Senior forward deployed engineer in Turin, Italy

Muhammad Ishmal

Turin, ItalyHi, I’m Ishmal.

I build web apps
end to end.

Laravel, WordPress, Shopify and AI, mostly.

I build production web apps, from APIs and payment systems to the AI features inside them, and I’ve been doing it for more than six years. Today I’m a senior forward deployed engineer at Smart Web Agency, a UK software company. I work embedded with client teams and take their projects from scoping to production, whatever they run on: Laravel, WordPress, Shopify or a custom stack, more and more with agentic AI inside. I do it remotely, from Turin.

See my work Email ishmal.ms@outlook.com

What I work with most

Muhammad Ishmal in a cobalt-blue blazer, black shirt and glasses, hands in pockets, in front of a yellow paint splash

Selected work

Three systems I built that handle real volume. Two are under NDA, so their screens are recreated here. The figures are real.

Built at Smart Web Agency for a recruitment client, under NDA

AI resume screening pipeline

An LLM screening layer added to the client’s existing hiring pipeline, built in 18 hours on Laravel, Redis queues, LangChain and Gemma 27B. It triaged every application in a single nine-day batch run, the client reported almost 72% less manual work, and the annual hiring round moved from July to April.

applications screened in 9 days: 27,431
less manual work, reported by the client: ~72%
hiring round, about 2.5 months earlier: July → April

Laravel
MySQL
Redis
LangChain
DeepInfra
Gemma 27B

Read the case study

Applied

Applicant #4821 Data analyst

Applicant #3307 Graduate engineer

Applicant #6154 Support specialist

Under AI review

Applicant #5190 Backend developer 8/10

Applicant #2786 Account manager 5/10

Applicant #7342 QA engineer 3/10

Shortlisted

Applicant #3915 Backend developer 10/10

Applicant #6628 Data analyst 9/10

Applicant #2473 Product designer 7/10

Squatwolf, Dubai. 2020 to 2021

Shipping label automation

I owned Squatwolf’s in-house order processing and inventory system, and joined WooCommerce and five shipping carriers into one fulfilment pipeline, so paid orders turn into shipping labels in bulk. The heavy lifting runs on async workers.

average time to create a label, 91% faster: 8m 32s → 45s
Aramex, DHL, EasyPost, EliteCourier and FedEx: 5 carriers
AWS SQS, Redis, Supervisord and Horizon workers: Async

Laravel
WooCommerce
AWS
Redis
jQuery

Read the case study

Marketplace client, under NDA

Multi-tenant Stripe earnings dashboard

A Stripe Connect dashboard that brings three kinds of account holder into one place: vendors, restaurants and drivers. Each sees their own earnings, orders, payout schedule and reports, and Redis caching keeps queries under a second on high-volume payout data.

revenue in 30 days, up 18.4%: $2.41M
payouts pending: $142K
vendors, restaurants and drivers active: 312 / 186 / 2.1K

Laravel
Stripe
Redis
MySQL

Read the case study

Recreated Stripe Connect earnings dashboard. Revenue for the last 30 days is $2.41M, up 18.4%, with $142K in payouts pending. Active accounts: 312 vendors, 186 restaurants and 2.1K drivers. A revenue line chart rises over the period, and payouts flow from the Stripe balance to the vendor, restaurant and driver accounts.

Earnings

Stripe Connect

Overview Last 30 days JD

Revenue, last 30 days $2.41M +18.4%

Payouts pending $142K

Stripe Connect

Active accounts

312Vendors

186Restaurants

2.1KDrivers

Revenue This period Previous period

30 days agoToday

Payouts

Balance

Vendors 312 active

Payout scheduled Paid out

Restaurants 186 active

Payout scheduled Paid out

Drivers 2.1K active

Payout scheduled Paid out

$ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $

Experience

Where I’ve worked since 2020, with my two degrees in between.

2016 – 2019
Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology

Pakistan

BSc in Computer ScienceSep 2016 – Nov 2019
- Merit scholarship for one year.
- PHP
- C/C++
- C#
- MySQL
- OOP
- RDBMS
- Theory of automata
2020
Landtrack.pk

Pakistan, on-site

Full Stack DeveloperMay 2020 – Jul 2020

Laravel 5.7 to Laravel 7 framework upgrade
- Migrated the codebase from Laravel 5.7 to Laravel 7 and moved raw SQL to Eloquent.
- Built Python crawlers that collected listings from 11 real-estate sites.
- Laravel
- PHP
- Python
- JavaScript
- MySQL
2020 – 2021
Gaditek, for Squatwolf

Pakistan, on-site

Software EngineerAug 2020 – Sep 2021

8m 32s to 45s average label creation, 91% faster
- Built an internal bulk shipping-label tool for Squatwolf.
- Integrated five carriers into order processing: Aramex, DHL, EasyPost, EliteCourier and FedEx.
- Built the order-processing tool on Laravel, MySQL, Redis, Firebase and AWS.
- Laravel
- JavaScript
- MySQL
- Redis
- Firebase
- AWS
2021 – 2024
Upwork

