ROY
SHAY

Backends for
the bold

I’m a London-based software engineer that crafts robust and scalable APIs and software. Talk with me to see what over two decades of experience can do for you.

Get in touch

About Me

Hey! I’m Roy, and I love creating software that powers brilliant brands. For over two decades, I’ve lovingly crafted APIs, schemas and databases for large corporations, start-ups and agencies. My experience ranges from high-traffic, enterprise-level software to industry-disrupting, start-up launching products, and everything in between.

I’m at my best solving tough problems for exciting brands, whether that’s adding to or improving existing APIs, integrating with third-party software, or managing large-scale migrations.

I adore working with Laravel and other MVC style PHP frameworks, and use them to produce robust, secure and scalable backend software. This gives products and brands a stable and fast core from which they can produce their unique experiences for users.

Clients

END.
Filter Digital
Superscript
Pearson
WiredScore
Hex Digital
BBC Studios
The Labour Party
The Frameworks
Spark
Sainsbury’s
Raymond James
Investment Services

END.

Senior Software Engineer (Contract)

November 2022 - Present | Fully Remote

  • Brought in to rebuild END. Launches - a high-traffic service raffling high-end, rare clothing releases, handling millions of requests daily
  • Rebuild carried out using Laravel 10 and Nova with PHP 8 for office admin tool deployed into AWS Lambdas using Bref and prototyping for microservices done in NestJS services deployed into AWS Lambdas with Aurora databases
  • Gathered specifications in regular face-to-face meetings with stakeholders
  • Mentored junior engineers, reviewing PRs and knowledge-sharing

Filter Digital

Senior Software Engineer (Contract)

March 2022 - August 2022 | Fully Remote

  • Hired to help design, architect and implement API to drive backend for an employee management system for one of the UK’s largest pub chains using Laravel 9, PHP 8, Elasticsearch and some AWS
  • Helped establish best practices (Github/PR workflows, linting (PHPStan), testing (PHPUnit) etc)
  • Mentored junior developers

Superscript

Senior Software Engineer (Contract)

October 2021 - March 2022 | Fully Remote

  • Contracted to help with additional features to Event Sourcing-driven B2B insurance quoting and brokering platform built using Laravel 8, PHP 8 and Postgres, deployed using Heroku

Pearson

Senior Software Engineer (Contract)

October 2020 - October 2021 | Fully Remote

  • Brought in to help architect and implement functionality in a new student assessment and testing platform using Laravel 8 (with LiveWire, Nova and PEST), MySQL, Docker and AWS

WiredScore

Lead Software Engineer (Contract)

July 2019 - October 2020 | London, UK

  • Added features to existing real-estate broadband connectivity survey platform built in Laravel 4 & 5, MySQL hosted on AWS (ECR, ECS, EC2)
  • Rearchitected critical points in decaying, poorly designed codebase; Substantially overhauled deployment routines; Rewrote bloated queries to improve sub-par performance; Introduced linting, GitHub PR routines and broad Agile methodology
  • Client-facing role required regular face-to-face with stake-holders, managing expectations, budgets and timelines

Hex Digital

Senior Software Engineer (Contract)

July 2018 - July 2019 | London, UK

  • Brought on to architect, scope and build whirli.com - an e-commerce platform for hiring toys, built using Laravel 5.8, PHP 7 and MySQL
  • Comprehensive testing suite using PHPUnit
  • Helped in recruiting, interviewing and mentoring new developers

BBC Studios

Software Engineer (Contract)

July 2017 - June 2018 | London, UK

  • Recruited to help deliver new B2B platform (“Online Catalogue”) for selling content; Microservices system built using Laravel 5.5 with MySQL and Postgres DB’s, with heavy reliance on Docker and Kubernetes for deployment and orchestration
  • Other technologies used include Jenkins, Git, Slim, Symfony, AWS (EC2, SNS/SQS)

The Labour Party

Software Engineer (Contract)

May 2017 - June 2017 | London, UK

  • Urgently recruited to assist in development on a large-scale SMS application for member mobilisation leading up to the elections, built in Laravel 5.4 and Postgres, deployed using Heroku, with git for VC
  • Timely, scalable development carried out under extreme deadlines and vague specifications to the satisfaction of the team

The Frameworks Spark

Software Engineer (Contract)

January 2017 - May 2017 | London, UK

  • Urgently recruited to rapidly push out Laravel/MySQL/Statamic CMS-driven website, onemillionmentors.org.uk
  • Delivered well-documented, on time, per spec code in a high-pace environment to the satisfaction of the client

Sainsbury's

Software Engineer (Contract)

May 2015 - January 2017 | London, UK

  • Part of a team re-engineering Groceries Online into a RESTful middle-tier Services Layer written in Laravel, using Docker containers spun up in a Vagrant VM. Databases used were MySQL and some Postgres. Version control was handled in Git and tests written in Behat, PHPSpec and PHPUnit
  • Pure Agile/Scrum

Raymond James Investment Services

Software Engineer (Contract)

March 2013 - May 2015 | London, UK

  • (Mostly) Sole developer on a large-scale, £1m, 2-year project to automate old investment management billing system for financial advisors, meant to dramatically cut processing time and provide rich, real-time transaction data and reporting
  • The new system aggregates vast amounts of data from numerous 3rd party vendors (e.g. Portfolio, order and investment management; billing etc.) and driven by complex “pricing models”
  • Development carried out using a proprietary, internally developed, LAMPbased (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) MVC framework with GIT version control and jQuery in the front-end
  • Working closely with Project Manager, Business Analysts, developers, DB Admins and business stakeholders
  • Pure Agile/Scrum

Tell me about your next project

I’m currently taking on contracts for July 2022. Even if you’re not ready to commit, let’s have a chat about your project, and see what two decades of experience can do for you.

WHAT'S YOUR NEXT PROJECT?
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