Shopify Developer Australia | Themes, Apps & Hydrogen — Nathan McBride
Skip to content
Nathan McBride
Start a project
Shopify Plus capable · Liquid, Hydrogen, Functions

Shopify development,
built properly.

Freelance Shopify developer for Australian brands and merchants worldwide. Liquid themes, Hydrogen storefronts, custom apps, and the checkout and Customer Account extensions most agencies outsource — one senior engineer end-to-end.

Serving Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane & clients worldwide — remote-first

Shopify work, shipped forRun Auto PartsBamfordDaylesfordBrandAlleyKathmanduiBuys
Capabilities

What I build.

A deliberately narrow list. These are the pieces I ship week in, week out — and the pieces I charge for with confidence.

01 / 06

Liquid theme builds

Custom Online Store 2.0 themes with sections everywhere, metaobjects, and the blocks the Theme Editor actually wants. No Dawn forks held together with tape.

  • Sections
  • Metaobjects
  • OS 2.0
  • Theme App Ext
02 / 06

Hydrogen & headless

Hydrogen on Oxygen with React Router, Shopify Markets subdomains, and a CMS layer — Builder.io, Sanity, or Contentful — wired to the Storefront API.

  • Hydrogen
  • Oxygen
  • React Router
  • Markets
03 / 06

Custom Shopify apps

Embedded admin apps on React Router, App Bridge and Polaris. Prisma-backed sessions, GraphQL Admin API, webhooks, and Shopify billing done right.

  • App Bridge
  • Polaris
  • GraphQL
  • Webhooks
04 / 06

Checkout & Plus extensions

Checkout UI extensions, Customer Account UI, post-purchase surfaces, and Shopify Functions. The post-checkout.liquid work most teams quietly avoid.

  • Checkout UI
  • Customer Accounts
  • Functions
  • Post-purchase
05 / 06

Migrations & replatforms

Magento and BigCommerce onto Shopify, or Online Store onto Hydrogen, with redirects, SEO, order history and tax posture intact. No lost baskets.

  • Magento → Shopify
  • 301 preservation
  • Data migration
  • Cut-over plan
06 / 06

Search, speed & CWV

Typesense, Algolia and Boost wired to Shopify with deferred bundles and image discipline. Green Core Web Vitals on catalogues most themes crumble under.

  • Typesense
  • Algolia
  • Core Web Vitals
  • Shopify CDN
How I engage

Three ways in.

Pick one, or sequence them
In depth

Shopify, in detail.

01 · Hire a Shopify developer who owns the whole stack

Hire a Shopify developer who owns the whole stack

Most Shopify work in Australia gets split three ways: a theme freelancer, an app agency, and whoever drew the short straw on checkout. I cover the whole surface — Liquid themes, embedded admin apps on App Bridge and Polaris, Checkout UI and Customer Account extensions, and Shopify Functions — so one engineer is accountable from the theme editor to the post-purchase page. You brief me, and I build it.

02 · Shopify app development

Shopify app development

When the App Store does not have what you need — or has it for $299 a month with four features you do not want — a custom Shopify app usually pays for itself fast. I build embedded apps with GraphQL Admin API, webhooks, Prisma-backed sessions and proper billing, kept in Git with CI, not pasted into a code editor. Recent work includes private apps replacing multiple paid subscriptions with one purpose-built tool.

03 · Migrating to Shopify from Magento or BigCommerce

Migrating to Shopify from Magento or BigCommerce

Replatforming is mostly a data and redirects problem, and it is where my Magento background pays off twice. I map URL structures before the build, preserve 301s, migrate customer and order history through the Bulk API, and rebuild promotional logic in Shopify Functions. Because I have run Magento since 2014, I can tell you exactly what you will miss after the move — and what you will be glad to leave behind.

04 · Where I work

Where I work

I work with Shopify and Shopify Plus merchants across Australia — Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and beyond — and worldwide, remote-first with Australian business-hours overlap. Typical briefs:

  • 01Custom Online Store 2.0 theme builds and rebuilds
  • 02Custom Shopify apps, public and private
  • 03Checkout UI & Customer Account extensions (Plus)
  • 04Hydrogen headless storefronts on Oxygen
  • 05Magento / BigCommerce → Shopify migrations
  • 06Performance, search and Core Web Vitals work
Worth knowing

Liquid first, headless when it earns it

Hydrogen is brilliant — and most brands do not need it. Online Store 2.0 with sections and metaobjects takes a merchandising team further than most agencies admit. I will model both paths honestly before you commit to either.

