{"profile":{"name":"Ben Colonna","title":"Senior Backend Engineer","location":"Nottingham, UK","summary":"I am a Senior Software Developer with 10+ years experience. I have a strong track record of re-architecting and delivering scalable web applications utilising a microservice architecture with a focus on performance and cost optimisation. I am experienced using PHP (Laravel and Symfony), Python (FastAPI and Django) and JavaScript  (Vue) as well as writing unit tests (PHPUnit and PyTest). I also have experience leading projects and scrum  teams as well as mentoring developers and collaborating with stakeholders and customers to deliver high quality products. I’m currently learning TypeScript (NestJS) outside of work.","links":[{"label":"LinkedIn","url":"https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-colonna-b9123a222"}]},"impact":[{"metric":"6s → <500ms","label":"Page load time","context":"Query and code optimisation at Navitas"},{"metric":"65%","label":"AWS cost reduction","context":"Over $20k saved moving Adzooma to microservices"},{"metric":"10%","label":"Performance gain","context":"PHP/Laravel and Docker platform upgrade"},{"metric":"15%","label":"Faster deployments","context":"CI/CD pipeline improvements at ClickTech"}],"skills":[{"category":"Languages","items":["PHP","Python","JavaScript","SQL","TypeScript (learning)"]},{"category":"Frameworks","items":["Laravel","Symfony","FastAPI","Django","Vue","Lithium","Yii","NestJS (learning)"]},{"category":"Data","items":["MySQL / MariaDB / Aurora","PostgreSQL","Redis","MongoDB","BigQuery"]},{"category":"Cloud & infrastructure","items":["AWS ECS","Lambda","SQS","RDS","ElastiCache","API Gateway","GCP","Docker","Linux"]},{"category":"Performance & reliability","items":["Query optimisation","Profiling","New Relic","CloudWatch","Log analysis","Cost optimisation","CI/CD"]},{"category":"Quality & tooling","items":["PHPUnit","Pest","PyTest","PHPStan","CS Fixer","Cursor","GitHub Copilot","CodeRabbit","n8n"]}]}