My expertise lies in web development with PHP/JavaScript and related technologies like Drupal, Wordpress, Node.js, etc. That being said, I'm more of a generalist and like to dip my toes (and then some) in a lot of technologies. I currently work with PHP, JavaScript, Java and Rust. I love automating things and have become quite an expert in automating the deployment cycle for websites on the LAMP stack using various tools like Github actions, Gitlab CI, Acquia pipelines, Jenkins, Travis, AWS and so on.
When I'm not doing all of the above, I'm usually writing, going on long walks with my partner, being a seat for my cat (Potato), playing video games or taking photos.
The first programming language that I ever learned was C++ in school. I was taught C++ by an awesome teacher who explained programming so well, that I still remember that class like it was yesterday. I wrote my first ever program that day. At the time, I found it very easy and that's also when I knew it was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
At college is also where my love for Linux started. I can happily say that I have tried over 100 Linux distriutions. Even the weird ones! I still use Linux for my everyday activities as well as work. My favourite distro is Fedora, followed by Manjaro.
I loved the work Android developers like the XDA developers were doing with the AOSP. I would try different custom ROMs (Android Operating Systems) on my mobile and tablets. I still only run custom ROMs on every device I own.
When it came to choosing what to do after school, I decided to go for a computer science engineering degree. I was constantly learning and working in college. I primarily worked on Android and some C++ and Java. Along with a couple of friends, we built a compiler that would compile both C++ and Java code for our final year project. You could mix the syntax of both programming languages in a file (say hello_world.jpp) and it would work! Exciting isn't it? I thought so too at the time. :)
Eventually, I dropped out of college to start working and dove headfirst into building websites.
Blogging
I have had many blogs over the years. My first blog was built using django. It's where I learned python and it was fun. It got hard to maintain because it didn't have a good admin interface like Wordpress or Drupal. So eventually I started a Wordpress blog. The Wordpress blogging community is quite friendly and supportive. It was an anonymous and personal blog and I made some friends who I still keep in touch with.
By this time, I was alreaady a Drupal developer and loved it. So I decided that any self respecting Drupal developer should have their own blog in Drupal. So I went about doing the same i.e., abh.ai. It had many domain names, themes and Drupal versions in the past but, has been Drupal for about 7 years now with a lot of bells and whistles like a CDN and a file system in AWS S3, auto deployments and so on.
My Work
I primarily make websites and 70% of what I do revolves around Drupal. But I never say no to requests, so I ended up doing a lot of Python in my early years. This is mostly web scraping and scripts that mine data from large CSV, JSON, XML files and Excel sheets. I've also worked with SQL stored procedures to clean up and mine data from relational databases like MySQL.
Now, I'm an expert in Drupal and have built a lot of Drupal websites, automated a lot more, and designed the hosting infrastructure for a handful of them. I occassionally work with Rust, Python, Java, and JavaScript front-end frameworks like React.
I am quite passionate about programming and love gonig back to the basics from time to time. My philosophy on learning any new programming language, is to go back to the basics. Implement a few data structures, practice recursion in different scenarios. You'll be a better programmer for it even if you write code everyday!
I have worked with multiple departments of the US Government, Government of India, NGOs, UN Agencies, World Bank, and many other small, medium and large enterprises.
I stay current on all things web, especially Drupal, PHP, JavaScript, Rust, and consult on multiple projects, setup hosting infrastructure and automate things wherever possible. Testing new web technologies and trying to learn new programming languages, frameworks and distro-hopping are my favorite hobbies and a part of my job description thankfully!
I work on cloud infrastructure as well, specifically with the likes of AWS, GCP, DigitalOcean, Scaleway, Pantheon, Platform.sh, Acquia and so on. My expertise is in building highly scalable and available hosting architectures in AWS for Drupal projects along with end-to-end automation of the same.
I also interview candidates frequently and love interacting with people technically.
My Work With UNICEF
In the last 2-3 years, I've worked a lot with UNICEF and have launched around 7 websites for them. I loved working with UNICEF because I felt it was important work; work I believed in. It was necessary, helpful and I'm glad I could play a tiny part in helping children, girls and women through the different technology products that we built and supported.
Checkout Knowledge@UNICEF, UNICEF Venturefund and Laaha to name a few.
I hope I get to do more work like this in the future. Laaha especially holds a special place in my heart because they provide virtual safe spaces and extremely useful and important information to women and girls in areas of conflict like Ukraine, Iraq, Palestine and so on; And I am glad that I could contribute to that effort.
I'm currently trying to get that elusive college degree, something I've put off for over 10 years now. So I've enrolled for a bachelors' degree in Algoma University, Brampton, while also working here in Ontario, Canada.
Hire me
Contact me for contract work, full-time work or if you need me to support your Drupal team. Here's a link to my resume: https://abh.ai/download/resume
Tel: (+1) 437-733-5906
Email: mail@abh.ai
