Manu Lobato
/ software engineer

Twelve years building the systems people rely on but never see: REST APIs, third-party integrations, and data-driven backends. Expert in PHP, actively shipping Go, and fluent in everything between a request and a response.

📍 Sabadell · Barcelona 🌍 Remote-first since 2015 🟢 Available for backend roles

200 content-type: projects/featured

prj-001 Side project · 2026 Go · vector search · AI

Price Intelligence — turning a noisy market into decisions

A competitive price-intelligence engine in a single Go binary. The point is informed decisions — where we're losing the cheapest spot, which competitor is repositioning, and what to do about it. Rather than scrape real competitors, synthetic data shaped like a real feed stands in for the market, so the engineering stays the focus. The intelligence runs for real: in-process vector search resolves messy competitor listings to our catalog under explicit confidence, with a human review queue for the uncertain cases, and a deterministic anomaly brain turns a wall of prices into actual signals. Embedded event bus, embedded vector index, server-rendered UI streaming live updates, deployed by copying one file to a VPS.

  • Golang
  • Vector search
  • AI
  • Simulation
  • live

prj-002 Side project · 2026 Go · web APIs · PWA

You might not need an app — how far the browser reaches on a phone

A client asked for a native app to do something the browser already does, so I built the counter-argument: a small gallery of live demos — camera and media capture, GPS, file capture, audio recording, the native share sheet, screen orientation and a connectivity monitor — each running straight from a web page on a real phone, no install and no app store. It ships as one server-rendered Go binary with templ, classless CSS and inlined SVG icons, installs as a PWA, and animates page changes with cross-document view transitions. The same page works on both iOS Safari and Android Chrome. The point isn't that you should never build native — it's that "we need an app" deserves a second look.

  • Golang
  • Web APIs
  • PWA
  • templ
  • demo

200 content-type: blog/latest

Latest writing

200 content-type: skills/stack

The stack

Languages

  • PHP — expert
  • Golang
  • JavaScript
  • SQL

Backend

  • REST API design
  • ADR / MVC architecture
  • SOAP integrations
  • Microservices
  • Event-driven architecture
  • Redis caching & queues

Data

  • MySQL
  • PostgreSQL
  • SQLite
  • Oracle (PL/SQL)
  • SQL Server (stored procedures)

DevOps & practice

  • Docker
  • Linux (VPS deploy & ops)
  • Caddy
  • Git & CI/CD
  • Scrum / Agile
  • Testing & code reviews

200 content-type: experience/log · 12+ years

Request history

  • 2025 — now

    Freelance Backend Developer

    Independent · Remote

    Custom backend apps in Go for freelancers and small businesses, automating administrative work — with full ownership from data model and API to frontend and deployment. Each ships as a single Go binary on a Linux VPS behind a Caddy reverse proxy, with no external dependencies or runtime to maintain.

  • 2021 — 2025

    Full Stack Developer, backend-focused

    Relab — Software Consultancy · Barcelona (remote)

    Backend for Tickètic (ticketic.org), a cooperative ticketing platform for cultural events: payment gateway integration, ticket stock and seat selection with temporary order holds and automatic release, PDF tickets with QR validation at the door, and a virtual waiting-room microservice to throttle buyers during on-sale traffic spikes. Built in PHP (Slim) with the ADR pattern, MySQL, Redis and Docker inside a Scrum team.

  • 2015 — 2019

    Software Developer

    S2M Tecnologies — Geolocation & Document Management · Barcelona (remote)

    Built geolocation web apps and document-management intranets from the ground up. Developed a server application talking to the Spanish Tax Agency (AEAT) over SOAP for automated invoice submission. Maintained the Linux servers it all ran on.

  • 2011 — 2015

    Freelance Developer & Family Business

    Independent

    Freelance development work alongside contributions to a family business.

  • 2009 — 2011

    Software Developer

    Pshard Aplicaciones Informáticas · Barcelona

    Web applications on the .NET stack with JavaScript and Microsoft SQL Server, covering the full lifecycle from requirements to production.

  • 2007 — 2009

    Junior Developer

    Professional Soft · Barcelona

    Desktop and web applications with .NET, Visual C#, and Visual FoxPro. Where it all started.

200 content-type: education/languages

Education & languages

  • 2014 — 2020

    Bachelor's Degree in Computer Engineering

    Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB)

  • 2005 — 2007

    Higher Technical Diploma in Software Development (CFGS DAI)

    Institut Jaume Viladoms

  • accept-language

    Spanish (native) · Catalan (native) · English (B2)

    English certified B2 Upper-Intermediate (CEFR) — Escuela Oficial de Idiomas, Spain

Need a backend that just works? POST /contact → 201 Created · usually replies within 24h

POST /contact →