LorryDriveloper
Backend engineer who turns product needs into durable architecture.
I'm a backend-focused Ruby on Rails engineer working on a SaaS product, remotely, from Murcia in Spain. My work is mostly architecture: domain models, frameworks other engineers build on, and production migrations that can be rolled back. I like to find the small core of a problem, put the safety in it once, and build features as layers on top.
I write the design down before I build it and invite people to disagree with it. Good code review, written design docs and teams that think together are where I do my best work. Application security is the area I'm growing into next.
I didn't start in software. For thirteen years I was a professional lorry driver in Spain and the UK, and for part of that time I ran my own transport business. I studied software engineering on weekdays while driving at weekends, graduated from Flatiron School in 2020, and have worked as a developer ever since: in the UK until 2024, and now remotely from Spain.
Three pieces of architecture from my day-to-day work on a Rails SaaS product
Framework design
Rather than building each CRM or marketing integration as a one-off, I designed a provider-based framework around a small shared core: a provider registry, and a client, an action and a credential check for each provider, with provider kinds described as data.
It now runs CRM and marketing tools, webhooks and SFTP side by side. Teammates add a new provider by writing a few classes, without touching the core.
Production migration
I led the extraction of a reusable domain model out of a large, monolithic core model, and moved production over to it in phases rather than in one big switch.
The cutover was built to be safe to run and safe to reverse: an idempotent backfill, a rollback path ready at every stage, and a data-healing step after deploy.
Frontend architecture
Widgets embedded on other companies' websites are exposed to whatever CSS those sites ship. I introduced a web-component pattern that renders each widget inside a Shadow DOM, so the host page's styles can't break it.
Stimulus controllers don't connect inside a Shadow DOM out of the box, so I worked out how to make them connect and wrote up the solution.
Ruby & Ruby on Rails 8
PostgreSQL
Domain modelling
Extensible framework design
Zero-downtime migrations
Hotwire (Turbo, Stimulus)
ViewComponent
Web Components & Shadow DOM
JavaScript & React
Shopify apps
RSpec, Vitest, Playwright
Application security (OWASP)
Authentication & 2FA
CI/CD & Docker
Claude Code
dev.to · 2024
How to get Stimulus controllers to connect to elements inside a Shadow DOM.
Featured story · Write Software, Well · 2024
How I changed careers from driving lorries to building software.
by Vladimir Dementyev
Essential reading for understanding Rails architecture and building maintainable applications.
by Sandi Metz
Masterclass in writing clean, maintainable Ruby code with proper object-oriented design principles.
by Noah Gibbs
Deep dive into Rails internals that helped me understand the framework at a fundamental level.
by Pat Shaughnessy
Fascinating exploration of Ruby's internals and how the language works under the hood.
Happy to talk about Rails architecture, production migrations or web components.