The National Interest

The National Interest is a long-running publication focused on foreign policy, defense, and global affairs. Their team needed a modern Drupal platform that could support a continuous stream of articles, strong editorial workflows, and a revenue model heavily tied to advertising. I led the Drupal build, focusing on performance, flexibility for editors, and a scalable approach to monetization.

A major requirement for the site was a custom ad-injection system. We developed a configurable solution that allowed administrators to define ad placements by region and automatically insert ads throughout long-form content. This ensured consistent ad delivery without requiring editors to manually manage placements — an essential feature for a publication with such a high publishing frequency.

Because the site was extremely blog and news heavy, caching became a priority. I implemented a mix of Drupal caching strategies, including optimized view-level caching, smart cache tags, and improved handling of authenticated vs. anonymous traffic. These layers worked together to keep the site fast and reliable even during high-interest news cycles.

Beyond performance and ads, the build focused on making the editorial experience efficient and predictable. Content types, taxonomy, and moderation workflows were structured to support a large team of contributors while keeping the publishing process clean and manageable.

Overall, this project demonstrates my ability to build high-traffic, content-driven Drupal sites that balance editorial needs, performance, and monetization.