Josh Salway
Senior Full-Stack Software Engineer · Mudgeeraba, Gold Coast
Senior full-stack software engineer and independent product developer with a career in web and digital products spanning more than a decade, including six years in professional PHP and Laravel engineering roles. Started building commercial websites in 2012 and now designs, ships and operates iOS apps and web SaaS products end to end. Experienced across product design, frontend and backend engineering, databases, infrastructure, releases and production support.
Skills
Experience
Independent Software Engineer and Contractor
- Design, build and operate production applications end to end across Laravel, Next.js, PostgreSQL, Redis-backed queues and Docker, self-hosted on Coolify across Hetzner and DigitalOcean behind Cloudflare.
- Shipped products on the App Store, Google Play and web, including PetrolPuppy, Cut, ChalkBee and FragHub.
- Own schema and PostgreSQL query design, background workers, Stripe billing, subscriptions, third-party integrations, releases, monitoring and production support.
- More than 90 merged open source pull requests across the Laravel framework and ecosystem, including laravel/framework, laravel/serializable-closure, laravel/cloud-cli and laravel/vapor-core.
- Published technical research on Laravel queue safety, an out-of-memory retry failure mode and a blameless post-mortem on a reverted framework pull request.
- Built the Livewire-powered frontend for FrontGate's Early Access launch, with component-level tests and input during the design phase.
Laravel App Developer
Pivotal Agency
- Built Cars4us.com.au, a national car dealership marketplace, on Laravel, Livewire, Alpine.js and Statamic CMS.
- Implemented vehicle filtering and a recommendation algorithm, plus PDF generation and automated tests.
- Optimised database queries and end to end site performance.
- Deployed and supported serverless infrastructure on Laravel Vapor and AWS.
Laravel + Vue Developer
Digistorm
- Built and maintained Digistorm Funnel, a multi-tenant enrolment and admissions platform used daily by schools across Australia.
- Worked across requirements, Laravel and Vue implementation, PHPUnit coverage, releases and production support for live customer issues.
- Used Laravel 7+, Vue 2+, PostgreSQL, Tailwind CSS and SCSS in an agile team with peer code review.
Laravel + React Developer
@realty
- Full-stack development across property listings, agent dashboards and search functionality.
- Used Laravel 6+ and React on newer surfaces, with jQuery and Bootstrap across the existing application.
PHP Laravel Developer
Budget Pet Products
- 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.
Earlier Web and Design Experience
CodingLabs.io and Salway Designs
- Laravel Web Developer internship at CodingLabs.io in 2019, completing a twelve-week intensive in Git, Laravel, MVC, databases and testing, then contributing to the open source Convict Records project.
- Freelance Web and Graphics Designer at Salway Designs from 2012 to 2013, delivering WordPress and Shopify builds plus print and identity work.
Education
Certificate IV in Cybersecurity
TAFE Queensland
- Threat detection, incident response, and vulnerability management.
- Hands-on with Wireshark, Nessus, and Splunk.
- Penetration testing, ethical hacking and cloud security.
Diploma of Multimedia
TAFE Queensland
Professional Development
Laracon AU
- Regular attendee focused on Laravel and the wider PHP ecosystem.
Recent Writing
Build the running order, then read from it on stage. Large type on black, hands-free page turns, and a one-time price with no subscription.
Shake your phone and it picks dinner. 396 dishes, 353 recipes, and now an AI weekly plan with a Woolies, Coles and ALDI shopping list. Free on iPhone.
Record inspections, treatments, photos and hive history on your iPhone, even without a signal. No account, no server and no beekeeping advice.
One iPhone, 26 decks and 3,069 questions, no accounts and no wifi needed. Free to start, with a Duo mode for two people and a Family Mode for mixed-age rooms.
I built a social deduction party game that runs on one phone for 3 to 12 people. One player secretly gets different information, the app runs the discussion, the vote and the reveal, and nobody gets knocked out. Free to start on iPhone.