I am a freelance web developer based in Manchester, UK. As a long term PHP developer, around 3 years ago I found Python and Django, and have not looked back since. Whilst I still undertake a variety of projects — including some old ASP/VBscript support work — the majority of my workload involves Python & Django.

Key Skills

• 12+ years commercial development experience
• 5 years as a freelancer/contractor
• Object oriented PHP developer
• 3+ years Python/Django development
• Version control: primarily mercurial, but also SVN and git
• Modern, valid, cross browser HTML/CSS, javascript/jQuery and ajax, including HTML5 & HTML5's canvas, and HTML5 video playback
• Experience developing multi-lingual websites using i18n and l10n, gettext
• IP Geolocation Maxmind for both PHP and Django. And using Google services to Geocode user's address information
• Service development and interaction using SOAP, XML-RPC and REST
• Test Driven Development using Selenium/Nose/PHPUnit/Jenkins
• Linux server admin - including building cloud servers from scratch; securing and maintaining servers
• Apache and Nginx, MySQL and Postgresql, mod_wsgi/uwsgi, mod_security
• Deployment with fabric, mercurial and virtualenvs and virtualevnwrapper
• Social development - connecting with facebook and twitter using oAUTH2, automatically tweeting/posting to a users wall, retreiving feeds etc.
• Good understanding of SEO & SEM practices and building sites that are optimised - SEF urls, canonical tags to manage duplicate content, maintaining a low code-content ratio. no-follow links.
• Optimisation techniques - memcached, compressing JS & CSS, using CDNs or serving static content over NGINX
• eCommerce PCI/DSS compliance
• Integration with countless payment gateways - 2co, Google Checkout, Paypal, Sagepay, Paypoint, Barclays ePDQ, etc. as well as direct 3DSecure and 3rd Man Fraud Screening integrations
• Commercial Magento experience including module and theme development
• Experience working with load balanced webservers, CDNs and replicated databases
• Experience managing projects and coordinating developers and other key stakeholders
• VIM and BBedit user
• Basic Adobe Photoshop skills (enough to slice and work with PSDs)
• Prior programming experience in C/C++ for DOS and Windows, ASP/VBScript & JScript and Perl/CGI, and MS SQL

Portfolio

Over the years I have worked on numerous projects from small brochure sites, to corporate intranets, and multi-national/multi-lingual e-commerce solutions.

Some of the brands/companies I have been involved with include: Durex, Scholl Flightsocks, Bensons For Beds, Novartis, ghd and Nescafe.

Here's a slide show of some of the websites I have worked on to varying degrees, over the past two years. Please get in touch if you would like a more detailed overview of my work experience.

Availability & fees

I work remotely for about 90% of the projects I undertake. With modern technology (phone/email/skype/gchat) remote working is productive, enviromentally friendly and enables me to service clients from far afield, such as Singapore, Dubai, Australia and the USA.

I do some in-house work, with occasional short-term projects in London and around the UK. I am also open to discussing potential projects that would require an on-site presence.

As of January 2012 I charge a standard fee of £300 per 8 hour day, with a minimum 4 hour booking. However in instances where a client requires regular support a more flexible support contract/retainer can be arranged.

Contact