Available for new work

Your agency's back-end developer.

I'm Alex Ball, a freelance PHP and web developer. Agencies hire me to build what their designers dream up, under their own name. Businesses and founders hire me directly when they want the person writing the code on the other end of the phone.

Start a project → hello@dorkish.com
role
back-end developer
works_for
agencies, businesses, founders
billing
day · fixed price · hourly
branding
yours, not mine
experience
20+ years
based
Berkshire, UK

White label, properly.

Your brand, not mine

No logo in the footer and no credits in the source. The work goes out under your name. Happy to sign your NDA.

Your tools, your process

I'll join your Slack, push to your repos and work from your ticket board. Nobody on your team needs a new login.

Front of house or backstage

I can join client calls as part of your team, or stay behind the curtain entirely. Your call.

01 / services

Things I build

Not an agency? That's fine too. Everything here is available directly, just without the middle layer.

  1. PHP & back-end development

    Agency favourite

    The bit behind the pretty bit. Your designers hand over the files, I hand back a working, documented build that your team can maintain.

  2. Content management systems

    Bespoke CMS builds that your clients can actually use without ringing you every Tuesday.

  3. Custom e-commerce

    Product, stock and customer management, postage calculation APIs and payment integrations. Shops built around how the business works.

  4. Symfony development

    Having worked with Symfony since the very first beta release, I am well placed to handle your systems no matter how complex.

  5. Bespoke web applications

    Portals, dashboards, booking tools and subscription platforms. If it lives in a browser and needs a database, it's my sort of thing.

  6. Business systems & integrations

    Automating the spreadsheet someone updates by hand every Friday, and connecting the tools you already pay for so they talk to each other.

  7. Maintenance & support

    Updates, fixes, security patches and the occasional "it was working yesterday". Inherited codebases welcome, even the scary ones.

  8. SEO audits

    Technical audits that find what's slowing your site down or hiding it from search, with a plain-English list of fixes.

--by-the-day

Day rate

Book days or weeks to slot into your team. Good for agency overflow and ongoing builds.

--fixed-price

Fixed-price project

A clear scope and one quote. Good for defined projects with a launch date.

--by-the-hour

Ad-hoc hours

Small fixes, tweaks and questions. Good for "can you just…" jobs.

02 / stack

What's in the toolbox

Already using something that isn't listed? I'll probably get along with it.

back_end
PHP 8SymfonyMySQLMariaDBREST APIs
front_end
HTML & CSSJavaScriptReact/Vue
commerce
StripePayPalPostage APIsQuickbooks
ai
ClaudeGemini
ops
GitLinuxDockerAWSCloudflare
Alex Ball
03 / about

Hi, I'm Alex.

I've been building websites and web applications for 20 years, for everyone from one-person shops to global telecoms companies.

Dorkish is me, working freelance. There's no account manager and no junior quietly handed your project on Monday. You talk to the person writing the code.

I like tidy code, honest estimates and problems other people have given up on.

04 / contact

Tell me what you're building.

A few lines is plenty. I'll reply within one working day.

Available for new work

hello@dorkish.com
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