
Who Are You?
My name is Akshay, and I'm a software developer living in beautiful Victoria, British Columbia. I grew up in India, but Canada has been my home for the past 10 years.
I love programming in Ruby and building web applications with Rails. This blog is my attempt to share my learnings and to spread the joy of programming in Ruby with the world. Every day, I try to learn something new in Ruby and Rails and write about it.
If you're not a programmer and don't know what or who Ruby is, it's a programming language from Japan that runs many of the web applications that you know and love. Think Shopify, GitHub, Basecamp, AirBnb, Twitch, Dribbble, SoundCloud, Intercom, etc...the list is endless. Rails is a framework that makes it very easy and enjoyable to build these web applications.
Why Do You Blog?
This blog exists purely for selfish reasons. I find the field of software development endlessly fascinating and wanted to track everything I learned about building software over time.
I also found that the best way for me to learn a topic was to research how it works, write a blog post that teaches that topic in simple words, and then put it on the Internet to reference when needed in the future. If others find these posts helpful, relevant, or interesting, that's just the icing on the cake.
This blog is a labor of love. Programming and writing are two activities that really make me happy, and this blog lets me do them both. I started the blog in late 2021 (right after I started learning Rails), and now more than 30,000 Ruby and Rails programmers read it each month. The new developer friends and connections I've made all over the world is a fantastic reward in and of itself.

What Do You Do?
I work remotely as an independent software developer. I also do freelance technical writing + ghostwriting for a bunch of startups and agencies specializing in Ruby on Rails, Laravel, and ASP.NET.
If you'd like to work with me, please send me an email.
I have more than seven years of professional experience as a full-stack web application developer, and have worked on all layers of the web stack, including the back-end, front-end, and database. For a long time, I was a .NET developer, programming C# on Windows. However, in early 2021, I started learning Ruby and Rails for one of my side projects.
After working on enterprise applications with C# and .NET for the past six years, programming with Ruby was a breath of fresh air. Within a week, I was in love with this beautiful programming language. After immersing myself in Ruby and Rails for a few months, I decided to switch from C#/.NET to Ruby and Rails.
As a software developer, my primary goal is to build useful software that solves problems and provides value to the users, and I approach all my projects with the same mindset. I am very passionate about software development, always looking forward to learning new skills to become a better software developer.
If you think I can add value to your team or organization, please drop me an email. I look forward to talking to you.
Thanks for stopping by.
Akshay
Testimonials
Over the course of my professional career, I've had the privilege of working closely with some of the best in the industry. The list includes startup founders and CEOs, veteran software architects, CTOs, programmers, and managers. Here's what they've had to say about my work and this blog.
- Philip Poots, Chief Technology Officer, ClubCollect
I've recommended Akshay’s blog to several people. Keep up the great work.
- Miles Woodroffe, Global CTO, Cookpad
We relied on him as the lead developer for several new, innovative, complex features – with great success. He has excellent communication skills whether it is with a technical team or clients and end users. He brings great value to any development team. I would definitely enjoy working with Akshay again.
- Steve Graham, Chief Technical Architect, CityView
He makes a great effort to understand the problem he is tasked to solve and any existing code base he needs to work with. I enjoyed working with him very much.
- Tom Hart, R&D Manager and Team Lead, CityView
- Sean Higgins, Executive Vice President, CityView
During his tenure with my company, CityView, his creativity and hard work resulted in some added game changing functionality in our software. He was also thorough, polite and amicable in conversations with clients and end users.
I highly recommend Akshay and would go as far to say that it would be a mistake not to hire him.
- Mark Atkinson, Director of R&D, CityView
He was quickly able to get up to speed and contribute to the overall project by leading development on a Drupal module for our service. He has a good attention to detail and was able to move ahead at a good pace.
While working on the module he was also able to pitch in and help other team members by testing and identifying bugs for a new platform release.
He communicated and contributed well across our internal ticketing system, on Slack and during our team breakfasts.
I'm happy to recommend Akshay as a great addition to any development team.
- Jeff Mitchell, Co-founder and CTO, Appreciation Engine
I found Akshay to be a great communicator - we had to communicate remotely on a daily basis to discuss work and programming questions. He was a very fast with excellent programming skills, He was able to pick up PHP quickly and was also quick to pick up the Drupal framework.
He was always keen to learn and asked great questions about the code, always making good suggestions and showing an excellent understanding of the coding principles. He was a great fit for our team.
It is a shame to see him go but I am certain he will be an excellent asset to all future endeavours.
- Mike Penhall, Senior Developer, Appreciation Engine