Hi, I'm Kaelan.

Background

I started writing code at twelve, after I got a book on video game programming. It taught QBasic, and most of it went over my head. By the end I'd managed a hangman game that ran in the terminal.

After that it was Visual Basic and Java, because I wanted to make things with buttons. I moved to Python around fourteen and never looked back. A few years later I started building websites in Flask, then Django, which I've been writing in ever since. The first project I built that I was proud of was an end-to-end encrypted chatroom. I didn't need it for anything, I just wanted to know if I could.

My first paid job started as WordPress maintenance and turned into full-stack PHP. KaeRen Software is the freelance side of my work. I have a full-time job, so the freelance work happens at night and on weekends.

How I work

The thing I dislike most about agencies is how many people end up touching a single project. Every handoff is a chance for the vision to drift, and by the time someone's writing the code, half of what made the idea good is already gone. When you hire me, you talk to the person who builds it.

I'd rather take longer to get the foundation right than ship fast and spend a year unwinding shortcuts. So I put real time into database design, authentication, and deployment up front, instead of patching them in after the fact. When the project goes live, I stay on to handle hosting and ongoing maintenance. A lot of freelance work gets handed off the moment it ships, and I think that's why so much of it falls apart later.

What I work with

The full stack I reach for when starting a new project. Choices depend on what fits, but these are the tools I trust.