For seven years at CalPERS — one of the largest public pension funds in the United States, serving roughly 2 million members — I designed, built, and maintained internal web applications in PHP, MySQL, JavaScript, and jQuery. These weren’t prototypes or internal tools that got quietly retired. They replaced manual processes and third-party software dependencies, handled sensitive HR and compliance data, and were used daily by staff across multiple divisions.
The work required the full engineering lifecycle: gathering requirements from non-technical stakeholders, designing data models, building the application, training users, and maintaining and debugging systems that other people depended on in production. No stack overflow answer covers what breaks at 2 pm on a Tuesday when the HR director needs a report for an executive meeting.
A few of the applications I built:
HR Hiring Tracker
Managed the entire candidate hiring pipeline — manager requisitions, approval chains, position documentation, and candidate records — from open requisition to offer letter. Replaced the division’s dependency on NeoGov and eliminated a collection of tracking spreadsheets that had grown unmanageable. Built in PHP/MySQL with role-based access for managers, HR staff, and approvers at multiple levels.
Performance Appraisal Tracker
Replaced MS Word documents for storing and routing performance appraisals. Enabled management at higher levels to see at a glance which appraisals were completed, late, or never started — something that had previously required manually chasing down individual managers. Approval workflows enforced the review chain without requiring email follow-up.
Career Services Request Tracker
Tracked employees requesting career development assistance — what kind of help was needed, what documents were involved (resumes, cover letters, other materials), and how much time the career services team spent per employee. Gave the team visibility into their own workload and provided reportable data that didn’t previously exist.
Parking Waitlist
Managed the queue of employees requesting parking in CalPERS parking structures — tracking request dates, carpool arrangements, and vehicle information — so facilities staff could manage assignments fairly and transparently. Replaced a spreadsheet process that had no audit trail.
Virtual Folders / Digital Signature Routing
Enabled staff to bind digital signatures onto multiple documents and collate them into a single virtual folder. Routed documents to each stakeholder for signature, tracked signing status in real time, and made it visible to all parties who they were waiting on. Eliminated paper routing for a process that had previously required physical signatures moving through the building. Measurably reduced turnaround time on documents requiring executive sign-off.
Holiday Contest Voting
Simple but high-visibility: enabled photos and event entries to be submitted and voted on electronically by employees across the organization. Replaced a manual paper process for an annual event that the whole agency participated in.
External Training Request Application
Tracked employee requests for external training and classes — approval routing, billing information, and status visibility for both employees and managers. Gave the training department a single system of record instead of email threads and spreadsheets.
Zabbix Event & Equipment Tracker — NameHero
At NameHero, built an internal tool that communicated with the Zabbix monitoring API to collect and normalize host and event data from the infrastructure. System and network administrators could filter events by user-defined controls and attach notes and attributes to hosts and events for ongoing tracking and debugging. Replaced manual log-diving for a team managing a large hosting environment.
The through-line across all of these: real stakeholders, real data, real consequences if something breaks. Enterprise internal tooling is unglamorous work, but it’s where you learn to build software that other people actually depend on.
For independent and freelance work, see the Projects page — particularly the Claude Code series, which applies the same build discipline to AI-integrated applications.