not a limitation here. It is why nothing gets lost in a handoff.
What I believe, and how I work
A few principles shape everything I build. They are the reason the work holds up a year after launch, which is the only test that actually matters.
Ask before quoting
I ask a lot of questions before quoting, because surprises later cost more than questions now. If what you are asking for is a bad idea, or cheaper to solve another way, I say so before you spend the money.
Verify before reporting
My standing rule, taken from core contribution work: never report a result without confirming the code was actually running. It is why my bug reports get accepted, and it is how I handle your project too.
Standards from outside
Contributing to WordPress core means my code gets reviewed by people with no reason to be kind about it. That review habit does not switch off when I open a client project.
Open about AI
I use AI heavily and I would rather tell you than have you wonder. Nothing reaches you until I have watched it run in the actual environment, and I will tell you exactly where it was used.
You keep everything
Source, credentials, hosting and documentation are yours. No proprietary framework you can only maintain by paying me. Walking away should always be an option you have.
“Every claim on this page can be checked. That is the only kind worth making.”
Four things, done properly
I would rather be genuinely good at a short list than passable at a long one. If your project needs something outside this list, I will tell you, and I will tell you who to ask instead.
WordPress development
Custom themes and plugins written against WordPress coding standards. Rescues of slow or broken sites, speed work, and builds your team can actually edit without breaking. A site nobody can safely edit is a site that quietly stops being updated.
WooCommerce
Store builds, checkout and payment work, invoicing, subscriptions and migrations. In a store, every second of load time and every extra checkout field costs real money.
Shopify
Custom Liquid theme development, tailored storefronts, and checkout journeys built to convert rather than just to look current. Migrations in and out when the platform is the problem.
Custom web applications
Bespoke systems in PHP, Laravel and React when a workflow needs its own tool: dashboards, internal systems, client portals, and desktop utilities built with Electron.
Design, content and marketing — with named specialists
When a project needs UI/UX design, copywriting, SEO or growth marketing, I bring in specialists I have worked with for years. You are told who is doing what before the work starts, and nobody is presented as an in-house team member when they are not.
On retainer
Speed optimisation, site rescues, and monthly maintenance. Optional, and never a condition of the build.
The stack I actually work in
PHP and WordPress first, then WooCommerce, Shopify with Liquid, Laravel, React, and Electron for desktop tools. That list is short on purpose: it is what I can support properly a year after launch.
Why businesses work with a studio this size
Clients choose SoftGlaze because they want a developer who is accountable, not a set of isolated deliverables passed between people they never meet.
- You are never a small account — nothing gets deprioritised because a bigger client called
- You talk to the person writing the code, start to finish
- Everything is built on a staging site you can log into
- Every credential and repository is transferred to you at launch
- If I cannot give a project proper attention, I say so instead of taking the deposit
On paper, and where the work happens
All development is done in Multan, Punjab, Pakistan, by me. Timezone UTC+5.
I work evenings and nights local time, roughly 6 PM to 10 AM, which overlaps the UK and European working day and the US morning. New enquiries: within an hour during working hours. Support requests: within 24 hours.
SoftGlaze LLC
Registered in the State of New Mexico, United States.
For contracts and invoicing with US and international clients.
Company No. 0008085696
SoftGlaze SMC (Pvt) Ltd
Registered in Pakistan, for local contracts and invoicing.
Registration details on request.
Tell me what is broken, or what you want built.
A short message is enough to start. If it is not a good fit, I will say so quickly and point you somewhere better.
You can read the code before you send it — that is the point of everything above.