Full Stack PHP Web Developer - PILONCE LIMITED

Pilonce.co.uk is an agency from UK and we have been working on seven new projects and four existing ones so far. I have been asked to take full development ownership of in-house applications and highly customized websites with advanced admin areas and roles, multiple user types, API integrations, 3D Secure payment implementations and whatever their clients have requested. On the front-end I have usually integrated base layouts or build my own for very high page speeds and also added full JavaScript functionality. On the back-end my choice has been Laravel for new projects and I have also worked on existing websites based on WordPress and Symfony 2. KellyDeli.com is worth mentioning because the front-end is 100% built by me as well. The front-end is custom built, very lightweight and it also shows that rendering is also very important as a perception of speed for end-users. Before adding trackers and other live content the PageSpeed has topped 100 on both Web and Mobile audits.

I am considering this to be a very successful collaboration with all projects under full control and a near 100% task-completion rate.

Case studies (+80% total development and 100% back-end development):
www.SushiDaily.com
www.KellyDeli.com
www.CMsounds.com
www.JamieOliversDiner.com

Netzinkubator.de is a german agency and we have worked 100% remotely on for long term projects, two at about 50% development and two new projects. This collaboration has had two particularities, the applications were in german (or had support for german) and I do not speak it. The second particularity was the JavaScript development at about 50% (comparing 25% vs. 75% server-side for other projects).

Technically, aside from the front-end development I was also in charge with the full back-end development (PHP CodeIgniter and Laravel). For the Web portals and mobile applications multiple APIs had to be integrated (one-time or recurring payment services, Facebook, Instagram, Dropbox etc.) with custom UIs. One application stand out for it's complexity having functionalities similar to Facebook or Instagram (options to follow others, likes and news feeds etc.).

I have also used Node.js in practice during this time for a chat that had to be used with multiple projects. On my time I had already experimented with Node.js and A.R. Drone 2.0; the drone was sending video feeds to and was fully controlled from a laptop via Wi-Fi. I have also developed a test website with as many features as possible for comparison but OVERALL I did not consider it to be as efficient as PHP + Apache.

RBY Co. (clients from U.S.A.) and TECHLAB FIVE (clients from Ireland) were two startups that I have worked with for about six months each developing a platform similar to the one I made for infoCONSTRUCT. Without any other connections, both companies wanted the development of over fifty websites and management teams had already anticipated the future costs will be very high if they would continue with a copy/paste approach. The websites would have been hosted on the same server but with different domains and would have complex features la online payment support, complex administration areas or integrate multiple API types. The architecture that I have proposed was identical to that of infoGROUP, with PHP OOP and MVC split in classes and common and individual files, same approach with CSS and JavaScript and symlinks for common files (giving us the option to make fixes and updates that propagate to all websites from a single physical location on the server).

Having been given the role of lead developer and team leader and full control over current and future development decisions, the first step has been stabilizing and securing the existing websites (RBY Co. had a website based on PHP Yii framework at about 60% features; TECHLAB FIVE had two websites built on PHP CodeIgniter framework at about 50% features). In the second step I did a split of the existing code into common/symlinks and individual classes and files. We then continued the development of the platform along with two or three websites; the parallel development has been a pragmatic way to separate the code into code that would be shared to future implementations and code that would individualize the implementation we were working on.

After achieving 100% development for the final architecture as well al individual implementations I was working on I helped where it was necessary with the transfer of the development to existing development team. During development I have asked the developers to develop implementation that were two-four weeks behind while I was developing the platform and my implementations.

As a web developer and IT specialist for infoCONSTRUCT SRL (advertising company) my main tasks were maintaining and later the custom development front and back-end for nine websites, covering all aspects needed for the administration of two internal ERP+CRM applications and network support for two office headquarters with around fifty employees.

During the first months at infoCONSTRUCT SRL I've been in charge with the development of the first versions for FabricaDeCarne.ro and FarbricaDeLapte.ro, websites belonging to infoALIMENT SRL (the second largest company in infoGROUP). Both websites have been custom built without frameworks based on the demo CMS I had previously developed.

After about one year and as being the only web developer with increasing demands for their Web products from clients of both companies, myself and the management team decided to start the development of a shared platform for websites with similar business model. Initially the platform has been developed along with the new versions of infoconstruct.ro and infoaliment.ro. Technically the platform was relying on OOP and MVC concepts and would integrate as much as possible the existing databases. For back-end the modules had a base PHP class and a "specific" class that was extending it, the later being individualized according to specific website requirements. By separating views, CSS and JavaScript files in a similar way I managed to isolate common and individual properties in classes and files. I could then use symlinks to share common files and classes and where it was required to individualize the websites with specific files.

As a technical example for the concept consider a .CSS file containing dimensions as a symlink in each website folder and a second .CSS file with colors, font names etc. By using for PHP, HTML, CSS and JavaScript the two file types (common/symlinks and individual) I was able to make fixes and updates that could propagate in all implementations maintaining at the same time the specific website requirements. During the next few months I had launched new versions and added updates on a weekly basis.

The platform has been so successful that both infoCONSTRUCT and infoALIMENT added as one of their services advertisements for their clients on the websites only. The record for unique visitors for infoconstruct.ro is still the one made during the week in which the new website has been launched.

During my final year attending university I have developed a few demo websites and a custom CMS. My main goal was understanding the flow for complete applications development, having already the technical info for front (HTML, CSS and JavaScript) and back-end (PHP and MySQL). The websites were virtual shops, were using AJAX for a better user experience (eg. for shopping carts) and have been used later as demos for my university degree and to get my fist job as full-time web developer at infoCONTSRUCT.

During this time I have also worked remotely with Twerq Technology start-up from Canada. Twerq was developing an advanced search engine based on Google, Yahoo! Search and MSN Search APIs. A complete website developed by me as well as a few modules for the search engine made it in production, including an advanced spell checker; You can test a beta version at http://www.valentinzachia.com/demo/twerq_spellchecker/