I build secure Symfony backends, and the REST APIs and AI features that run on top of them.
15 years shipping production web systems for teams in the US and Europe. I design REST APIs on Symfony and PostgreSQL, integrate LLM features that survive real users rather than demos, and own the authentication layer underneath both.
Selected work
Production systems at scale — the APIs, the security layer, and the AI that runs on top of them.
BSN Sports — Team Art Locker
A product-customization and e-commerce platform for the largest custom sporting-apparel maker for US high schools.
Campaign Studio / Mautic
Product engineering on Acquia's commercial distribution of Mautic, the Symfony-based marketing-automation platform.
BatchGeo
Modernizing a 15-year-old data-mapping platform onto Symfony and Doctrine, and shipping AI and security features on top of it.
Madori
A calm, collaborative workspace for small teams — tasks, boards, calendar and docs in shared Spaces, plus an LLM assistant over its own data. Built solo.
Services
Senior backend engineering, the security layer underneath it, and the pragmatic AI that increasingly lives inside it.
Auth, hardening & access control
OIDC and SAML single sign-on, TOTP and backup-code 2FA, RBAC with Symfony voters, and the dull, critical work of hardening an application that already has users.
REST APIs that hold under load
API Platform and REST/JSON design on Symfony and PostgreSQL, third-party and ERP integration, Elasticsearch, and headless backends for React front ends. Versioned, documented, contract-tested.
LLM features that ship
Assistants, retrieval, structured extraction, streaming over SSE, tool use. The hard part isn't the prompt. It's cost, latency, failure modes, and evals. That's the part I own.
Architecture & modernization
Domain design, Doctrine and PostgreSQL, performance, and moving legacy PHP onto a modern Symfony stack without a rewrite — with the test coverage that keeps it that way years out.
What people say
Colleagues, managers, and clients, in their own words.
Robert showed great capability in his position at Acquia. He spearheaded several key initiatives for the Marketing Cloud business unit, seeing them through from concept to completion. These include OpenID Connect integration, inter-app API improvements, improvements to our test coverage, and enhancements to developer documentation which improved the working experience for many team members.
Don Gilbert
I highly recommend Robert for his exceptional collaborative skills. His ability to seamlessly work with artists, sound designers, and game designers, combined with his open communication and adaptability, make him an invaluable member for any team. I am confident that Robert's collaborative spirit and commitment to excellence will continue to shine in future endeavors.
Jessica Wall
Robert is a skilled, hard-working engineer with an entrepreneurial mindset and strong communication skills. When we worked together, he was a technical leader who other engineers went to for direction and help, and he did a great job of mentoring and supporting them. He's consistently a joy to work with, and I've seen him overcome obstacles and succeed in a wide variety of technical projects and work environments.
Daniel Drier
Robert is a very talented software engineer, who has shown a tremendous amount of growth in the time that I've known him. One of the things I remember most about working with Robert were the presentations he gave in our developer meetings, and how much he seemed to know even at that young age. He is a true fountain of knowledge.
Matt Dittmann
I've worked with Robert on a few projects now and I've been really impressed with his ability to take an idea to completion with very little oversight. He asks the right questions, and can be trusted to write great code.
Jeremy Ross
My teaching career was at a standstill due to a long cancer battle. Robert created a beautiful website which almost immediately reignited interest in my performing and teaching reputation. I now receive numerous inquiries about my teaching and other activities and I am as busy as my schedule permits.
Mark Westcott
Robert does excellent work in a timely manner. Since they updated my clinic's web page, more patients have called to make appointments and mentioned the web page.
Susana Serna
It has been a pleasure to work with Robert. He's passionate, communicates very well, responsive, and honest. He documents well, has good constructive feedback, and is always looking for improvements in the process. I believe he has a very bright future ahead.
Mike Sayenko
Robert made the process of making my website easy. Everything is set up so I can easily update my portfolio, add blog posts, anything else I need. I'm glad I have a good-looking site I can direct people to now.
Ben Serna-Grey
Robert faithfully implemented the club’s written requirements and we were very pleased with the results; the user experience on the new website is vastly improved over the previous website. Robert remained involved through 2018 to provide general technical support and implement enhancements requested by our users. Overall we were very happy with Robert’s technical expertise and professionalism and would definitely use his services in the future.
Mark Hartel
About
I'm a senior software engineer with 15 years building production web applications, most of it deep in PHP and Symfony. My work sits at a specific intersection: solid backend engineering, the security and authentication layer underneath it, and pragmatic AI. I care about code that's still maintainable in two years, systems that fail gracefully, and AI features that survive real users instead of just demoing well.
Get in touch
Available for remote contract work — Symfony/PHP backends, API architecture, security and authentication, and LLM integration.