01
Legacy systems and modernisation
Calm, methodical support for established PHP applications that the business still depends on.
- PHP, Laravel and Symfony
- Incremental upgrades and refactoring
- Bug fixes and security improvements
UK-based · Freelance · Senior engineer
Freelance Senior Software Engineer for practical digital problem-solving
I help businesses stabilise, modernise and extend existing software systems — from legacy PHP applications and APIs to automation, Dockerised workflows and AI-assisted tools.
Where I can help
Useful progress, without the theatre.
Often, the right answer is not a ground-up rebuild. It is understanding what you have, reducing risk and making focused improvements that create room for the business to move.
- Stabilise business-critical systems
- Untangle difficult technical problems
- Add features to established products
- Improve performance and delivery
Services
Hands-on engineering across the systems you already rely on.
02
React and Node development
Useful product work across modern front ends, back-end services and the joins between them.
- React and Next.js interfaces
- Node.js services and integrations
- Maintainable feature delivery
03
APIs and integrations
Reliable REST APIs and integrations that help existing systems exchange data cleanly.
- API design and implementation
- Third-party service integration
- Authentication and data flows
04
Automation and workflows
Practical automation for repetitive operational work, data processing and internal tooling.
- Business process automation
- Data import and export pipelines
- Internal tools and scripts
05
Performance and environments
Focused improvements to application performance and the environments developers rely on.
- Profiling and bottleneck removal
- Docker and local environments
- Deployment workflow improvements
06
Practical AI tooling
Grounded AI-assisted tools where retrieval, document search or workflow support creates real value.
- RAG and document search
- AI-assisted internal workflows
- Prototypes and feasibility work
Selected work
Practical outcomes
01
Performance optimisation
Lower infrastructure load across a large hosting estate
Overhauled an inefficient, memory-intensive system running on infrastructure shared by more than 120 systems.
32% reduction in CPU utilisation
- PHP
- Profiling
- Systems analysis
02
Bespoke product engineering
Sports science and movement-analysis platforms
Led technical work across bespoke applications used to collect, process and present specialist movement data.
Cross-platform systems delivered from API to mobile
- PHP
- Azure
- REST APIs
- Unity
- C#
03
Portfolio support
Ongoing modernisation of LAMP-based websites
Supported and improved a large portfolio of established websites while keeping day-to-day operations moving.
Safer, more dependable sites with useful new features
- Linux
- Apache
- MySQL
- PHP
How I work
Clear thinking. Direct communication. Solid delivery.
- 01
Understand
Get close to the system, the business context and the actual constraint.
- 02
Prioritise
Separate urgent risk from useful improvement and agree a sensible route forward.
- 03
Deliver
Make focused changes, communicate clearly and leave the system easier to own.
Start a conversation
Have a system that needs a steady pair of hands?
Tell me what is working, what is not, and where you need to get to. I will give you a clear view of how I can help.