• 15+ yearscommercial PHP, from PHP 5 to 8.4
  • Laravel & Symfonyproduction APIs and web apps
  • React & React Nativeweb dashboards and mobile apps
  • AI-firstdaily agentic development with Claude Code

About Me

Hello There!

I'm a senior full stack engineer based in Northern Ireland, with 15+ years of commercial PHP experience from PHP 5 through to PHP 8.4. Today I build and modernise SaaS products with Laravel and React, including moving legacy PHP applications onto modern, well-tested stacks.

AI-assisted development is central to how I work. I use agentic coding tools such as Claude Code every day, and I build the project context and custom skills that let them follow a team's own process. That means features and investigations get delivered faster, without lowering the bar on quality.

My background spans Symfony and Laravel, RESTful APIs, MySQL/MariaDB, React Native, Python, automated testing, CI/CD pipelines and AWS. I've led full project lifecycles, hired and mentored engineers, and delivered complex financial and data-driven calculations where accuracy and compliance really matter.

How I Work

  • Clean, maintainable code: SOLID, PSR-12, KISS and DRY, with dependency injection keeping components decoupled and testable.
  • Test-driven: TDD and domain-driven design, backed by PHPUnit and Playwright, with pipelines that catch problems before release.
  • Secure by default: OWASP guidelines, OAuth2 and JWT authentication, and careful input validation across every API.
  • Performance-minded: query optimisation, caching and queues (Laravel Horizon, Redis, RabbitMQ / Symfony Messenger) for work that shouldn't block users.
  • AI-first, human-owned: AI agents speed up delivery, while I keep ownership of the architecture, security and final code quality.

What I Bring to a Team

Modernisation without disruption

I move legacy PHP systems onto modern Laravel and React stacks step by step, while the product keeps serving live users.

Faster delivery with AI

I set up AI coding agents to follow team standards and process, so features ship faster without cutting corners.

Leadership and mentoring

I've led projects from prototype to an investment-backed product, and hired, onboarded and mentored engineers.

Numbers you can trust

From bank mortgage calculators to data-heavy reporting, I build calculations where accuracy and compliance matter.

My Resume

Download my CV (PDF)

  • Work Experience

  • Senior Software Engineer

    SustainIQ Ltd · January 2025 – Present

    Full stack development on a modern SaaS platform using Laravel and React. Building RESTful APIs, data-rich dashboards and reporting features, and modernising legacy code for performance and maintainability. Improving data accuracy across queued processing pipelines, working within CI/CD pipelines, and using Python for data analysis and predictive modelling.

  • Lead Software Engineer

    Pulse Sales Solutions Ltd · March 2022 – November 2024

    Led project lifecycles from planning to delivery, working closely with UX and UI designers, and hired, onboarded and mentored engineers. Led a prototype that became a market-ready product, which secured external investment and was adopted by customers. Built Symfony and Doctrine applications hosted on AWS EC2, with CI/CD pipelines automating build, test and deployment.

  • Senior Software Engineer

    Pulse Sales Solutions Ltd · March 2016 – March 2022

    Designed and built Symfony APIs, and improved their performance and security through caching, rate limiting and input validation. Monitored application performance, wrote clean and modular code, and automated PHPUnit testing within CI/CD pipelines, deploying to AWS EC2.

  • Software Engineer

    Zesty · October 2014 – March 2016

    Developed and maintained mortgage and loan calculators for a major UK and Ireland bank. Worked with banking professionals to implement complex financial algorithms, ensuring accuracy, security and regulatory compliance.

  • Software Engineer

    Seopa Ltd · October 2011 – October 2014

    Built and maintained integrations with insurance providers' APIs to retrieve real-time car, home and health insurance quotes for a comparison platform. Made the integrations fault-tolerant, documented the APIs and architecture, and carried out security audits.

  • Junior Software Engineer

    Acorn IT Solutions Ltd · October 2010 – October 2011

    Built custom Visual Basic plugins and forms extending Sage accountancy software, working directly with clients on their requirements and supporting deployed solutions.

  • Business Owner and Junior Software Engineer

    Self-employed · August 2008 – October 2010

    Ran a home-based server reseller business specialising in web hosting and website development.

  • Education

  • Postgraduate Diploma

    Ulster University · 2007 – 2008

    Business and Information Innovation.

  • BSc (Hons) Business with Computing, 2:1

    Ulster University · 2004 – 2007

    Business with Computing.

Areas of Expertise

Laravel & Symfony

15+ years of commercial PHP, from PHP 5 to 8.4. Production Laravel 13 APIs today, built on 10+ years of Symfony and Doctrine.

AI-Assisted Engineering

Daily agentic development with Claude Code, CLAUDE.md context engineering, and custom agent skills for planning, code review and PRs.

React & React Native

Dashboards, data-heavy reporting interfaces and charts in React, plus cross-platform mobile apps with React Native (Expo).

Legacy Modernisation

Moving legacy PHP applications, including Zend Framework, onto modern Laravel and React stacks incrementally, without disrupting live users.

Data, Performance & Python

MySQL/MariaDB design and tuning, eliminating N+1 queries, complex financial and data calculations, and predictive modelling in Python.

Quality, CI/CD & Cloud

TDD with PHPUnit and Playwright, CI/CD pipelines, Docker, and AWS EC2 deployments, with OWASP-led security throughout.

Projects

A selection of personal projects I build and maintain outside my day job.

Mobile & API

Team Management App

A cross-platform mobile app for coaches to run a squad from their phone, backed by a Laravel REST API.

  • Player management, trial scoring, season planning and squad selection
  • One codebase for iOS and Android
  • Laravel 13
  • PHP 8.4
  • React Native
  • Expo
  • MariaDB
Web App & Data

Analytics Dashboard Platform

A secure login platform and single-page dashboard presenting reports across several demo datasets.

  • Modern login security following current OWASP guidance
  • React front end talking to a FastAPI back end
  • Built around SOLID and OOP principles, with unit tests
  • Python
  • FastAPI
  • React
  • MariaDB
AI Engineering

AI Development Toolkit

A reusable toolkit that makes AI coding agents work like a disciplined member of the team.

  • CLAUDE.md context templates that encode coding standards, branching and PR rules
  • Custom agent skills for ticket planning, code review (PSR-12, OWASP) and pull requests
  • Guardrails that keep humans in control of merges and releases
  • Claude Code
  • Agent Skills
  • Prompt Engineering
  • Git
This Website

jjsmyth.net

My portfolio and CV site, built with a focus on speed, security, accessibility and search visibility.

  • Contact form with CSRF protection and honeypot spam filtering
  • Structured data, Open Graph and canonical tags for SEO
  • Lightweight front end that loads in around half a second
  • Symfony
  • Twig
  • AssetMapper
  • Bootstrap

Skills

PHP
95%
LARAVEL
93%
SYMFONY
90%
AI DEV
92%
  • Back end & PHP
  • Front end & mobile
  • AI, DevOps & cloud
  • Data & Python

RESTful APIs93%

HTML & CSS92%

Claude Code / AI Agents92%

Git92%

MySQL / MariaDB92%

PHPUnit / TDD88%

React88%

JavaScript88%

Redis & Queues86%

Zend Framework85%

Tailwind CSS85%

Docker85%

CI/CD Pipelines84%

React Native80%

PostgreSQL80%

Node.js78%

AWS (EC2)78%

TypeScript75%

Vue.js75%

Python72%

Predictive Modelling70%

Get in Touch

Want to talk about Laravel, React or AI-assisted engineering, or just connect? I'd be glad to hear from you.

Contact Me

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