Remote, clients worldwide

Freelance Full-Stack DeveloperOct 2021 – Jun 2024
37s to 4s first load of Viasox’s order page
- Delivered 13 client projects: custom CRMs, HRMS, order management tools and integrations with Amazon’s seller APIs, deployed on AWS.
- Sped up Viasox’s Laravel order processing tool: loading orders over AJAX cut the first page load from 37s to 4s, and indexes plus cached images and SKUs cut each next order from 15–18s to 1.8s.
- Partitioned 2018–2021 orders out of the working set, with an automated Laravel script, since the team only needed the last six months.
- Laravel
- Laravel Horizon
- MySQL
- Firebase
- Redis
- JavaScript
- React
- REST APIs
- Bootstrap
- AWS
2022 – 2024
Sapienza University of Rome

Rome, Italy

MSc in Computer ScienceJan 2022 – May 2024
- Thesis: Benchmark Development for LLM-Based Visualizations and Evaluation.
- Co-authored “Toward a Structured Theoretical Framework for the Evaluation of Generative AI-based Visualizations”, published at EuroVA 2024, part of EuroVis.
Read the EuroVA 2024 paper
- Human-computer interaction
- OpenCV
- LLM benchmarking
- Cloud computing
2023 – Now
Smart Web Agency

United Kingdom. Full-time, remote
1. Senior Forward Deployed Engineer May 2024 – Present Promoted after 14 months
2. Software Engineer Mar 2023 – Apr 2024
27,431 applications screened in 9 days by an AI pipeline I built in 18 hours
- Work embedded with client teams to scope, architect and deliver integrations across e-commerce, payments, bookings and PIM platforms.
- Lead agentic AI and LLM features in client apps with the Claude and OpenRouter APIs and Python/FastAPI services, including an AI resume screening pipeline I built in 18 hours.
- Own technical discovery and solution architecture in pre-sales, and train the team on AI tooling and delivery.
- Built a GitLab CI/CD pipeline with zero-downtime releases, cutting staging-to-production deploys from 25 minutes to 1m 18s.
- Laravel
- Python
- FastAPI
- Claude API
- OpenRouter
- LangChain
- LangGraph
- Stripe
- Docker
- GitLab CI/CD
- Redis
- MySQL
- React

See my full experience

Skills

More than six years of production web apps, mostly in Laravel. This is where I’m strongest.

Backend architecture
Laravel and PHP backends (also Symfony and CodeIgniter), Python services on FastAPI and Flask, REST APIs and third-party integrations, with Redis, queues and background workers doing the heavy lifting.
- Laravel
- PHP
- Python
- FastAPI
- Redis
8m 32s → 45s average label creation at Squatwolf
Databases
MySQL and PostgreSQL database design, optimisation and query performance, with indexing, partitioning and caching where the load needs it.
- MySQL
- Redis
15–18s → 1.8s to open each order in Viasox’s order tool, a $12.4M‑a‑year brand (freelance via Upwork, 2022)
Payments
Stripe, Stripe Connect, subscriptions, payment workflows and the reporting dashboards around them.
- Stripe
$2.41M revenue in 30 days on a Stripe Connect dashboard I built
AI and LLMs
Agentic AI and LLM features in production: the Claude and OpenRouter APIs, LangChain and LangGraph, RAG, and benchmark development and evaluation, which is what my MSc thesis was on.
- OpenAI
- Python
- LangChain
- Docker
27,431 CVs screened in 9 days by an LLM pipeline I built in 18 hours
Products, full stack
SaaS platforms, admin dashboards, CRMs, booking systems and portals, delivered end to end with React, JavaScript, jQuery, Bootstrap and Tailwind CSS.
- React
- JavaScript
- jQuery
- Bootstrap
- Tailwind CSS
$1.7M → $4.8M Squatwolf’s 7-day Birthday Sale, up 182% on 2020, shipped through the order and label module I built
Delivery and infrastructure
Git, GitLab CI/CD and zero-downtime deployments on Linux servers with Apache or Nginx, Docker and AWS.
- Git
- Docker
- Nginx
- Apache
- AWS
25 min → 1m 18s staging to production deploys at Smart Web Agency
Leadership

Working embedded with client teams, pre-sales discovery and solution architecture, code reviews, and training engineers on AI tooling.

What clients say

Reviews from three freelance clients, word for word.

The freelancer demonstrated strong technical competence, good problem-solving skills, and a solid understanding of marketplace architecture and scalability considerations.

ContiStyles Development of Multi-Country Marketplace from Scratch, 2024

Read the ContiStyles case study
I am hiring him for multiple jobs and I would highly recommend him to anyone that needs a real developer.

Adrevex Laravel Programmer Needed for Advertising Marketplace, 2022

Read the Adrevex case study
He was also very patient with me and helped me to deploy the project on my end which wasn't in the original job description so I appreciate how he went above and beyond.

Red Dot Visuals Agency Portfolio Website Development, 2023

Read the Red Dot Visuals case study

Get in touch

I’m open to senior forward deployed engineer and AI engineering roles. If you’re hiring, email me or message me on LinkedIn.

ishmal.ms@outlook.com

Based in: Turin, Italy
Right to work: Authorised to work in Italy, no sponsorship needed
Languages: English (C1), Italian (A2, working towards B1), Urdu (native)

Muhammad Ishmal

AI resume screening pipeline

Shipping label automation

Multi-tenant Stripe earnings dashboard

Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology

Landtrack.pk

Gaditek, for Squatwolf

Upwork

Sapienza University of Rome

Smart Web Agency

Backend architecture

Databases

Payments

AI and LLMs

Products, full stack

Delivery and infrastructure

Leadership

Get in touch