Selected Shopify work

The receipts.

All projects
Run Auto Parts storefront screenshotFeatured
01 · Automotive · 2026

Run Auto Parts. One system that manages supplier price lists, downloads TecAlliance data, and pushes to Shopify, eBay, Magento, Google Shopping and Linnworks.

5
Sales channels published from one catalogue
Laravel · Filament · Custom PIMRead case →
Ecosystem

The stack I live in.

The tools I reach for without thinking. Your stack may differ — I meet it rather than fight it.

20 tools
  • 01Shopify Plus
  • 02Liquid
  • 03Online Store 2.0
  • 04Hydrogen
  • 05Oxygen
  • 06React Router
  • 07Shopify CLI
  • 08App Bridge
  • 09Polaris
  • 10Storefront API
  • 11Admin GraphQL API
  • 12Shopify Functions
  • 13Checkout UI Extensions
  • 14Customer Account UI
  • 15Metaobjects
  • 16Shopify Markets
  • 17Typesense
  • 18Algolia
  • 19Klaviyo
  • 20GitHub Actions
FAQ

Questions I get,
answered straight.

Missing one? Ask in the form — I reply within a working day.

01Is Shopify the right platform for us in 2026?
For most DTC brands and a growing share of B2B, yes. Shopify has closed the gap on enterprise features — Functions for discount logic, Markets for international, Customer Account extensions for post-login, B2B on Plus — without the operational overhead of Magento or a custom stack. I will say so if you are an edge case where it is the wrong tool, usually deep ERP-driven B2B or catalogue rules Functions cannot express.
02Do we go with a Liquid theme or Hydrogen?
Liquid unless you have a real reason not to. Online Store 2.0 with sections and metaobjects will take a modern merchandising team further than most people assume, and it gets you Shopify's built-in CDN, checkout and app ecosystem for free. Hydrogen earns its keep when you need a CMS-driven content layer, a multi-storefront architecture, or a frontend your engineering team owns outright. I build both, and I will model the total cost before you commit.
03Can you build custom checkout and Customer Account extensions?
Yes, and I already have. I ship Checkout UI Extensions targeting the post-purchase surface, Customer Account UI Extensions targeting the profile page, and theme app extensions that inject behaviour directly into Liquid. All of it is Shopify Plus territory — if you are on Advanced or below, I will scope the Plus upgrade alongside the work.
04We are on Magento and considering Shopify. How does that go?
It goes well if you plan the data and the redirects before the build. I map URL structures, preserve 301s at origin or Cloudflare, migrate customer and order history through the Bulk API, and rebuild promotional logic in Functions or Scripts. I have been on Magento since 2014, which means I know exactly what you will miss and exactly what you will not.
05Can you work alongside our in-house team?
That is how most of my Shopify work runs. I pair on PRs, set up code review, open a Shopify development store with a preview environment per branch, and write handover documentation as I go. Theme App Extensions and app code live in Git, not in the Online Store editor.
06Do you take on performance and search engagements on their own?
Yes. My Rescue model is built for this — a four-to-eight week sprint targeting a specific outcome: green Core Web Vitals, a Typesense or Algolia swap, or a deferred-JS pass on a theme the previous agency left bloated. I publish before-and-after benchmarks at handover.
07How much does a Shopify developer cost?
A custom theme build typically lands well under what an agency quotes for the same scope, because you are paying one senior engineer rather than a delivery team. Audits are fixed-price from two weeks; theme builds, apps and extensions are quoted fixed or capped once scoped. If an App Store subscription already solves your problem for $20 a month, I will point at it instead of building.
08Do you work with Shopify stores in Australia?
Yes — I work with Shopify and Shopify Plus merchants across Australia, remote-first with full overlap with Australian business hours, alongside clients in the UK, Europe and the US.
Start a project

Got a Shopify
brief of your own?

Two-week audit, four-to-eight week rescue, or a full theme, replatform or app build. Tell me what you're running and I'll recommend the shortest path to shipped.

[email protected] — I reply within one working day, personally

OS 2.0
Sections-first themes
40+
Custom Liquid sections shipped
Plus
Checkout & Customer Account extensions
1d
Response time