I'm Joel — a software engineer and technical lead based in Kingston, Jamaica, who ships full-stack systems end to end. I've built and maintained web applications for the public and private sector — including a platform for the Government of Jamaica's Trade Board — from requirements analysis through architecture, documentation, testing, and production support.
Below you'll find the roles I've held, the systems I've shipped, and the tools I reach for. If any of it lines up with what you're building, I'd love to talk.
Mar 2023 – Mar 2024
Designed, developed, and deployed a web application from concept to production for the Government of Jamaica's Trade Board, streamlining internal trade and logistics workflows for exporters and MSMEs.
Participated in the review of business and system requirements, conferring with Trade Board end users and divisional representatives to clarify system intent, output requirements, and internal checks — then translated those needs into accurate technical solutions.
Created UI prototypes in Figma and implemented them in code, delivering an intuitive, high-performance user experience aligned to GOJ stakeholder feedback.
Built the platform on Laravel following the MVC architectural pattern and established coding standards, producing a maintainable code base with supporting technical documentation.
Performed unit testing and evaluation to ensure requirements were met and errors handled properly, and supported ongoing maintenance, modifications, and enhancements after release.
Nov 2023 – Present
Defined the technical roadmap for the company's core platform, standardizing architecture across three new web applications and driving the retirement of legacy systems to reduce operational overhead.
Launched three production applications from inception to release within two years, establishing the company-wide standard for new service rollout while maintaining and upgrading 4+ existing systems for stability and security.
Led cross-team migration of legacy projects into containerized Docker environments, standardizing development workflows and reducing onboarding time for new developers across engineering.
Owned deployment strategy across development, sandbox, and production environments for Laravel and .NET applications on AWS (EC2, S3, CloudFront, Load Balancers, Route 53) and on-premise servers.
Designed and implemented CI/CD pipelines using Git branching strategies, automated migrations, and deployment scripts, improving release reliability and reducing downtime across all projects.
Integrated third-party systems including the Resmark API, automating bookings, payments, and transactional workflows for the company's digital platforms.
Built cross-platform mobile applications using React Native and Flutter, ensuring consistent UX and performance across iOS and Android.
Developed automated test suites (PHPUnit, Pest) and established QA standards adopted across the team, ensuring production readiness before each release.
Managed the technical aspects of website development across multiple public-facing sites, building and maintaining a centralized content management system that let non-technical content teams publish and manage media independently.
Owned technical SEO across the public-facing sites — structured data (JSON-LD), semantic markup, sitemaps, canonical tags, and Core Web Vitals — driving higher organic search rankings and click-through for the company's tours and destinations.
Optimized the sites for the new generation of AI-powered search and LLM agents (Generative Engine Optimization), authoring machine-readable content, llms.txt, and structured metadata so answer engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews could accurately discover, cite, and surface Island Routes offerings.
Collaborated with cross-functional stakeholders to gather requirements, translate business goals into technical solutions, provide accurate time and resource estimates, produce technical documentation, and deliver impactful features.
Dec 2022 – Present
Optimized API performance, reducing JSON response times by 80% and cutting overall load times by 60% through targeted profiling and code improvements.
Resolved critical memory leaks in a legacy system, restoring stability and eliminating recurring crashes.
Implemented asynchronous job processing for onboarding, transactions, and background tasks, reducing queue times by up to 60%.
Designed and built a webhook system and user notification triggers (e.g., low balance alerts), increasing customer engagement and enabling proactive interactions.
Strengthened platform security by improving API key management processes, reducing unauthorized access by 10%.
Improved developer productivity by documenting API error reporting and removing obsolete dependencies, cutting debugging time by 80%.
An AI-powered invoicing tool — and itself built with AI as a coding collaborator. Kova streamlines invoice generation, management, and tracking with intelligent automation and a clean, intuitive interface, solving real billing pain points end to end.
Shopify for emerging markets — a white-label commerce platform where any merchant can sign up and, in minutes, get a fully isolated, production-ready store of their own. Under the hood it's a single shared Vendure engine serving every tenant, with automated provisioning, per-tenant data isolation, and a Next.js 16 + Payload CMS storefront. Merchants run their entire business through the Harmon Dashboard and never know the engine exists. Architected and built end to end: multi-tenancy, billing, the API gateway, and the design system.
Live storefront demo: demo.harmonstore.online — email: demo@zeenconnect.com · password: demoP@ssw0rd
Developed and maintained a centralized content management system for multiple websites, including Island Routes, Blue Mountain, and Mystic Mountain. The system integrates seamlessly with Resmark's tour hosting platform, enabling real-time tour bookings and secure payment processing through dedicated APIs.
