Experienced Web Developer Needed For “Listicle” CRUD Admin Dashboard And Simple JSON API

We're seeking an experienced web developer to create an admin dashboard / admin panel and simple API for managing, building, and serving “listicles” across multiple front-end websites. The ideal candidate will have a proven track record of building efficient / clean admin panels. The API’s primary function will be to generate JSON.

PROJECT OVERVIEW:

Develop a dashboard for managing and building "offer walls" or "listicles" of various different products/services, with an API to serve this content (via JSON) to various frontend websites.

KEY REQUIREMENTS:

1. Admin Dashboard Features:

       - CRUD operations for listicles, products, and categories.

       - Preferably a drag-and-drop interface for ordering items within each listicle or category

      - Category management (each product/item should be assigned a category)

      - Active / Paused toggle option for products as well as categories

       - Split-testing system with percentage weights for products. On the main listicle page where we are selecting the order of the items/products to be displayed on the listicle, we’d like to be able to choose either an entire category, OR individual products. If an entire category is chosen for a spot, then the code will fetch the products that are set to “active” for that category. If more than 1 product is active for that category, then fetch the % rotation weights, and display only 1 of the products for that category.

       - Macros system for content management (I.E. define {{5_star_img}} as an URL to an image, then the code will replace the macro with the correct image URL to be displayed.

       - Dynamic field creation for products. We should be able to define unlimited key => value pairs, and be able to name them anything we want. We should be able to use HTML / CSS in the value part of some keys (for example, product_description) 

       - Bulk editing capabilities, especially for products (I.E. Add a field/key called X for all products, or all products in the Y category, or Change all key names in X category to Y, etc. Flexibility is important here.)

       - User-friendly interface, easy to use, easy to understand. Clean and modern feel. Not overly complicated.

- Ability to be able to handle large amount of “slots” or “positions” per listicle group…around 100+ different products in a listicle sometimes

       - Easy / quick export of the database. 

2. API Development:

   - The frontend websites shall make a call to the dashboard API for a particular listicle, and then the api shall respond with the correct JSON. Then the frontend page will load the JSON and build the listicle HTML to display to visitors. Different versions of the frontend pages will exist with different styling, so for example, a product within a listicle may have description_v1 and then description_v2 that is different, to match the theme / style of whatever frontend page is requesting the data.

   - Implement split testing logic in API responses (or this could potentially be done on the frontend as well. We are open to suggestions here)

   - Macro replacement functionality - as mentioned above

   - Fast response times (consider caching solutions like redis. Page load speed is very important.)

3. Technical Stack:

   - Here is where we are flexible, and are open to what you suggest, as different devs are comfortable with different tech stacks. There are soooo many different tools / boilerplates / templates / frameworks that could be applicable here. Please describe what tech stack you suggest in your correspondence in regards to this project. 

   - Here are some tools / ideas that may be suitable to achieve the desired functionality:

    -  no-code tools, like bubble.io

-  custom laravel project (might be overkill / over complicated / slow?)

-  webflow

-  astro.build

-  statamic

-  butter cms

-  ghost cms 

-  svelte.dev

-  storyblok

-  nextJS

-  sanity.io

-  react app

-  nuxt.js

-  a headless CMS, like strapi / contentful / prismic

-  metronic 9 

-  coreUI

-  we are looking for someone who is very thorough with their reading, so please use the word “pineapple” in your first correspondence with us regarding this project. This also helps keep bots away 🙂 

4. Additional Requirements:

   - Implement proper login, authentication and authorization

   - Ensure scalability to handle potential high traffic, and API response to be fast (~100k+ request per day, maybe more)

   - Write clean, well-documented code

   - Provide basic deployment instructions

   - Make deployment easy to new servers / domains.

LIVE EXAMPLES:

Here is a list of URLs of frontend pages that are live that show what we are looking to achieve. The different pages / URLs are built with different tech stacks and achieve the display / rendering of the listicles differently, so please feel free to dig in, open up chrome dev tools, and reverse engineer what’s happening. Instead of listing all the URLs here, we just pasted the examples into a txt file on pastebin, see below: 

Listicle Examples: https://pastebin.com/yyePUGLQ

QUALIFICATIONS:

- Proven experience building admin dashboards and simple APIs (portfolio examples required)

- Security-minded developer (no SQL injections, no XSS attacks, no breaking into the dashboard, etc)

- Familiarity with caching solutions (e.g., Redis)

- Ability to work independently and communicate effectively in English

- Track record of delivering projects on defined timelines

TIMELINE AND AVAILABILITY:

- The selected developer must be able to start immediately

- We're aiming for a very quick turnaround. Q4 is an essential time for us, and we want to get this functional ASAP. We believe that ultimately, this dashboard is nothing crazy or groundbreaking, and not too complicated. It’s more or less some basic CRUD functionality with a simple JSON API. We also encourage you to use any pre-built tools, templates, boilerplates, codebases, AI tools, etc that you think may be suitable. In the age of AI dev tools, chatGPT, claude, cursor IDE, etc, we believe an experienced dev could probably have something live and functional within 1 week or so, possibly even less. There’s no need to build every single thing from the ground up or reinvent the wheel, when there may be other tools / codebases already built that can be used / modified / implemented in this project. 

DELIVERABLES:

1. Fully functional admin dashboard

2. API with all required endpoints

3. Source code in a Git repository

4. Instructions for deployment. The easier and faster it is to be able to move / copy / import / export to new servers, domains, IPs, the better.

SELECTION PROCESS:

1. Please provide examples of similar admin dashboards you've built. Screenshots are necessary so we can see the aesthetics of the dashboards you have built in the past.

2. Briefly describe your approach to this project, what your preferred tech stack will be, and how you'd ensure delivery within the tight timeline.

3. Provide an estimate of hours needed and your hourly rate - OR we are potentially open to complete this on a per-project or per-milestone basis as well.

We're excited to work with a skilled developer who can bring this project to life quickly and efficiently, keeping it as simple as possible and not over-complicating the code / architecture. If this turns out well, we will probably need enhancements / modifications to the code as time goes on. In addition, we have more projects that we have in the pipeline that we could send your way as well, if this project goes smoothly. 

If you believe you're the right fit for this fast-paced project, please apply with your portfolio, a few examples of what you’ve built previously, and a brief explanation of why you're the ideal candidate to get this completed. Thank you!