Rails development, done right

Your Rails app needs a Life Coach

Your Rails app has worked hard and done pretty well for himself. Now it’s time to take it to the next level. Let me work with your Rails app to fulfill his hopes and dreams.

Let’s increase your app’s happiness and your happiness at the same time. Speed, features, and ease of development don’t have to be at odds with each other. It just takes a little planning. Clean code means fewer bugs and happier developers. Picking the right solution is much more important than working yourself to the bone.

Make time for what matters

We all need a little direction occasionally. Maybe your Rails app has lost track of what matters most in his life. I’ll work with you to determine what’s truly important to your app, and help you plan how to focus development energy on the crucial bits without getting crowded out by distractions.

Achieve new levels of performance

Maybe your Rails app has been feeling sluggish and unmotivated lately. That’s okay, it happens to all of us! The best optimization doesn’t involve brute force – it’s all about identifying the true pain points that will give the most bang for your buck. We’ll work to find the optimizations that are important to you, and together we’ll have the little fellow back in fighting trim in no time.

Learn new tricks

Progress is important, but chances are your Rails app has already experienced the penalties of a haphazardly-implemented feature. Having priorities in hand is the secret to adding features that fit your budget and work flawlessly. I’ll show you how much we can expect to accomplish in a given amount of time, and which corners we can safely cut to speed things up.

Out with the old

Whose closet doesn’t get a little messy when we’re busy? Your Rails app needs to focus on meeting his goals, not on the detritus of the past. I’ll help you ferret out old cruft that’s slowing you down, and remove it with a minimum of fuss. Let’s pare your code down to its gleaming core.

Protect what you care about

When your Rails app was a broke student, it was okay if he left his door unlocked. These days, it would be wise to be a little more prudent. I’ll check your application for common security flaws and help you fix them. You’ve never known how painless good security practices can be until you’ve tried it in Rails!

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Give your Rails app a head start in life

A new project is a blank slate, and a chance to start something wonderful. It’s also an important time to invest in a healthy living environment so your app can flourish. I’ll guide you through the process of new app parenthood and work to ensure both your app’s happiness and your happiness.

What to expect when you’re implementing

The only surprises you want out of your Rails app are the ones you have planned! I write idiomatic Ruby, apply industry best practices, and use proven technologies. This makes the code an asset rather than a hindrance once the initial project is finished – any skilled Rails developer can pick it up and quickly understand what’s going on. Want to contract ongoing hours with me for maintenance and new features? I’d be happy to. Want to bring in other developers, or continue the project in-house? That’s great too! It’s your project, so I’m going to produce code that’s valuable to you.

Make time for what matters

Before your Rails app takes off running, let’s make sure he’s headed in the right direction. The secret to getting a project done on time and in style is fully understanding your priorities. I’ll work with you to identify the technical challenges involved in your vision. I’ll show you how much we can expect to accomplish in a given amount of time, and which corners we can safely cut to speed things up. And I’ll keep an eye on the project scope as we go – making adjustments is a good thing, but only with an understanding of how it will affect the project as a whole.

Catch every precious moment

The software lifecycle doesn’t need to feel like pupation, where you hold your breath for six weeks before finding out if your Rails app is the beautiful butterfly you were hoping for. Agile software development means regular feedback cycles. You’ll get to see your app take shape before your eyes, and we’ll use the functional prototype to test and refine the final behavior of the application.

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The right man for the job

I’m a full-stack Rails developer, though if forced to choose, I enjoy back-end work a bit more. I love working with small companies, and have cultivated my skills as a technological generalist accordingly. Small project? Big project? It’s all good. Solo development? Team collaboration? Variety is the spice of life.

Experience is key

I have an established track record working on projects of all sizes. I’ve contributed to Rails core, and I published a book on CoffeeScript.

You can vet me

I’ve published a number of my side projects online. If you want to see some code, there’s plenty to choose from.

Polyglot, thinker

Being a skilled generalist takes work. I post to my occasionally-popular tech blog on a variety of subjects. Curiosity is a good trait in a developer.

I’m a real person

Keeping things professional doesn’t need to mean that I’m boring. If you’d like to learn a little more about me, the person, you can do that too.

Need a résumé?

Here is a PDF résumé. It was last updated on 06/02/17.