Bruce and Pu
Bruce Blacklaws
Founder, App Evolved | Full stack web application developer
I create apps in PHP and JavaScript. I have a big interest in startups and building scalable web applications
Books I've read
Why Buddhism Is True Buddhism for Beginners Letter to a Christian Nation How to Win Friends and Influence People Siddhartha
I'm always open to new opportunities
Preferably Remote |
Cape Town |
Bangkok, Chiang Mai
In industry since August 2008
Founder
App Evolved, November 2017 - Present (6 years, 11 months)

I build with PHP and JavaScript using a structured or unstructured database and deploy into serverless on Google Cloud

I've created a series of microservice APIs and a reusable UI framework that allow me to rapidly prototype ideas without having to repeat any of my work or spend time learning someone else's framework

Deploying into serverless allows me to exclusively focus on building features that the customers pay for instead of wasting time managing and securing servers 

App Evolved is the parent company for all my post-revenue apps and I work well over 16 hours everyday
GitHub contributions
tech stack
Senior DevOps Engineer
PayFast, September 2020 - February 2023 (2 years, 6 months)

The applications I built are routinely used by people in the highest positions at the company. I spent a lot of time building useful tools that automated routine tasks and improved the overall efficiency of the team

I was formally promoted to senior within the first six months of my employment

GitLab contributions
tech stack
ask me questions during an interview
Senior DevOps Engineer
FASTA, March 2023 - Present

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Software Developer
Updraft Software, June 2019 - July 2020 (1 year, 2 months)

tech stack
DevOps Engineer
Ringier One Africa Media, August 2018 - March 2019 (8 months)

tech stack
Linux Systems Engineer
Aware Corporation, April 2015 - October 2017 (2 years, 7 months)

tech stack
Remote Linux Systems Administrator
35 East, April 2016 - June 2016 (3 months)

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Systems Engineer
Indaba Mobile, June 2013 - February 2015 (1 year, 9 months)

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Summary

You can hire me for full stack web application development. I’m very interested in practical computer science and building web applications that are useful and I enjoy solving real world problems

Full Stack Web Application Development Experience: Intermediate
4-5 years

My predominantly used and favourite stack is LAMP-memcached (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP and memcached) and I've built most of my applications using this technology stack

tech stack
Building Businesses Experience: Junior
3-4 years

Almost all of the applications I've built were complete failures and didn't generate any revenue, but this is totally OK because I learned a lot from each failure, and now I have what it takes to build applications that customers input their credit card details into

tech stack
contact details provided on request
Recommendations
"Bruce is that Swiss army knife we desperately needed in the organization. As a strong coder, he puts the Dev back in DevOps, has been an inspiration and always looking for where he can build new automation into our toolkit"
Doram Greenblat, Head of Infrastructure and Security - PayFast
"Bruce was the new guy in our team, but he quickly got down to business and within a few days he was pushing out complex Puppet code driven out of Hiera. Bruce also sunk his teeth into our Infrastructure AWS stacks driven out of Cloudformation code, and quickly managed to get familiar with it..."
Riaan Nolan, Head of DevOps Engineering - Ringier One Africa Media
Natural Languages
English

Native or bilingual proficiency

Thai

Elementary proficiency

Please don't print my CV