Freelance Senior Software Engineer: 18 years of craft, multiplied by AI

Freelance Senior Software Engineer: 18 years of craft, multiplied by AI

I'm Senén Rodero, a freelance Senior Software Engineer and Ruby on Rails developer with 12 years of experience in the framework. I learned to build software without shortcuts; today I use AI to ship faster and spend my time on what really matters: understanding your business.

Let's talk

Experience you can see in every project

18
years of software development experience
12
years building with Ruby on Rails
10+
public and international institutions as clients
100%
remote work
Illustration of a character typing at a keyboard, half human and half cyborg, symbolising the balance between human judgement and artificial intelligence

Experience + AI

AI writes code. Experience decides which code deserves to exist.

I've been in this craft for 18 years, most of them coding by hand: Java, PHP and, for the last 12 years, Ruby on Rails. That foundation is what lets me get the most out of AI today. I know what to ask for, I spot right away when it gets things wrong, and I don't let through solutions that work today but create technical debt tomorrow.

What you get: the speed of AI with the judgement of someone who has kept applications running in production for years. Every change is still backed by tests, carefully reviewed and split into small, easy-to-follow pieces.

More time for what adds value

AI takes care of the repetitive part. I put the time saved into your project.

In-depth analysis

I understand your business and your users before writing a single line. I look for the minimum viable version of each feature and apply the 80/20 rule so you invest where it pays off most.

Designing new features

More time to think the solution through, suggest alternatives and validate them with you, instead of wrestling with boilerplate.

Hands-on support

Direct contact from start to finish: estimates, requirements and follow-up. With monitoring and error tracking I spot problems, often before you do.

Thorough code review

I review AI-generated code as I would a colleague's, and split it into small changes that are easy to follow.

Tests that give peace of mind

Unit and integration tests back every feature, so moving fast never means breaking what already works.

Always learning AI

I keep a close eye on new AI tools and trends, and only bring to your project the ones that truly help.

Current projects

What I'm working on right now

Decidim Sant Cugat

Citizen participation platform for Sant Cugat del Vallès, built on Decidim. I handle analysis, development, estimates, bug fixing and support.

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València Participa

Citizen participation platform for Valencia City Council, built on Consul Democracy. I handle analysis, development, estimates, bug fixing and support.

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Xteach

Learning management system (LMS). I take care of analysis, engineering and development, as well as estimates, bug fixing and customer support.

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Boatjump

Boat rental platform I led from scratch after it was selected by Lanzadera. I'm still in charge of analysis, development, estimates and support.

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Do you run a Consul Democracy or Decidim platform?

New features, customisation, upgrades, security and census integration.

See participation services

Services

How I can help

Your product, from scratch

From idea to an app in production. I led the development of Boatjump from scratch, a start-up selected by Lanzadera.

AI-powered Ruby on Rails development

New features delivered faster thanks to AI, with Hotwire (Turbo and Stimulus) and backed by automated tests.

Payments and APIs

Online payment platforms and RESTful APIs. I helped PlayPass integrate payment providers for several countries.

Maintenance and evolution

I upgrade Rails versions, refactor legacy code and reduce technical debt to keep your application healthy.

Multilingual, multi-client apps

Applications in several languages and for several organisations, like Consul Democracy, used by governments in different countries.

Consulting and DevOps

Code review, technical roadmap, CI, deployments and monitoring on Heroku, AWS, GCP or Hetzner.

Want to know how I work, from analysis to support?

Backend, cloud infrastructure, frontend, accessibility and UX: one single point of contact for the whole software production chain.

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Career

A career built project by project

  • Today · Freelance engineer with AI

    All that experience, multiplied by AI, working for projects like Decidim Sant Cugat, València Participa, Xteach and Boatjump.

  • 2020 · Official Consul Democracy maintainers

    Roadmap, new features, contribution reviews, CI, deployments and support for governments in several countries. All my public contributions are on GitHub.

  • 2018 · Certified Consul Democracy developers

    We adapted this civic participation platform for the United Nations, the World Bank, Madrid City Council (Decide Madrid) and the Government of the Canary Islands, among others. Speaker at ConsulCon 2018.

  • 2014 – 2024 · Co-founder of Rock&RoR

    Ruby on Rails development team for clients across Spain and Europe, such as Boatjump and WeezEvent (formerly PlayPass).

  • 2013 – 2014 · Freelance PHP

    Full-stack projects with CakePHP, WordPress and Joomla.

  • 2009 – 2013 · Java developer at Ibitec

    Built an in-house web framework and software that helps companies comply with EU occupational health and safety directives.

Frequently asked questions

Not when it's used with judgement. I review every line AI produces as I would a colleague's, back it with unit and integration tests, and deliver it in small, easy-to-review changes.

Yes. I've maintained large applications like Consul Democracy for years: upgrading Rails, refactoring legacy code and reducing technical debt are part of my daily work.

Always. I work from Palma de Mallorca with clients in Spain and across Europe, and I'm used to working with different teams and methodologies.

Mainly Ruby, Rails, RSpec, Hotwire (Turbo and Stimulus), Sidekiq, Redis and Docker. For DevOps, GitHub Actions, GitLab, Capistrano and Ansible, deploying to Heroku, AWS, GCP, Hetzner or Ionos.

Contact

Have a project in mind?

Tell me about it and I'll reply with a first idea of how to approach it.

Email: senenrodero@gmail.com

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/senenrodero

GitHub: github.com/Senen