What I do
Roughly how I help
It varies quite a bit by engagement, but most of it comes back to the same thing: understanding a platform or a process well enough to know what's actually worth changing, then either doing it or helping the team do it. Tortoise IT is the company name I trade under — it's currently just me, but the projects I take on and the people I bring in when a job needs more hands are what make it a company rather than a one-man band.
Architecture & process
This is the bit I find genuinely interesting. Given an existing platform, I like digging into why it's shaped the way it is, where that shape is quietly costing the business time, and which of the ten things everyone complains about is actually worth fixing first. Sometimes that ends in code, sometimes it ends in a different way of working. Either's fine by me.
Laravel, PHP & React development
Bespoke applications, internal tools, APIs and back-office systems — Laravel and PHP by preference, React or plain JavaScript on the front end where it's needed, deployed and run on AWS or conventional servers. I favour plain, conventional, well-tested code over clever code — the kind of codebase you can hand to someone else without a two-week onboarding. Comfortable across the stack: queues, jobs, events, third-party API and payment integrations, and the unglamorous plumbing that holds a real application together.
Fitting in, wherever that means
I've worked solo as the only developer on a platform, slotted into larger teams on shared codebases and shared deadlines, and sat directly with stakeholders to work out what they actually need rather than what they first asked for. I'm generally looking for the kind of engagement where I can have real input into technical direction, not just take tickets off a board — whether that's a senior seat on a project or a longer contract with a team.
A long memory for platforms
I've been doing this a long time — from the early WordPress years, where I built up a catalogue of 20+ plugins and became one of the established developers building on Divi, through events platforms, e-commerce, and now Laravel. Different platform, same job: understanding someone else's architecture well enough to extend it safely, at scale, without breaking it for people you'll never meet. I still take on the odd WordPress engagement where that history is useful — usually the trickier kind, not routine site-building.
Got something in mind?
Tell me what you're working on and I'll let you know if I'm useful for it.
Get in touch