Work

All client work delivered under NDA. Outcomes and architecture only.

Deux Cent Deux SARL

Founder / Consultant Dec 2022 - Present

Own company (SARL), based in France. Delivers the Manta Ray Media engagement below plus independent client and product work end to end – scoping, architecture, delivery, deployment.

No extra paperwork for you – I work with clients across France, UK, Ireland, Germany and the wider EU.

AI-native development pipeline

Self-hosted, multi-model AI dev pipeline, architecturally equivalent to Claude Code: planner, architect and coder models (Qwen 14B, DeepSeek 14B via Ollama), orchestrated through an agentic REPL (Aider) with file editing, git integration and autonomous context management.

One developer operating at the output of a small team. Zero external API dependency, zero data leaving the machine, zero per-token cost.

Artisans platform

Online-presence platform for independent artisans, built with a town hall (mairie) covering the Vienne and Deux-Sevres departements in France.

Flask, SQLAlchemy, Alembic, PostgreSQL (Dockerised) backend. Vue 3, TypeScript, Vite frontend. OTP-based authentication.

Deliberate Reader

A publishing and reading platform, built as a structural alternative to algorithmic social media – no likes, ranking or recommendations, purely time-based content ordering.

Fastify, TypeScript, Prisma, PostgreSQL backend. React, TypeScript, Vite, SCSS modules frontend.

The schema makes algorithmic feed generation structurally impossible, not just switched off.

This website

2cent2.eu itself – a Commodore 64 inspired interactive terminal.

Node.js/Express backend, vanilla JavaScript frontend, zero dependencies. All content in YAML files. Deployed via pm2 with zero-downtime reloads.

Manta Ray Media

Head of Engineering / Engineering Manager Apr 2020 - Present (6+ years)

Joined as developer, promoted to Head of Engineering Jan 2021. Inherited: no CI/CD, no formal process, infrastructure spread across multiple providers. Started from the beginning.

Delivered via Deux Cent Deux since Dec 2022 – same role throughout, the continuity is the point.

Product & process

Work directly with the founders, who act as product managers, from idea through scoping and delivery – shaping product direction, not just executing a fixed spec.

Standing practice: the “five whys”, tracing requests back to the underlying need before writing a line of code.

Restructured Agile/Scrum and the SDLC from scratch. Team was remote-ready before COVID hit – productivity held.

5 consecutive years running the formal R&D programme for UK R&D tax credits.

Strict TDD gates on non-Drupal projects: phpspec and Behat required before any deployment.

Infrastructure & DevOps

Consolidated multi-provider infrastructure to AWS from scratch. Hosting costs cut by ~50%.

EC2 on private IPs only. Three security layers: custom VPN, bastion host, role-based access control.

CloudFormation manages CloudFront + WAF: rate limiting, geo-blocking, anomaly detection. 60+ client sites on the stack.

CloudWatch health monitoring with proactive Slack alerting – traffic anomalies, WAF triggers, CloudFront deviations, before anything breaks.

An AWS-accredited consultancy reviewed the setup. Left without a report. No changes were required.

Rebuilt deployment: manual >> automated. Jenkins CI/CD across dev, staging, prod.

AI & Machine Learning

Custom RoBERTa model for a global health sector jobs dashboard. Raw HTML in, structured fields out: title, location, salary and more.

AI search pipeline: natural language >> PHP >> Python >> Llama 3.2 1B (routing) >> SOLR >> AWS Bedrock (response). No public internet at any point.

Currently building an AI-powered SEO/AEO auditing tool: captures rendered Drupal output, scores it against E-E-A-T criteria.

Platform architecture

Redesigned flagship Drupal platform. Every client site fully standalone – zero shared dependencies. 60+ sites on a single, maintainable codebase.

Custom starter repo: bootstraps env, installs via Composer, runs install profile, auto-generates branded subtheme from Figma design tokens.

Onboarding: 7-10 days >> 20 minutes.

Led a Drupal 7 >> 10 migration: 5,000+ documents with custom field mapping and 10,000+ user accounts. No direct upgrade path existed.

Restructured platform-wide semantic HTML/ARIA and shipped JSON-LD structured data across every client site – aligned with E-E-A-T/AEO for AI search visibility.

Data & analytics

API-driven analytics platform for a major international health organisation, tracking 4 Neglected Tropical Diseases across African countries – progress and forecasting dashboards for non-research audiences.

