Web, backend and API development
An API is a contract. Get it right and everything built on top of it is easier for years. Get it wrong and every client application spends its life working around it.
Does this sound familiar?
You are probably here because of one of these
Your API works fine in testing and slows down badly against production data volumes.
Your mobile app or frontend is slow, and the backend is the actual reason.
You need to expose your data to a partner, a customer, or your own second application, and want it done properly the first time.
Your database has grown to the point where queries that were instant are now noticeably not.
You need someone with genuine depth in Laravel and PHP rather than passing familiarity.
What this covers
The work itself
Not a capability list — these are the specific things an engagement in this area actually involves.
REST API design and development
APIs designed around what clients actually need, with consistent conventions, sensible error handling, versioning that lets you change things later, and documentation someone can build against without asking questions.
Laravel and PHP backend engineering
Eight or more years working in Laravel specifically, and sixteen in PHP broadly — including Slim, Zend and plain PHP. Deep enough to know when the framework's way is right and when it is the reason something is slow.
Database design and query optimisation
Schema design, indexing strategy and SQL optimisation across PostgreSQL, MySQL and MongoDB. Most performance problems described as scaling problems are query problems, and they are usually fixable without buying larger servers.
Performance investigation
Profiling to find where time is genuinely going, rather than optimising the part that looks slow. Findings come with measurements, not opinions.
Node and real-time features
Socket-based real-time functionality where data needs to reach users immediately, delivered alongside a Laravel API rather than as a competing system.
Frontend delivery
React and modern JavaScript when the same person owning both sides produces a better result — which, for data-heavy interfaces, it usually does.
Typically involves
- Laravel
- PHP
- Slim
- NodeJS
- React
- PostgreSQL
- MySQL
- MongoDB
- REST
How the work runs
The approach
Consistent across engagements, because the order these things happen in is usually what determines whether a project goes well.
- 01
Measure before changing anything
Performance work starts with profiling. There is no point optimising code that is not the bottleneck, and the bottleneck is very often not where the team assumes it is.
- 02
Fix the cause, not the symptom
Caching something slow makes it fast until the cache misses. Where a query or a schema is the real problem, that is what gets addressed.
- 03
Design for the data volume you will have
Schemas and queries are designed against realistic future volumes, because the difference between working and not working is usually data growth rather than traffic.
- 04
Keep it changeable
Versioning and clear boundaries so the API can evolve without breaking everything built on it.
Evidence
Where this has been done
Real projects involving this work, with the reasoning and the results.
Questions
What people usually ask
- Our API is slow. Can it be fixed without rebuilding it?
- Usually, yes. On a decade-old platform the largest gains came from query and schema optimisation rather than rewriting — some endpoints improved by up to 80% without the application architecture changing at all. It is worth measuring before assuming a rebuild is required.
- Do you work in frameworks other than Laravel?
- Yes — Slim, Zend and plain PHP across sixteen years, plus NodeJS for real-time work. Laravel is where the depth is greatest, which is genuinely useful when a problem needs someone who knows the framework's internals rather than just its documentation.
- Can you take over an existing codebase?
- Yes, and it is common work. Taking on a system someone else wrote — from a departed developer or a previous agency — starts with an honest assessment of what is there before anything is changed.
Have a software problem, project or idea?
Tell me what you are trying to achieve and where it is currently going wrong. You will get an honest read on it from someone who has built this kind of thing before — including if the answer is that you do not need what you were about to buy.
Prefer not to call? Send me a message
Working with businesses across Australia — Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Canberra and regional Australia.