Ryan Hellyer

Senior Developer

Ryan Hellyer
Berlin, Germany | +49 1745390977 | ryan@hellyer.kiwi | ryan.hellyer.kiwi

Senior Developer (15+ years) architecting mission-critical applications for a major global cola manufacturer, a Hollywood studio, and one of the largest European football leagues. Expert in PHP, Laravel, and TypeScript with a focus on high-performance architecture, security hardening, and scalable API design.

Selected Technical Achievements

  • Enterprise Scale: Engineered APIs for one of the largest European football leagues (500k+ users) and secure networks for the Norwegian Govt (5M+ residents).
  • Performance Engineering: Reduced a major global cola manufacturer Super Bowl page weight by 94% and optimized a Hollywood studio sites for 20% faster load times.
  • Product Ownership: Authored and maintained Spam Destroyer, Disable Emojis, and Unique Headers for 10+ years; supporting 80,000+ active installations globally.

Professional Experience

Syde

2023 — Present

Software Engineer

Engineering mission-critical web applications for corporate clients using modern PHP practices: PSR containers, service classes, and dependency injection.

Elementor / Strattic

2018 — 2023

Senior Engineer

Architected a high-performance static conversion framework. Led CI/CD, code reviews, and Jamstack performance optimization. Company acquired by Elementor in 2022.

Ryan Hellyer

Senior Developer

Ryan Hellyer

Varnish Software

2017

PHP Consultant

Revamped corporate infrastructure and developed performance metrics for caching solutions. Developed secure, hardened networks for state-to-citizen communications serving over 5 million residents.

Truer than North

2014 — 2017

Senior Engineer

Developed security software for banking and enterprise PHP applications for large-scale sites. Focused on high-availability architecture and quality standards.

10up

2013 — 2014

PHP Engineer

Led security audits and performance optimization for Fortune 500 PHP sites, including high-traffic navigation frameworks supporting 10M+ monthly visitors.

Community & Open Source

  • Engineering Leadership: Contributor to major PHP projects and core frameworks. Authored 41 public libraries with 100,000+ total active installs.
  • Community Governance: Founded and scaled Free Advice Berlin (30k members) and Berlin Hikers (11k members).
  • Authorship: Contributor to industry publications since 2007. Organizer for WordCamp Europe 2019 and other international technical events.

Education

Master of Science

2001 — 2002

University of Otago, New Zealand

Bachelor of Science

1998 — 2000

University of Otago, New Zealand

References

Professional references and work certificates from previous roles, including Syde, Strattic and Truer than North are available upon request.