Lead PHP/Laravel Engineer

• Lead backend engineering for data-heavy Laravel 13 / Livewire applications: architecture, reporting, analytics, and incremental modernization of existing systems.
• Set technical direction for backend work—architecture decisions, implementation plans, code review, and mentoring engineers from junior through senior.
• Design and operate reporting and analytics against PostgreSQL and BigQuery, including schema work, query performance, and aggregation pipelines used by the product.
• Work directly with product and engineering leadership to turn requirements into scoped backend work and keep delivery unblocked across frontend, backend, and data.
• Own production behavior of business-critical application code: debugging, reliability, and long-term maintainability rather than one-off features.

• Independently design, build, deploy, and maintain Laravel applications, integrations, and the Linux infrastructure they run on.
• Own the full path from business problem through architecture, implementation, review, deployment, and ongoing support.
• Selected work spans AI-enabled Laravel services, reporting and internal tools, commerce overlays, and hardware-adjacent software—grouped here rather than listed as separate employers.

Selected engineering projects

• Architected a new Laravel 11 codebase to modernize legacy PHP systems, using service-oriented structure so new work could ship without a full rewrite.
• Built Laravel + Livewire 3 applications with queued jobs for large SQL datasets, Excel generation, and in-browser completion notifications.
• Automated invoice and document processing with LLM structured output and regex parsing—unstructured text to JSON, then MySQL import and analysis.
• Delivered a mobile-friendly technician check-in/out flow integrated with internal time-tracking software for remote workforce logging.
• Maintained and extended legacy PHP applications while modernizing the pieces that mattered, keeping production compatible throughout the transition.

• Architected a Laravel overlay on a mature CS-Cart commerce stack, adding modern application features while keeping the legacy store operational.
• Built service-layer order and cart flows with transaction-safe database writes, bypassing slow legacy APIs where they could not carry the load.
• Delivered B2B dealer tooling: volume/tier pricing, Sanctum APIs, customer-facing Laravel features, and an Electron desktop client for dealers.
• Integrated Stripe (Payment Intents, saved methods, refunds, webhooks), Shippo rate/label fulfillment, and Cloudflare at the edge.
• Built session-based analytics, conversion funnels, and a Livewire dashboard for customer activity and sales reporting.
• Designed multi-node Dell PowerEdge infrastructure with Proxmox, Ubuntu VMs, Docker, nginx, and mirrored production/staging environments.
• Shipped software that crossed into hardware: prototype lighting-controller firmware, GPIO/physical triggers, and an iOS BLE app for device control.
• Automated order/email workflows (queues, Mailgun) and added LLM-backed product recommendation hooks inside the Laravel application.

• Led development of custom sales prototypes and internal tools, working with sales and project managers to turn business needs into working software.
• Migrated a Kohana PHP toolchain to Laravel, improving maintainability while keeping proprietary applications supported.
• Architected Laravel admin systems with a Vue.js frontend for data management, prototype creation, and deployment workflows.
• Built a Laravel admin integrated with company SSO so internal users could authenticate without a parallel login stack.
• Established Git workflows and code review so work could move to offshore teams without losing ownership of architecture or quality.
• Partnered with IT on infrastructure for internal applications—access, uptime, and the operational side of shipping software.

• Built custom jQuery plugins tailored to project requirements and refactored anonymous legacy functions into reusable plugins.
• Translated design into hand-coded HTML with responsive, mobile-friendly layouts and consistent rendering.
• Used GitHub for version control and collaborative development.
• Reviewed and refactored legacy front-end code to improve maintainability and performance.

• Built jQuery-driven UI work and led QUnit testing so client-facing features shipped with fewer regressions.
• Worked in an Agile team on feature-based front-end delivery using semantic HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
• Integrated AJAX/JSON against a Java backend and used GitHub for version control.
• Prototyped interfaces and collaborated across the stack—full-stack range, not a dedicated front-end career path.