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Salt & Scale

Ecommerce engineering · Shopify

Shopify development.

Ten years of production Shopify experience and a current Shopify Partner credential. Liquid themes, Hydrogen headless, checkout extensibility, and app development. All delivered by one senior engineer.

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In short

Salt & Scale delivers Shopify and Shopify Plus development backed by 10+ years of production commerce experience and a current Shopify Partner credential. Work spans custom Liquid theme development, headless storefronts using Hydrogen and Remix on Oxygen, checkout extensibility, post-purchase flows, and Shopify app development (private and public). Every engagement is handled by one senior engineer (no handoffs to juniors, no agency layer), which keeps communication direct and code quality consistent. Prior contract work includes PAX Labs' headless Shopify storefront on Hydrogen, TypeScript, Builder.io, and Tailwind, with a custom PHP/MySQL OMS on the backend. Enterprise commerce work for Sanrio through Corra.

Scope of work

What's included.

  • 01

    Custom theme development

    Liquid and JavaScript theme work: new builds, existing theme modifications, performance refactors, and feature additions across PDP, cart, and checkout.

  • 02

    Headless storefronts

    Hydrogen and Remix on Oxygen, or custom React/Next.js front-ends against the Storefront API. Core Web Vitals treated as a hard requirement, not an afterthought.

  • 03

    Checkout extensibility

    Checkout UI Extensions, post-purchase offers, and Checkout Functions for custom discount and shipping logic on Shopify Plus plans.

  • 04

    Shopify app development

    Private apps for internal tooling and integrations, public apps through Shopify's review process. Admin and Storefront API work with App Bridge and REST/GraphQL.

  • 05

    Platform migrations

    Migration planning and execution from WooCommerce, Magento, BigCommerce, or custom platforms. Data integrity and SEO continuity are explicit deliverables.

  • 06

    Technical leadership

    Architecture decisions, stack evaluation, roadmap planning, and fractional CTO-style engagement for brands scaling their Shopify infrastructure.

The process

Diagnose. Build. Launch.

01 Discovery

Audit before action.

We review your current stack, catalog, integrations, and pain points. Deliverable: a written brief with scope, timeline, and tradeoffs stated explicitly.

02 Build

Two-week cycles, visible work.

Work ships in two-week increments on a staging environment you can review. Clear milestones, no long black-box sprints. You always know what's done and what's next.

03 Launch

Zero-downtime cutover.

Zero-downtime cutover, post-launch monitoring window, and full documentation for your team. Source code delivered to your own repositories.

What we aim for

Outcomes we target.

01

Core Web Vitals passing

LCP under 2.5s, INP under 200ms, CLS under 0.1, measured against real-user data, not just Lighthouse lab runs.

02

Conversion improvements

Checkout friction, form usability, and page speed all have direct and measurable relationships to conversion rate. We optimize for each.

03

Integration reliability

Integrations with retry logic, error alerting, and idempotent operations, so ERP syncs, inventory feeds, and order pipelines don't fail silently.

Outcomes vary by project scope, existing stack health, and traffic patterns. Prior-work metrics referenced on this site are from individual engagements and are not guarantees of future results.

Prior commerce engineering

Ten years of Shopify in production.

The work below is prior employment and contracting, not Salt & Scale case studies, but the experience that informs every engagement today.

  • PAX Labs

    Headless Shopify storefront with Hydrogen, TypeScript, Builder.io, Tailwind. Custom PHP/MySQL OMS on backend. (Contract, 2022–2023)

  • Sanrio (via Corra)

    Shopify Plus with Laravel APIs and Magento PWA features.

  • Hydrogen (open source)

    Public contributor to Shopify's official storefront framework.

Common questions

Things people ask first.

If your question isn't here, send a note. Most replies come back the same business day.

  • What's the difference between Shopify and Shopify Plus development?
    Shopify handles most mid-market stores. Shopify Plus adds checkout extensibility, multi-store setups, B2B functionality, and advanced scripting. It's the enterprise tier. The development work differs significantly: Plus unlocks APIs and customization points that aren't available on standard plans. We work on both, and can advise on whether a Plus upgrade is warranted for your goals.
  • Do you build headless Shopify storefronts?
    Yes. Headless Shopify uses the Storefront API with a custom front-end framework, typically Hydrogen (Shopify's official framework built on Remix) deployed to Oxygen. The tradeoff is more flexibility and better performance ceilings versus higher build complexity and cost. We'll tell you honestly whether headless is the right choice for your scale and team.
  • Can you work on an existing Shopify theme?
    Yes. Whether it's a custom theme, a modified third-party theme (Dawn, Impulse, Prestige, etc.), or a full Liquid codebase, we can audit it, add features, fix performance issues, or do a targeted refactor without disrupting what's already working.
  • How do Shopify app builds work?
    Private apps are bespoke tools built for one store: OMS integrations, custom admin UIs, bulk-operation automations. Public apps go through Shopify's review process and can be installed by any merchant. Both use the same App Bridge and REST/GraphQL Admin API pattern; the main difference is the review and billing infrastructure. Timelines are four to eight weeks for a private app, eight to twelve for a public one.

Let's talk Shopify.

Describe your project, stack, and what's blocking you. We'll respond within one business day with a direct read on whether and how we can help.

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