Django + Angular app with zero hardcoded UI. Entire front end – pages, forms, tables, charts, maps – renders from a JSON schema. The interface assembles itself.

Internal tooling

Project + time tracking (Angular 19, Node.js, MongoDB) with Linear.app webhooks auto-triggering Toggl timers and real-time WebSocket dashboards.

Node.js cartography engine (Mapnik). Python bulk data ingestion API. Highcharts/Chart.js Drupal visualisation.

Performance

Performance rebuild across multiple client sites: immediate page shell, independently cached sections, layered caching (CloudFront + Lambda, Memcached). Targeted TTFB, LCP and FCP directly.

Leadership & hiring

Grew dev team to 8. Currently 4 – part of the decision both ways.

Designed and ran technical interviews and coding tests, translating role requirements into assessment criteria.

Mentored developers who wanted to go deeper. No question is a stupid one – but no unsolicited teaching, either.

Flying Colours Finance

Full-Stack Developer Apr 2016 - Apr 2020 Regulated fintech

Angular v2 through v6 + Symfony v3/v4. API-driven asset management platform.

Custom OAuth. Microsoft 365 and HubSpot integration. Lead processing and reporting tools.

Device-trust authentication for a mobile financial app: browser login, QR code, device scan and link – secure, audited access without shared credentials. SMS OTP via Twilio with email fallback.

Full TDD across the stack (Jasmine, phpspec/Behat). Server-side A/B testing via AWS load balancer split, CrazyEgg behavioural tracking.

NativeScript/Angular 8 mobile app for financial advisers, backend included – a parallel product within the same team.

JS-Dev Ltd

Own contracting company Apr 2015 - Mar 2019 Ran alongside permanent roles

Symfony, AngularJS, ExpressionEngine, jQuery, NativeScript. Worked directly with a product manager or founder on every engagement.

2018-19 Fitness platform NativeScript (Angular 6), Symfony 3 API, CRM/CMS, full payment lifecycle

2018 WordPress + WooCommerce custom theme development

2015-16 Online casino platform AngularJS, Autobahn.js, real-money payment integration, authentication & session mgmt

2015-16 Retirement village group (3 sites) ExpressionEngine, jQuery, custom search

2015-16 Self-storage group (UK & HK) EE multisite, custom web shop

Earlier career

VIPR Ltd – PHP Developer

Jul 2014 - Apr 2015 – Insurance

Symfony 2 web application, including financial transaction processing for high-value asset insurance.

T-2 d.o.o. – Web Developer

Apr 2013 - Jun 2014 – Telecoms

SOAP servers and clients for Panda Security, Telecom Slovenia and Register.si (.si registrar). Backend tooling for account admin, installer management and domain registration workflows.

IVH d.o.o. – Lead Developer

Jan 2011 - Dec 2012

First lead role. Built “I Was Here” end to end: a 4-layer SMS-based tourist community platform – SMS check-in server, registration engine (SMS + QR), community interface, promoter/sales tooling.

Re-mont d.o.o. – Construction Lead

Jan 2009 - Jan 2011 – Industrial

Led cross-trade teams of 30-40 people on industrial construction sites across Europe – electricians, mechanical and construction engineers – in English, German and Italian.

Implemented production assembly lines for automotive manufacturers, including robotic assembly installations.

Relocated a full cardboard production line from Austria to Bosnia in three months – disassembly order dictated reassembly order, and one late convoy stalled everything.

PPServices – Own practice

Jan 2005 - Dec 2012

Custom PHP/MySQL e-commerce platform, configurable entirely through the backend, embeddable via authenticated iframe. Custom XML/PHP/MySQL content editor for client self-management.

BES Computers – IT Infrastructure

Jan 2007 - Dec 2008

Physical network design, cabling, rack construction and server setup (LAMP, Microsoft SBS). Where the infrastructure instincts started – at the physical layer, not the cloud abstraction.

Personal projects

Binance trading bot – Ichimoku Cloud strategy with a self-hosted Llama model as a signal-quality veto gate.

AI job scraper with active learning – custom transformer pipeline, automatic NER labelling, retrains per batch.

AI FitCoach – pulls Fitbit activity data, cross-references a 2,000+ workout dataset to generate personalised training recommendations.