Welcome to my website. My name is Akshay, and I'm a software developer living in beautiful Victoria, British Columbia. I love programming in Ruby and building web applications with Rails. This website is my attempt to share my learnings, to spread the joy of programming in Ruby with the world, and also act as a marketing channel for my consulting services.

What do you do?

I own and run an solo software consultancy based out of Victoria, BC, specializing in Ruby on Rails. In other words, you can hire me as a contractor to work on your Rails apps, either on a single project, or on an ongoing basis. Here's a list of services I provide:

1. Custom Web Applications: Full-featured web applications built with Ruby on Rails. From new MVPs to scaling existing products: backend, frontend, and everything in between.
2. Website Design & Development: Professional websites that load fast, work on every device, and are easy for you to maintain. Clean, focused design that puts your message first.
3. DevOps, Infrastructure, and System Administration: Deployment, hosting, and infrastructure setup on AWS or your preferred platform.
4. AI Integration: Thoughtful AI features in your web applications. Not AI for AI's sake, practical improvements that genuinely help your users.
5. Developer Hiring: Need to hire Ruby on Rails developers? I can help source, vet, and onboard developers from my network. Learn more.

Check out the testimonials from my clients and the people I've worked with.

But what is Ruby and Rails?

If you're not a programmer and don't know what or who Ruby is, it's a programming language from Japan that runs many of the web applications that you know and love. Think Shopify, GitHub, Basecamp, AirBnb, Twitch, Dribbble, SoundCloud, Intercom, etc...the list is endless. Rails is a framework that makes it very easy and enjoyable to build these web applications.

For a long time, I worked as a C#/.NET developer, building enterprise applications on Windows. In early 2021, I started learning Ruby and Rails for a side project. After six years of .NET, programming Ruby felt like a breath of fresh air. Within a week, I was in love with this beautiful programming language. After immersing myself in Ruby for a few months, I decided to switch from C#/.NET to Ruby on Rails.

Building websites and web-applications with Ruby and Rails is something I really enjoy and love. If you'd like to work with me, please send me an email. If you have a Rails app that you need to build, maintain, or enhance, or build/migrate a website to Rails, get in touch.

As a software developer, my primary goal is to build useful software that solves problems, provides value to the users, and makes money for my clients, and I approach all my projects with the same mindset. I am very passionate about software development, always looking forward to learning new skills to become a better software developer.

Why Do You Blog?

I started this blog in 2021, right when I started learning Ruby on Rails. I don’t mean to be too dramatic, but Ruby on Rails and writing on this blog changed my life. Everything that came after was made possible by this blog.

This blog exists purely for selfish reasons. I find the field of software development endlessly fascinating and wanted to track everything I learned about building software over time.

I also found that the best way for me to learn a topic was to research how it works, write a blog post that teaches that topic in simple words, and then put it on the Internet to reference when needed in the future. If others find these posts helpful, relevant, or interesting, that's just the icing on the cake.

For a brief backstory of this blog and the name Write Software, Well, check out this post: Akshay’s Blog is now Write Software, Well

This blog is a labor of love.  Programming and writing are two activities that really make me happy, and this blog lets me do them both. More than 30,000  Ruby and Rails programmers read it each month. The new developer friends and connections I've made all over the world is a fantastic reward in and of itself.

If you think I can add value to your team or organization, or just want to say hello, please drop me an email. I look forward to talking to you.

Thanks for stopping by.