Senior software engineer · Independent consultant
The backend systems that move money, run on schedule, and are expensive to get wrong: payments, complex integrations, high-volume data, and production AI. Built to be reliable and to hold up under real usage. I take systems end to end, from architecture through deployment and the maintenance after, or step into an existing codebase to push a hard piece forward.
I also build and maintain WordPress data-import tooling, including a free importer add-on published on WordPress.org.
I'm a senior software engineer with over twenty years in technology and more than a decade writing production software. I've run my own consultancy, Coding Chicken, since 2017, building backend and full-stack systems for SaaS platforms, marketplaces, and e-commerce. I specialize in the work that's expensive to get wrong: payment and payout systems, the scheduling and integration infrastructure that keeps a platform running, and bringing AI into real products. I work independently, fully remote, and I take ownership end to end, from architecture through deployment and the maintenance after.
Four areas I go deepest on, the ones where a bug costs real money or real trust.
Marketplace and multi-party payments, automated payouts, remittance, and reconciliation across payouts, refunds, disputes, and fees. Stripe Connect and PayPal. The financial plumbing where getting the numbers right is the whole job.
Third-party APIs and webhooks, plus the reliability layer built so failures surface instead of passing silently: idempotency, retries, monitoring, and the operational care that goes into keeping connected systems dependable.
High-volume scheduling and background-job infrastructure built for constant churn, designed to be idempotent so retries and duplicate runs are safe. Plus import, export, and sync built to keep data consistent across systems without manual babysitting.
Production AI built into real products: LLM integration, structured outputs, and tool use, with a focus on reliability, cost, and maintainability. It builds on machine-learning work I started around 2014, carried forward into today's LLM systems.
A representative picture of systems I've owned. Most of this is private, confidential client work, so the details are anonymized, but the work and the responsibility are real.
A multi-party SaaS marketplace processing live transactions at scale.
A high-traffic platform running continuous automated workflows.
Data-intensive platforms moving large volumes of records between systems.
Bringing AI capabilities into a live product.
Deep in the PHP and Laravel world, comfortable across the front end, and at home on the infrastructure and payments side. The tools matter less than knowing where things break.
WordPress and WooCommerce too, when a project calls for it.
I take ownership. I'd rather understand the whole system than patch a symptom, I build for production and the maintenance that follows, and I keep things documented so they don't fall apart when I step away. Communication is clear and consistent, mostly async and in writing, which keeps a steady record and keeps work moving.
Whether it starts as an MVP to prove an idea or a system I own end to end, I build it to hold up in production and to last.
Most of my work goes out under two brands.
Available for contract and C2C engagements, 100% remote, no travel. Tell me what you're building and where it's getting hard, and I'll tell you straight whether I'm a fit. The contact page is the fastest way to reach me.