New Drupal platforms for large multilingual sites

Who this is for

Organisations running a content platform that has outgrown itself: too many languages to manage by hand, an editorial workflow people work around rather than with, an accessibility obligation nobody can currently evidence, and a legacy system that makes every change expensive.

It is not for brochure sites. If you need five pages and a contact form, almost any agency will do it faster and cheaper than I will.

What gets built

• Information architecture and content model — designed around how your editors actually work, not around the CMS
• Multilingual setup: translation workflow, language fallbacks, per-language publishing, translator handoff
• Editorial workflow with real approval stages, roles and permissions that survive staff turnover
• Accessibility to WCAG 2.2 AA built in from the content model onward, not retrofitted before launch
• Multi-site or multi-domain architecture where several departments share a platform
• Search and indexing, faceted browsing, and the tuning that keeps it fast as content grows
• Integrations with the systems you already run — identity, CRM, document stores, payment, internal APIs
• Content migration from the legacy system, including the messy parts nobody wants to look at
• Infrastructure, deployment pipeline, environments, and monitoring

How the project runs

Phase 1 — Discovery	Paid, fixed price, 3–4 weeks. Content audit, stakeholder interviews, editorial workflow mapping, legacy system assessment. Ends with an architecture document and a costed build plan. You can take that plan to another supplier if you want to — it's yours.
Phase 2 — Architecture	Content model, module strategy, integration design, infrastructure plan, accessibility approach. Signed off before anything is built.
Phase 3 — Build	Iterative, with a working environment you can see from week one. Fortnightly demos. Accessibility tested continuously rather than at the end.
Phase 4 — Migration	Content migration with a dry run, a reconciliation report, and an agreed plan for what does not come across.
Phase 5 — Launch & handover	Phased or full cutover, editor training, documentation, and a defined support period. Then either your team takes it, or it moves onto a maintenance retainer.

The things that actually kill these projects

Not the code. It's content migration from a legacy system nobody documented, editors who were never consulted and quietly keep using the old process, and an accessibility requirement discovered six weeks before launch. Each of those is addressed explicitly in discovery, because finding them late is what turns a fixed price into a dispute.

Who delivers it

Platforms up to roughly €120,000 I deliver solo, which is why the architecture stays coherent and nothing gets lost in a handover. Above that, or where a delivery timeline demands parallel work, I lead a named team of Drupal developers alongside a project manager, and every person on the proposal is someone I have worked with before.

Either way you deal with me, not an account manager. If your procurement process requires a supplier with a larger balance sheet, I also work as the named architect on agency and prime-contractor bids — say so early and I will tell you honestly which route fits.

Relevant experience

Lead developer on an EU agency platform serving over 500,000 users with 150+ modules in production. A two-year build programme for Czech Radio, still the largest Drupal integration in the Czech Republic, sustaining a 300,000+ listener audience. Seven years building and running the Czech Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs estate, including the EU-funded EVALDO competency assessment system.

Earlier: seven flagship Drupal projects at Aira Group leading a team of six developers. Long-lived, high-compliance systems — not projects that get handed over and forgotten.

Full case studies →