The VIP division of Automattic (makers of WordPress.com) works with large content publishers to deploy and scale custom code on a high performance web environment. I cover some of the challenges that developers for VIP clients face and how we help them mitigate the challenges. Even though most developers out there aren’t developing sites for WordPress.com, many of the problems VIPs face are transferable to other environments. I’ll also cover some best practices that we encourage — tips, tricks, and tools we share with VIP developers that you can use to become a better WordPress developer no matter your skill level (though chances are that much of this will be beyond the reach of beginner developers).