Michael Cullum
Backend Developer at SamKnows
London, England, United Kingdom
Summary
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RockstarMichael Cullum is a seasoned backend developer and architect based in London with 15 years of experience building and hardening PHP-based systems. He has led architecture efforts at scale (formerly Lead Architect at SamKnows) and contributes to high-profile open-source projects including phpBB and Symfony Security, as well as serving on the PHP-FIG core committee. Michael blends hands-on backend engineering with DevOps and release automation—improving build pipelines, autoloading, and security tooling for projects like Joind.in. His contributions show a practical focus on data usability and maintainability, from implementing CSV exports in OpenCFP to refining language and licensing hygiene in phpBB. Comfortable operating between code, deployment, and governance, he brings a pragmatic, security-minded approach to designing reliable web platforms. An often-overlooked strength is his ability to translate operational pain points into small, high-impact engineering changes that improve long-term developer experience.
15 years of coding experience
Github Skills (23)
back-end-development10
testing10
phpbb10
cicd10
php10
localization10
forum10
csv10
whiteboard10
bitboard10
devops10
composer10
code-standards9
security9
coding-conventions9
Programming languages (11)
Github contributions (5)
joindin/joindin-web2
Feb 2019 - Feb 2019
HTTP Frontend For the Joind.in API
Role in this project:
Back-end & DevOps Engineer
Back-end & DevOps EngineerContributions:17 commits, 1 PR, 1 push in 1 day
Contributions summary:Michael's contributions primarily involve setting up and configuring the project's environment, including the build and deployment processes. This is evident in the changes to the `build.sh` script, which integrates security checks and test execution. The user also addressed potential code quality issues and dependencies by refactoring the `composer.json` and `jenkinslaunch.sh` files. Additional changes include modifying date format in php files, adding code in other files which suggests a debugging and error handling focus in the overall project.
apijavascriptfrontend
phpbb/phpbb
Nov 2010 - Nov 2017
phpBB Development: phpBB is a popular open-source bulletin board written in PHP. This repository also contains the history of version 2.
Role in this project:Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:119 commits, 4 PRs, 7 pushes in 7 years 1 month
Contributions summary:Michael's contributions primarily involve modifying the phpBB bulletin board's code, focusing on language updates, code improvements, and license adjustments. The commits include fixing typos and grammatical errors in English language files. They also updated header licenses and removed version identifiers. Furthermore, the user addressed coding guideline and header license changes across multiple files, indicating a focus on code quality and maintainability.
bulletin-boardbulletinforumphpphpbb
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