IN
About

Backend-first, whole-system thinking

I'm Ignatius — a senior software engineer with 7+ years designing and shipping production systems: multi-tenant SaaS platforms, high-traffic APIs and data-heavy PostgreSQL workloads.

I'm a firm believer in boring, well-tested technology doing exciting things. Lately I've been learning Rust for the performance-critical pieces PHP isn't meant for — and this very site is my playground: a Laravel + Filament backend with a BlatUI frontend.

Available for new projects
Get in touch See my work CV slot: drop your file at public/files/ignatius-cv.pdf
Portrait of Ignatius N
ignatius@homelab: ~ — zsh 
➜  ~ whoami
ignatius

➜  ~ cat principles.txt
1. Boring tech, exciting outcomes
2. Measure before optimising
3. Tests are documentation
4. Delete more than you write

➜  ~ uptime
 7 years in production, still shipping — load average: 0.42

➜  ~
Toolbox

Depth where it counts

PHP / Laravel 95%
PostgreSQL 90%
Redis / Queues 85%
Filament / Livewire 85%
Docker / CI-CD 75%
Rust 45%
PHP 8.3 Laravel Filament Livewire PostgreSQL Redis Rust Docker CI/CD Tailwind CSS Alpine.js Octane Pest Vite
Experience

Seven years of shipping

  1. 2024 — Present

    Senior Software Engineer

    Independent / Consulting

    Designing Laravel + PostgreSQL backends for clients, building Filament admin panels, and prototyping performance-critical services in Rust.

  2. 2021 — 2024

    Senior Backend Engineer

    SaaS Product Company

    Led a multi-tenant Laravel platform through a 10× traffic increase — query tuning, queue refactors and zero-downtime Postgres migrations.

  3. 2019 — 2021

    Backend Developer

    Digital Agency

    Delivered bespoke e-commerce and API-driven platforms; introduced automated testing and CI to the team.

How I work

Principles I ship by

Reliability first

Systems that degrade gracefully and wake me up only when they truly need to.

Measure, then optimise

No rewrite on vibes. Profilers, query plans and dashboards decide the roadmap.

Tests are documentation

A test suite that fails loudly is worth more than any architecture diagram.

Delete more than you write

The best code is the code that no longer exists. Simplicity compounds.

Boring, well-tested technology doing exciting things — that's the whole trick.
Ignatius N
On his engineering philosophy
Off the clock

Beyond the terminal

A few things that keep the commits interesting when the laptop lid closes.

Trail hiking

Where the trickiest architecture problems get solved — one summit at a time.

Pour-over devotee

Three brewers on the shelf; the V60 is the daily driver.

Mechanical keyboards

Lubed switches, custom keymap — the loudest thing about me is my typing.

Sci-fi reader

Becky Chambers and Andy Weir stacks. Optimistic futures only.

Strategy games

Terraforming Mars regular; always convincing friends it is "one more turn".

Fun facts

  • My first line of code was a Pokémon fan-site in PHP.
  • I once hotfixed production over SSH between wedding vows.
  • Every homelab server is named after a Greek island.

Want the longer version?

The projects tell the story better than a résumé ever could.

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