Forty years writing software. The last fifteen wrist-deep in ecommerce.
I’m Kristian. I build, audit, and rescue online stores, mostly on Magento and Adobe Commerce, and I take on Next.js and security work alongside it. I work for founders, store owners, and small in-house teams who want one experienced pair of hands rather than an agency.
Curious about the tools? See what I use.
Portrait · bio
I started writing software forty years ago on a ZX Spectrum, typing games in from magazines and then writing my own. I followed the web through every stage that followed: static HTML, the CGI era, LAMP, the long PHP middle, the JavaScript everywhere shift, and the current mix of typed full-stack and edge runtimes.
Along the way I’ve shipped hundreds of projects in most of the languages you’d expect: PHP, JavaScript and TypeScript, Python, C, a fair amount of SQL, and bursts of Go, Ruby, and shell when the job called for it. These days I freelance from Bangkok, with UK roots and a UK working pattern when clients there need overlap, and I focus on ecommerce and security work where the experience pays off most.
Experience · by the numbers
- 40Years writing software
- 15Years on Magento
- 100sProjects shipped
- 1ZX Spectrum, where it started
What I do
Ecommerce builds, security work, and small full-stack projects.
Most of what I take on now sits in one of three buckets. All of it leans on the same instinct: keep the surface area small, make failure modes obvious, and leave the codebase a little better than I found it.
- Magento and Adobe Commerce: builds, upgrades, audits, performance work, and incident response when a store is already on fire.
- Other ecommerce platforms where it fits: Shopify, WooCommerce, and headless setups in front of a commerce backend.
- Security-conscious engineering and Next.js / TypeScript / Node work for teams that want one experienced hand rather than a rotating cast.
Background
From ZX Spectrum games to enterprise ecommerce, by way of most things in between.
The short version: I learned to program on an 8-bit home computer in the 1980s, made a living from it through the early web, settled into PHP and the LAMP stack as the industry did, and then spent the last fifteen years specialising in ecommerce. Magento came in around 2010 and has been the centre of gravity ever since, alongside a steady stream of security and platform work.
Hundreds of projects across that arc, from small brochure sites to multi-store Adobe Commerce builds and the security incidents that occasionally come with them. I’ve worked solo, inside agencies, and embedded with in-house teams, which is part of why I prefer freelance now: the work is more honest when one person is accountable end-to-end.
How I work
Scope-bounded engagements, written down, with the codebase left better than I found it.
I prefer engagements with a clear shape: a defined piece of work, a written estimate, and a date you can plan around. Open-ended retainers are fine when there’s a real reason for them, but most clients are better served by a sequence of small, finished things.
- Written estimates and a short brief before any code. Surprises in week three are usually a planning failure in week one.
- I document what I change as I change it, in the repo, so the next person (often future me, sometimes you) doesn’t have to reverse-engineer it.
- Boring tech where boring tech does the job. Fewer moving parts, fewer 02:00 phone calls.
- Short feedback loops. One call a week and a shared written log is usually plenty for steady work.
- Bangkok-based, so I have natural overlap with both Europe and APAC. UK clients get morning and early afternoon hours; US East Coast gets evenings.