About
About Me
I'm Iván. A senior backend developer from Madrid, Spain.
I build systems for a living. PHP, Symfony, Laravel — with a strong focus on clean architecture, Domain-Driven Design and CQRS.
But this site is not about what I already know.
This site is about what I'm becoming.
My story
I have been writing code professionally for over a decade. Most of that time working with PHP and Symfony, building fintech platforms, designing hexagonal architectures, and solving complex backend problems.
I'm good at what I do. But "good at what I do" is not enough anymore.
The industry is changing fast. AI is not a trend — it is a new layer of the stack. And I want to be the kind of engineer who builds that layer, not the kind who watches from the sideline.
So I made a decision.
The Decision / Manifesto
In September 2026, I started a deliberate transformation.
The goal: evolve from a senior backend developer into an AI Backend Engineer.
Not by collecting certificates. Not by watching tutorials. Not by waiting until I feel ready.
By building real things. In public. In English.
Why in English?
I started this journey with an A2 level of English.
I could read documentation. I could understand code. But explaining a technical decision in a meeting? That was a different story.
I chose to write everything here in English — even when it feels uncomfortable, even when the grammar is not perfect — because that discomfort is exactly where growth happens.
Every post on this site carries a small badge showing my English level at the time of writing. You can literally watch my language improve as you scroll through the archive.
The imperfect English is not a bug. It is the feature.
What I believe
Learn by building. I do not believe in learning something "first" and building "later." The project is the curriculum. Every feature I add to this platform forces me to solve a real engineering problem.
Show your work. Too many developers know more than they can demonstrate. I want every skill I learn to become public evidence. Not "I know RAG" — but "here is the RAG system I built, and here is what I learned."
Embrace the process. This site documents wins and mistakes equally. Architecture decisions that worked. Ideas that failed. English sentences that probably sound strange to native speakers. All of it matters.
Real engineering over tutorials. Every feature on this platform solves a real problem. The AI mentor is not a demo — it is a product I actually use. The challenges are not exercises I copied — they are problems I needed to solve.
What you'll find here
Journal — Long-form articles about backend architecture, AI integrations, system design and the learning process itself. Written in English, improving over time.
Challenges — Technical problems covering system design, DDD, CQRS, hexagonal architecture and more. Each one includes my solution and an explanation of the reasoning behind it.
Projects — Real applications I build during this journey. Not toy projects — working software that solves actual problems.
Progress — A visual timeline of milestones. English levels achieved, skills unlocked, projects shipped.
My technical DNA
My foundation is backend engineering. The systems I build follow these principles:
- Hexagonal architecture and clean boundaries
- Domain-Driven Design for complex business logic
- CQRS when read and write models need to diverge
- Docker for reproducible environments
- CI/CD pipelines that enforce quality automatically
My current stack includes PHP 8, Symfony, Laravel, Python, FastAPI, MySQL, Redis, Docker, and AWS. I'm expanding into LLM integrations, RAG systems, vector databases and AI observability.
This platform itself — DevJourney — is built with Laravel, Filament, Tailwind CSS, Docker, deployed on Hetzner, with a full CI/CD pipeline through GitHub Actions.
The bigger picture
DevJourney is more than a portfolio.
The long-term vision is to build an AI-powered learning companion — a mentor that helps backend developers level up by asking better questions instead of just giving answers.
I am building the tool I wish I had when I started this journey.
If you're a developer going through a similar transformation, I hope this site shows you one thing: you don't need permission to reinvent yourself. You just need to start building.
Let's connect
I'm always open to conversations about backend architecture, AI engineering, or the journey of learning in public.
- GitHub
- Contact
- Podcast: Artesanos del Código (in Spanish)
This page was written at English level A2–B1. It will be rewritten as my English improves — and that's the whole point.