Giorgi Kakabadze

Senior PHP / Laravel Product Engineer · Full-Stack · Team Lead

Tbilisi, Georgia · Remote giokakabadze50@gmail.com +995 595 77 03 60 linkedin.com/in/trongio github.com/trongio hackerman.ge api.gpscontrol.ge

Summary

Senior PHP/Laravel product engineer with 9 years building and evolving production SaaS, realtime platforms, APIs, and customer-facing applications. Strong across Laravel 8–12, PHP 7/8, MySQL/PostgreSQL, Redis, React/Vue/TypeScript, Inertia, testing, CI/CD, and third-party integrations. Worked on gps.ge, supporting 26,000+ concurrent device connections for fleets at TBC Bank, Bank of Georgia, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and Skytel. Built the GPSControl API from scratch. Currently leads a 3-engineer squad modernizing legacy Laravel products, orchestrating multi-system migrations, and using AI-assisted development with strong review and test guardrails.

Experience

Senior PHP Developer / Team Lead

Quiet Light Aug 2024 – Present
  • Lead a 3-engineer squad modernizing legacy jQuery/Laravel products; own architecture, sprint planning, delivery decisions, and code-review standards.
  • Orchestrate a major consolidation of two outdated systems into one modern platform, coordinating migration sequencing while preserving critical business workflows during the transition.
  • AI-first engineering workflow: ~90% of implementation is generated with Claude Code and then reviewed by engineers; authored reusable skills, commands, and repository rules that steer Claude toward Laravel and project standards.
  • Strengthened automated coverage with PHPUnit and Playwright end-to-end tests, making AI-assisted changes and releases safer by catching regressions across complete user workflows.
  • Optimized SQL and data-access patterns — 2–3× faster response times on critical endpoints.
  • Led the migration from a legacy database setup to MySQL 8 with zero downtime.

Senior PHP Developer / Lead Architect

Casatrade Sep 2021 – Present
  • Worked on gps.ge, a realtime GPS fleet platform processing 26,000+ concurrent device connections; used for fleet operations by TBC Bank, Bank of Georgia, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and Skytel.
  • Designed and built the GPSControl API from scratch (Laravel 11, Octane/Swoole, PostgreSQL, Redis), replacing a fragile legacy socket-based integration layer and enabling broad customer migration to mobile; last measured at 4,000+ concurrent API users.
  • Opened new B2B integration opportunities by exposing realtime positions, trips, geofencing, alerts, reports, and other fleet operations to external consumers; the platform passed security reviews by TBC Bank and Bank of Georgia.
  • Implemented token-scoped authorization, versioning, OpenAPI documentation, and Redis-backed caching with granular invalidation; shared services support 5+ applications and integrations.
  • Cut report/export generation from minutes to under 3 seconds and improved API response times by ~60% through query, pipeline, and caching optimization.
  • Built a facility access-control IoT platform from zero — PHP backend orchestrating MQTT-connected ESP32 controllers and Raspberry Pi edge services; deployed at McDonald's among other sites. Introduced SOLID/service patterns and mentored 2 junior engineers.

Middle PHP Developer

Skytel May 2021 – Sep 2021
  • Co-led development of a Phalcon-based ISP billing system supporting 5,000+ subscribers.
  • Led a mobile-first web app + REST API for field installation teams and designed a workflow engine for service orders and technician assignment.
  • Optimized complex SQL queries, achieving 3–5× faster data retrieval.

Lead Software Engineer (Part-time / Freelance)

All Digital Sep 2016 – May 2021
  • Led enterprise security integrations for CCTV, fire alarms, and intrusion detection on PHP 5/7.
  • Built custom access-control software integrating with 2 hardware vendors.
  • Designed and deployed network infrastructure for 50+ commercial installations.

Selected projects

Zomboid Manager

github.com/trongio Open source
  • Laravel 12 + React/Inertia product for managing dedicated servers — 40+ API endpoints, queues, RCON/Docker integrations, backups, authentication, admin tooling, and realtime operations. 79 GitHub stars / 17 forks and growing.

Prava — Driving License Test Georgia

driving.hackerman.ge
  • Laravel 12 + React 19 + NativePHP product shipped from one codebase to Android, web, and desktop. Published on Google Play and featured in the official NativePHP Mobile Showcase.

Tempo Hub & MyClock

Casatrade
  • Internal time-tracking and scheduling products built 0→1: schema, REST API, and Vue UI.

Core skills

Backend

PHP 7/8 (legacy PHP 5) · Laravel 8–12 · Octane/Swoole · Symfony/Doctrine · Phalcon · REST services · Redis queues/jobs

Product engineering

0→1 and iterative delivery · Cross-stack workflows · Legacy consolidation/migrations · Production debugging · Performance tuning · Refactoring

Testing

PHPUnit (unit, functional, integration) · Playwright · Vitest · Regression coverage · Test-driven refactoring · CI/CD quality gates

Data

MySQL 5.x/8 · PostgreSQL · Redis · SQL tuning · Caching · Zero-downtime migrations

APIs & integrations

Versioned REST · OpenAPI/Swagger · Sanctum/JWT/OAuth · Banks/payment providers · Telecoms · Hardware vendors

Realtime & infrastructure

WebSockets · SSE · MQTT · Docker · GitLab CI/CD · GitHub Actions · Linux · Cloudflare

Frontend

React · Vue 3 · TypeScript · Inertia.js · Tailwind CSS · Customer-facing product workflows

AI-assisted engineering

Production Claude Code workflows · Custom skills, commands, and repository rules · Implementation, refactoring, debugging, review, and test generation

Education

Languages: Georgian (native) · English (C1) · Russian (B1) · Updated Sep 2026