Software Developer
I design and ship entire apps and APIs that stay working in production — clear ownership, sane failure modes, and nothing surprising at 3am.
Who I am
I've spent my career building products end to end — from the backend systems people never notice until something breaks, to the interfaces they use every day. I like the unglamorous work: queues that don't fall over, migrations that don't lose data, APIs that fail predictably, and UIs that hold up under real use.
I move between React/Next.js and Vue on the frontend, and Django, Laravel, and WordPress on the backend, depending on what a project actually needs — and I'd rather ship something boring and correct than something clever and fragile.
+10 years
Building software
9
Teams & products
2
Languages
Toolkit
The tools I reach for most, and the ones I lean on for anything that needs to stay in production for years, not weeks.
Career
2026 · OnTheGoSystems (WPML.org)
Solved problems for the most popular multilingual WordPress plugin, WPML, and its related products. Built new features, fixed bugs, and improved performance for a product used by millions of websites.
Jan 2025 — Dec 2025 · Vinny
Designed and built the backend infrastructure for Vinny, a RV inspection tool for the US market. Built a REST API, database schema, and admin dashboard for managing inspections and users.
Sept 2023 — Dec 2024 · Axis Security
Axis Security is a event security and staff provider company. I built a web application for managing events, staff, and security personnel. The application included a dashboard for event organizers, a mobile app for staff, and a backend API for managing data.
Jan 2023 — Feb 2025 · ForksOverKnives
ForksOverKnives is a plant-based lifestyle company. I built a web application for managing recipes, meal plans, and user accounts. The application included a dashboard for users, a mobile app for meal planning, and a backend API for managing data.
Portfolio
A simple, driver-based solution for adding full-text search to your models — for Django, Flask, or any other Python project.
Mailable replaces WordPress's default email delivery by routing all wp_mail() calls through a configurable provider driver (SendGrid, SMTP.com, Mailpit, or any custom driver). A single settings page lets you switch providers, configure credentials, and send test emails — without touching code.
I am currently building a cantoral app that will be a tool for musicians. This is a personal project and is still a work in progress.
Writing
A driver-based search layer for Django and SQLAlchemy, inspired by Laravel Scout. Add a mixin, and your index stays in sync without polling or manual bookkeeping.
A few patterns I keep coming back to when background jobs start piling up and retries get out of hand.
Long-running workers hold onto stale code and leaking memory. Here's the restart cadence that's actually kept incidents away.
Get in touch
Have a project, a role, or just a question about something I've built? I read every message.
Please feel free to contact me for whatever — a project, a job, I'll be happy to chat :) Reach me at jdavid.gaitan@gmail.com.