Founder · Codyssey
Nov 2024 – PresentEdTech (developer education)
- Built and run Codyssey, a live platform that teaches software engineers to build and maintain long-term software products instead of quick demos, with courses, learning paths, and articles published.
- Set the product direction: what to build, what to cut, and the pricing model.
- Led and mentored a team of 1 to 2 engineers building the platform, and reviewed their code.
- Chose the stack, and set up and run the production infrastructure.
Stack: PHP, Laravel, Laravel Cloud, Statamic, React, Next.js, Tailwind CSS, TanStack Query, XState Store, MySQL, Redis, Typesense
Adeva
Jan 2018 – Aug 2026Client engagements through Adeva
The 2019 to 2021 part-time contracts ran alongside my role at Quantox.
Senior Back End Engineer · Nonprofit SaaS platform
Aug 2023 – Aug 2026Client: United States · Adeva · Toptal
- Shipped Workflows to production as primary backend developer, backed by tests. It automates the contact data updates staff were doing by hand. Designed it with the team from product's brief.
- Shipped Company Contacts to production as primary backend developer, so customers can track businesses as donors, not just individuals.
- Cut GitHub Actions build times for a team of 5 to 10 engineers from 30 to 60 minutes to under 10 by splitting the test suite into parallel runs, so merges and deploys moved faster and CI costs dropped.
- Nominated by the product manager for a company values award.
- Fixed critical issues in the import system and investigated support issues reported by end users.
- Proposed coding standards and vertical slice architecture. The team adopted some of the standards.
Stack: PHP, Laravel, MySQL, Redis, Typesense
Senior PHP Developer · iGaming
Jun 2022 – Mar 2023Client: Montenegro
- Built features, improvements, and bug fixes that helped an iGaming platform launch.
- Built internal packages from scratch for third-party integrations and shared domain logic, so the team reuses them instead of copying the same code and business rules into several places.
- Integrated blockchain and Web3 services so players see their crypto wallet balances in the app.
- Suggested architectural and conceptual improvements to the codebase, and wrote automated tests.
Stack: PHP, Symfony, MariaDB, KeyDB, Docker
Senior Laravel Developer · Healthcare (COVID testing laboratory)
Jan 2022 – Apr 2022Client: Italy
- Shipped features, improvements, and REST API endpoints to production for the medical web application of a COVID testing laboratory, covered the new endpoints with feature tests, and fixed production bugs.
Stack: PHP, Laravel, MySQL, Docker
PHP Software Engineer · Community social network
Feb 2020 – May 2021Client: Switzerland · Part-time contract
- Designed and shipped REST and GraphQL API features for a community social network rewritten from scratch. The new platform launched.
- Wrote unit and feature tests using TDD, so the new APIs had tests from day one.
- Designed and built the reusable UI component library, giving the front end one set of building blocks.
Stack: PHP, Laravel, Vue 2, GraphQL, REST, Elasticsearch, MySQL, Redis
PHP Backend Engineer · Financial (fintech)
Jan 2018 – Jun 2019Client: United States
- Led a team of 3 developers and 2 QA engineers on a REST API that lets banks use the main loan origination flow of a Fortune 500 company's regulated loan application. Planned and split the work and designed the API. The project was on schedule when I handed it over before launch.
- Reported progress and presented delivered work to business analysts and product owners.
- Built features, fixed release and production bugs, and supported production releases on the main application.
Stack: PHP, Laravel, Lumen, MySQL, Docker
Shorter Adeva engagements
- PHP Backend Engineer · Employee engagement (Oct 2019 – Mar 2020, Macedonia, part-time): Built new admin panel and REST API features. Laravel.
- PHP Engineer · Human resources (Jul 2019 – Oct 2019, United Arab Emirates): Built new features and fixed critical bugs. CakePHP.
Senior PHP Developer · Quantox Technology Macedonia
Dec 2019 – Dec 2021Entertainment (video platform) · Client: Canada
- Designed and built the REST API behind the redesigned creator upload and publishing tools for a video platform with millions of daily users. The redesign launched after I left.
- Worked directly with the client on scope, requirements, and delivery, and fed back on the designs.
- Fixed release and production bugs so the live platform kept running while the redesign was built, and refactored code for performance and readability.
- Interviewed PHP candidates, reviewed their technical assignments, and mentored interns in the internship program.
Stack: PHP, Percona, Memcached, Elasticsearch
Lead Full Stack PHP Developer · Routyx
Mar 2017 – Dec 2017Logistics (dispatch ERP)
- Chose the stack and set up the project structure for a delivery and logistics dispatcher ERP and the API for its driver app. Both kept growing on that structure without a rewrite.
- Built ERP features, front-end features, and the mobile app API, and mentored interns in the team's practices.
Stack: PHP, Laravel, Lumen, JavaScript, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis, Docker
Full Stack PHP Developer · New Media Corp.
Apr 2016 – Feb 2017Media & broadcasting
- Built web applications from scratch as part of a small team, including a live camera monitoring app used during an election, an online video platform, and the front end of the customer panel for a TV-as-a-service platform.
- Mentored two colleagues through code reviews and pairing on their tasks.
Stack: PHP, Laravel, Vue 2, JavaScript, Node.js, MySQL, Redis, Docker
Full Stack PHP Developer · Tabellarius
Jun 2015 – Mar 2016Email marketing · Joined as an intern, hired full-time at the end of the internship
- Built an email marketing web application from scratch as part of a team, including a real-time customer support chat: features, functional/integration/acceptance tests, and legacy code refactoring.
- Gave internal talks on BEM (CSS naming), real-time notifications with Laravel, Node.js, Redis, and Socket.io, automated testing, and Git workflow. The team adopted the testing practice, the Git workflow, and the real-time stack.
Stack: PHP, Laravel, JavaScript, Node.js, Socket.IO, MySQL, Redis, PHPUnit, Codeception
Earlier experience
- Part-Time Consultant · 3P Development (Oct 2017 – Jan 2018, Real estate): Built new features for a small real estate web application. Laravel.