Michael Babker is a Lead Data Architect with 15 years of hands-on experience and nearly two decades in IT, currently leading architecture and delivery for a portfolio of 40+ PHP applications and mobile apps from Tampa, FL. He combines deep PHP/Symfony expertise with DevOps, security and cloud operations (GCP, AWS, DigitalOcean), emphasizing automated testing, CI/CD and observability via New Relic, Blackfire and Sentry. An active open-source contributor and technical writer, he has improved widely used projects such as Joomla CMS, Symfony bundles and Packagist, often focusing on compatibility, security and modernizing legacy code. A US Army veteran and Open Source aficionado, he brings disciplined systems thinking and pragmatic engineering to solve complex integration and performance challenges. Colleagues rely on him for thoughtful refactors that reduce technical debt and for making deployment-safe, production-ready systems across CMS, e-commerce and bespoke web applications.
15 years of coding experience
Associate’s Degree, Information Technology, 3.53 GPA, Associate’s Degree, Information Technology, 3.53 GPA at University of Phoenix
Pagination library for PHP applications with support for several data providers
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Contributions:3 reviews, 45 commits, 27 PRs in 6 months
Contributions summary:Michael contributed to the `babdev/pagerfanta` repository by removing deprecated functionalities and dependencies, and refactoring tests. They removed support for DBAL 2.x and a query type check, which indicates the user is involved in maintaining the library's core functionality. Furthermore, the user updated tests to use static data providers and made minor code updates like adding type hints. These commits demonstrate a focus on keeping the project up-to-date and improving the code's quality.
:part_alternation_mark: Websocket server for Symfony applications (powered by Ratchet), includes a Autobahn.JS based JavaScript client
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Contributions:43 releases, 2 reviews, 972 commits in 6 years 8 months
Contributions summary:Michael primarily worked on the WebSocket bundle, making changes related to server functionality and signal handling. The commits involve removing dependencies, handling signals for server termination, and implementing security measures by catching interruptions. Several commits addressed compatibility issues and refactoring code to support Symfony versions, focusing on improving core server processes within the Symfony application environment.
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