Dublin, Ireland

Sonel Ali

Digital Platform Developer / Web Applications & Systems Integration

I build resilient platforms.

Five years of design and development experience, half of which spent owning full-lifecycle platform delivery, third-party integrations, and independent security incident response. I sit in the rare overlap of hands-on platform engineering and a genuine visual / UX design background.

Platform Integration

WordPress / ACF · CRM (Dynamics / SOAP) · Payments · LMS

Security & Compliance

Incident response · Access-control architecture · GDPR

Infrastructure

Git & CI/CD · Docker · Railway · Migrations · Hosting management

Languages

PHP · JavaScript / TypeScript · React.js · SQL · Python

Design & UX

Figma · Adobe Suite · Wireframing · User testing · Brand systems

  • Own full-lifecycle delivery across client platforms: discovery, UX, architecture, build, maintenance
  • Work within a Git-based development workflow with CI/CD pipelines for review and deployment
  • Led the build of the LSAD Graduates platform (Lovie Award and Webby Award winner), including ongoing development since launch; also worked on the “Housing Unlocked” campaign site (~25,000 visits)
  • Rebuilt a national platform integrating WordPress, a Dynamics CRM, payments, and an LMS. Worked directly with the CRM vendor’s engineers
  • Regularly detects and remediates live security incidents (hacks and attacks), including a GDPR-relevant vulnerability, with no in-house security team

Highlights

INCIDENT REPORT RESOLVED

GDPR-relevant vulnerability, found & permanently fixed

Identified a live, GDPR-relevant vulnerability: a recurrence of an issue previously reported by the Data Protection Commission. Root-caused and permanently patched it, then proactively audited a second platform and pre-emptively fixed the same flaw before it could be exploited there.

INCIDENT REPORT RESOLVED

Live malware compromise, detected & fully remediated

Identified a live compromise on a client site, disguised backdoor files and a rogue admin-account creation exploit. Traced the entry point, removed the malicious code, and implemented preventative hardening (including bot protection on public forms), with no in-house security team to lean on.

INCIDENT REPORT RESOLVED

Malicious script injection, traced & closed

Diagnosed a hidden script injection buried in a site’s navigation markup, the kind of attack vector most routine audits miss entirely. Traced the injection point and confirmed full removal through hosting-level forensics.

RECOGNITION 2 AWARDS

Lovie Award & Webby Award, LSAD Graduates platform

Led the build of the platform that won both awards, and have continued developing it since launch. Also worked on a national campaign site (“Housing Unlocked,” built with the Irish Architecture Foundation and The Housing Agency) that drew close to 25,000 visits.

BUILD LOG SHIPPED

CRM integration with zero reference implementation

Built a working API client against a vendor’s system from spec alone, with no working example to build from. Got two of the vendor’s own server-side bugs fixed by working directly with their engineering team, and corrected a live data field-mapping issue on the way.

MIGRATION COMPLETE

~5,000 groups, ~11,000 individual accounts migrated, zero data collisions

Migrated a live dataset between two independently-built platforms, matching records on real-world business identifiers to eliminate ID-collision risk between two source databases that had never been designed to talk to each other. The group structure alone spanned ~5,800 group leaders overseeing the ~11,000 member accounts beneath them.

ARCHITECTURE BY DESIGN

Cross-account data leakage, made impossible, not just tested for

Designed the access-control model for a compliance training platform so that one member account structurally cannot reach another’s data, a property of the architecture itself, not a rule enforced after the fact by testing.

  • Built and maintained Shopify / WordPress sites
  • Produced artwork and packaging for commercial music releases
  • Mentored junior designers
  • Branding and print production for Ketel One Vodka, Roe & Co Distillery, and Hang Dai Restaurant

HND Applied Software Development, CCT College Dublin 2022–2023

Software Development Databases Web Development Agile Methodologies

Oracle Java SE 8

Java Object-Oriented Programming Core APIs

Microsoft Software Dev & HTML5 Fundamentals

Programming Fundamentals HTML5 & CSS3 JavaScript

Adobe Illustrator

Vector Illustration Branding Print Design

Adobe Photoshop

Image Editing Compositing Digital Retouching

Adobe InDesign

Layout Design Publication Design Typesetting