Erik Van Kelst
Technical Lead at Diem-project
Ghent, East Flanders, Belgium
Summary
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Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolErik Van Kelst is a Technical Lead and self-taught software engineer based in Ghent with 13 years of experience building networked applications and maintaining server infrastructure. He combines hands-on backend expertise in PHP/Symfony and Laravel with production-focused ops skills—server setup, deploy management and long-term maintenance—having led development and hosting for CMS projects like Diem. Erik is an active open-source contributor who has improved the internals of GraphQL tooling for Laravel by refactoring, removing dependencies and tightening validators, reflecting a pragmatic focus on maintainability and security. His background spans founding small consultancies and driving core platform work at companies from Showpad to Clarabridge, so he pairs entrepreneurial initiative with deep technical ownership. Notably, his career started from web development roots and diversified into full-stack and infrastructure leadership while remaining committed to open-source technology.
13 years of coding experience
10 years of employment as a software developer
Webdevelopment, Webdevelopment at CevoraCivil Engineering - Architecture, Civil Engineering - Architecture at Ghent Universitybachelor Architecture, bachelor Architecture at Alanus HochschuleASO Latin-Mathematics, ASO Latin-Mathematics at Don Bosco College
Dutch, French, German, English
Stackoverflow
3,184reputation
1.0mreached
26answers
0questions
colors
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php
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laravel
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migration
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macos
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shell
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Github Skills (24)
validators10
laravel-mix10
laravel10
wpgraphql10
php10
wordpress-graphql10
graphql10
testing9
colors9
migration9
macos9
shell9
api8
configuration-management8
api-design8
Programming languages (15)
Github contributions (5)
nuwave/lighthouse
Apr 2018 - Oct 2018
A framework for serving GraphQL from Laravel
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:16 commits, 3 PRs, 96 comments in 5 months
Contributions summary:Erik primarily contributed to the back-end logic of the Laravel GraphQL framework. Their work involved refactoring code, removing dependencies, and updating configuration files. They implemented and modified directives, validators, and helper functions, demonstrating a deep understanding of the project's internal workings and architecture. These changes indicate a focus on improving the framework's structure, maintainability, and security.
servinglighthouse-phpphplaravel-graphqllighthouse
4levels/lighthouse
Apr 2018 - Dec 2018
Details coming soon
Contributions:6 PRs, 32 pushes, 1 branch in 8 months
detailscoming-soon
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