Josh Salway

Freelance Software Engineer · Gold Coast, Australia

Building and shipping full-stack web applications as an independent developer. Strong background in PHP, Laravel, React, and TypeScript. Active open source contributor.

joshsalway.com | GitHub | LinkedIn

Skills

Languages

PHP TypeScript JavaScript HTML CSS SQL

Frameworks

Laravel React Next.js Vue.js Astro Tailwind CSS Livewire Inertia.js

Databases

PostgreSQL MySQL SQLite MongoDB Prisma

Infrastructure

Laravel Cloud Laravel Forge Vercel Netlify AWS Cloudflare Workers Docker CI/CD

Tools

Git Claude Code Pest Playwright Jira Wireshark

Claude AI / Anthropic SDK OpenAI AI-assisted development

Experience

Freelance Software Engineer

Self-employed

May 2023 - Present

Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia (Remote)

Building and shipping full-stack web applications as an independent developer, with a focus on Laravel and the modern PHP/JS ecosystem.

Contract Work

Built the Livewire-powered frontend for FrontGate's Early Access launch, an API portal and developer gateway platform. Implemented comprehensive tests for Livewire components and collaborated on UX during the design phase.

Shipped Products & Projects

FragHub: PUBG match replay viewer and player stats tracker (Laravel 12, React, Inertia.js, PUBG API, Laravel Cloud).
Barcoder: PWA for scanning, creating, and saving barcodes in 27+ formats. Works fully offline.
Free Poker Timer: No-signup, no-ads poker blind timer for home games.
Building and launching SaaS products across multiple verticals.

Open Source

43+ pull requests merged across the Laravel ecosystem, including framework core, serializable-closure, cloud-cli, and vapor-core.
Published technical research on Laravel queue safety (23 findings verified against v13.4.0) and OOM retry behavior.

Laravel 12 React Inertia.js TypeScript Tailwind CSS PostgreSQL Filament Livewire Statamic Pest WorkOS Stripe/Cashier AWS Laravel Cloud Laravel Forge Cloudflare Workers Netlify Claude AI / Anthropic SDK

Laravel App Developer

Pivotal Agency

Oct 2022 - Apr 2023

Helensvale, QLD

Built a national car marketplace (Cars4us.com.au) with buy, sell, and finance workflows using Laravel, Livewire, Alpine.js, and Statamic CMS.
Developed backend functionality, database queries, and optimised website performance.
Implemented a vehicle filtering page with compare, favourites, and weekly finance calculators, plus a suggestion algorithm for recommending vehicles to users.
Integrated third-party APIs, built PDF generation features, wrote tests, and managed Laravel Vapor serverless infrastructure on AWS.

Laravel Livewire Alpine.js Statamic CMS AWS Vapor PDF Generation

Laravel + Vue Developer

Digistorm

Jan 2021 - Aug 2022

Miami, QLD

Built and maintained features across the Digistorm Funnel platform, a school enrolment and admissions product used by schools across Australia.
Developed frontend components in Vue 2+ and backend logic in Laravel 7+, working across the full stack.
Worked with PostgreSQL, Tailwind CSS, and SCSS in a team-based Agile environment.

Laravel Vue.js Tailwind CSS SCSS PostgreSQL

Laravel + React Developer

@realty

Jun 2020 - Jan 2021

Surfers Paradise, QLD

Full-stack development on a real estate platform using Laravel 6+ and React.
Built and maintained features for property listings, agent dashboards, and search functionality.

Laravel React Bootstrap

PHP Laravel Developer

Budget Pet Products

Sep 2019 - Jun 2020

Molendinar, QLD

Built REST APIs to integrate the eCommerce storefront with third-party fulfilment and inventory services.
Managed server infrastructure and set up CI/CD pipelines for automated deployments.

Laravel REST APIs CI/CD

Laravel Web Developer (Internship)

CodingLabs.io

Jul 2019 - Sep 2019

Molendinar, QLD

12-week intensive program covering Git, Tailwind, Laravel, databases, testing, and MVC architecture.
Contributed to the open-source Convict Records project.

Laravel Tailwind CSS Git