I was born, raised, and continue to live in Northeastern Wisconsin. As a late bloomer to the web, in 2004 I began using its vast resources to learn about programming. I quickly became passionate about programming, and this passion still continues today. During this time, I was very active in the phpBB support community on various sites which allowed me to vastly improve my programming skills. Confident with the development of my programming skills, I started freelancing in 2006. Initially, this freelancing was part time as I continued to operate a residential construction company that I established in the year 2000. In 2008, and I became a full-time freelancer. My focus since then has been building web solutions for clients from scratch and creating custom plugins and themes for a complete custom solution. Due to its powerful APIs and versatile theming system, WordPress has been used almost exclusively for these custom solutions.
With my qualifications and experience I know I would be a great asset to any company looking for a Senior PHP Developer with front end and back end skills.
Summary of Qualifications
* PSD to WordPress theme from scratch usually using SASS/compass for CSS separation
* Build WordPress plugins (from small to large scale)
* Uses of the WordPress hook system including its various built in hooks
* Worked with teams in the past on PHP projects
* Native English speaking
* High level of knowledge in browser compatibility issues including mobile devices
* Expert level HTML/CSS skills, complicated sprite graphics, mobile responsiveness
* I can look at a design mock-up and explain the flaws and/or challenges in the design
* Fast hands on learner
* Always exploring new technologies and experimenting
* Very proficient in PhotoShop ( not a designer, but I can make required changes & manipulations )
* Capable of slicing PSD designs and turning them into pixel perfect web pages or themes
* Able to write re-usable jQuery plugins
* Linux System Admin ( extended terminal knowledge )
* Enjoys challenges, I rather be challenged daily than have it easy
Technical Skills
Languages
Daily Experience: PHP (high level), HTML 4 – 5 (strict), CSS 2 – 3, JavaScript, XML, jSON, YAML, Bash
Dabbled In: Python, Ruby, Perl, C#, C++, Java, ASP, Visual Basic
Frameworks
WordPress, CakePHP, SlimPHP, CodeIgniter, My own PHP framework, jQuery, dabbled
with Rails & Python’s Django
Databases
MySQL, Postgres, SQLite, MongoDB
Concepts & Platforms
Visual Studio, Netbeans, phpStorm, Git, SVN, Apache, MS Office, Open Office, Photoshop, Gimp, Notepad++, PHP Unit, Grunt, SASS,
PHP OOP, MVC, HMVC, HTML & CSS standards, Browser compatibility (versions) Windows, Unix/Linux, LAMP, RoR dev environment, Python environment
Hardware
I have a lot of hardware at my home office, most of which is used for testing purposed. My preferred work hardware is a i7 Quad Core Macbook Pro 15” with a minimum 16G of RAM and at least 1 larger 27” external monitor. I currently run that setup with another 24” monitor added on, so 3 monitors on the Mac in total. I also have quite a few cloud instances running Ubuntu LEMP and LAMP stacks.
I also have the following for testing:
* Windows 7 on a 15” notebook
* Dell Workstation running duel boot Vista and Ubuntu with 2 monitors
* Linux Mint on a 17” notebook
* Android on a Motorola phone
* iPhone 4, iPhone 5, iPhone 6
* iPad and a Samsung Note 8
Experience
Freelance Web Developer 2008-current
Working for myself freelancing from my site ValidWebs.com Portfolio
There are other projects not in my portfolio due to NDA agreements.
Behnke Construction 2000-2008
Created my construction company, licensed and insured General Contractor for residential homes. Key focus was building energy efficient custom homes that exceeded Energy Star requirements.
Autobody and Paint Technician 1992-20**
I worked at various shops including GM shops and also a shop where we did restoration of antique Mustangs and Shelby’s which sold at national car shows. The last shop I worked for I still help out and have become great family friends.
Education
1991
Lena High, Lena WI 54139 High School Diploma
1991 – 1992
North East Wisconsin Technical College Diploma (Auto Body and Paint Technician)
2008 (completed & Aced)
Tested my knowledge taking a class at: Northeast Wisconsin Technical College Programming Prerequisite XHTML – CSS
Current: Strive to learn something new everyday! I follow tech feeds and dig into anything that is new to me or that could possibly change the way I do things.
Referrals
I have referrals upon request.
Code Examples
Sadly I have only limited public projects as most of my work was for companies with NDA agreements.
GitHub profile http://github.com/topdown
I try to be active on the private AWG (Advanced WordPress Group) on Facebook. It does not have statistics that I know of, but if you are part of the group you will see me answering questions there.
I have occasionally answered questions on Stackoverflow but not very often.
My personal private repo which I run on the open source GitLab which I have over thirty WordPress projects and custom code projects. Some of which I would like to open source someday.
Personal Projects
One project that I am very proud of and work on when I can is eProject.me
It’s a SaaS project management system that handles most aspects of managing a project along with team collaboration. The feature list grows every time I work on it. It uses WordPress Multisite as a backend and all project management is done via frontend Ajax.
Another project is VelocityPHP Framework which has been years of work in building a solid component based system that scales extremely well.