Gary Bell
Building software. Leading teams.
Senior developer and engineering leader: building, modernising and shipping software, leading the teams that deliver it, and writing about how it's done.
About
I'm a senior developer and engineering leader with over 15 years across PHP, Laravel, Symfony and the modern web. I've led and line-managed development teams, owned engineering roadmaps and IT strategy as a Head of IT, and I'm equally at home modernising a legacy codebase or building a new platform from the ground up.
My DevOps background spans Docker, CI/CD and infrastructure as code, and I work well at every level, pairing with developers, mentoring engineers through their careers, and working with senior leaders to align technical direction with business goals.
Now
Currently
Senior Developer at Oxford Online Pharmacy, where I've modernised a legacy PHP codebase into Laravel and led the payment-platform migration to Checkout.com (shipped as a feature-flagged canary). Now designing a Freshdesk integration, and continuing to formalise the move toward engineering management.
What I do
Hands-on across the PHP ecosystem and modern web, with DevOps and infrastructure-as-code, and the leadership to deliver it through a team. The full breakdown is on the skills page.
Recent writing
How to start blogging with ChatGPT 16 Mar 2023 Using GitLab CI to deploy via SSH 21 Feb 2023 Setting Up RabbitMQ on a Raspberry Pi 9 Feb 2023Connect
The best ways to find me and get in touch.