Woody Gilk
VP Of Engineering at shadowhand
Minnesota, United States
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolWoody Gilk is a seasoned software leader with 15 years of hands-on experience building web platforms and leading engineering teams, currently serving as VP of Engineering at RoundingWell. He blends backend PHP expertise and TDD discipline with front-end UI/UX sensibilities—evident from contributions to Foundation Sites and multiple high-profile PHP libraries like Phinx and thephpleague projects. As a long-time open-source maintainer and former co-founder/core developer of the Kohana framework, he brings deep architectural judgment and a track record of improving type safety, standards compliance, and database tooling. He balances strategic leadership—aligning engineering with business goals and hiring—with continued individual contribution as an active FOSS contributor. Based in Minnesota, he’s also known for practical problem-solving on geospatial data types and robust OAuth/token handling across providers. Outside of work he’s likely riding a bike, reflecting a pragmatic, steady approach to both code and life.
15 years of coding experience
13 years of employment as a software developer
Cook County High SchoolHigh School, High School at Studio Academy High School
English
Stackoverflow
3,211reputation
179kreached
58answers
1question
php
top-5%
Github Skills (44)
database-migrations10
url-routing10
authorizations10
middleware10
sqlite10
postgresql10
mysql10
css10
responsive-design10
authentication10
user-authentication10
ui-design10
migration10
phpunit10
psr-710
Programming languages (16)
Github contributions (5)
thephpleague/oauth2-client
Feb 2015 - Oct 2022
Easy integration with OAuth 2.0 service providers.
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:5 releases, 18 reviews, 172 commits in 7 years 9 months
Contributions summary:Woody primarily contributed to the core OAuth2 client library, focusing on improving the token handling and integrating with various OAuth2 providers. They refactored code related to access tokens, including removing custom logic and ensuring more consistent error handling. Their work also involved adding and updating provider interfaces and tests, notably for providers like Vkontakte and Github, enhancing the library's compatibility and functionality with diverse OAuth2 services.
authorizationoauth-2phpauthenticationproviders
cakephp/phinx
Jul 2014 - Sep 2016
PHP Database Migrations for Everyone
Role in this project:Back-end Developer / Database Engineer
Back-end Developer / Database EngineerContributions:172 commits, 75 PRs, 74 pushes in 2 years 2 months
Contributions summary:Woody's contributions primarily focused on enhancing the database migration capabilities of the Phinx project. They added support for geospatial data types across various database adapters (MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, SQL Server) by implementing SQL type mappings and adding new column types. The user also worked on improving the handling of default values, including supporting boolean and empty string defaults. Additionally, they addressed a bug related to UTC timestamps.
mysqlphp-database-migrationsphpphp71mysqli
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