Sometimes the tool you need does not exist, and the products that come closest would need so much configuration and compromise that you would be running your business around their assumptions instead of your own.

That is when custom software is worth it. It is not always, and I will say so when an existing product would serve you better.

What I build

Web applications and internal business systems on Django and MySQL. Database design where the data model is the thing that has to be right, because everything downstream inherits its mistakes. APIs and integrations between systems that were never designed to talk to each other. Modernisation of systems that still work but have become expensive to keep alive.

The stack is deliberately boring. Django and MySQL are well documented, widely supported, and will still be maintainable by somebody else in five years. A more fashionable choice would mostly serve my interests rather than yours.

What makes this different

I came to software from manufacturing, not the other way round. Seven years as an industrial engineer means I ask about the process before the requirements, and I have watched enough well-built software get abandoned to know that fitting the work is what determines whether a tool survives.

I am not a career senior developer and I do not present myself as one. I build and ship working tools with AI assistance, more than twelve of them are running in production, and they are used daily. If your project needs deep engineering specialism, you should hire a specialist, and I will tell you that rather than take the work.

How a project runs

Small first. A defined piece of work that solves one real problem and can be judged on its own, rather than a long build that only reveals whether it was right at the end. I am open to freelance, trial, and volunteer projects, which is the fairest way for both of us to find out if this works before either commits to something larger.