A senior software engineer for Chicago teams modernizing old systems
Legacy modernization, Laravel and Next.js platforms, integrations and database work for established Chicago businesses, with the start of your Central-time day in my evening.
01
Why Chicago teams bring me this work
This page is for established Chicago businesses more than startups: teams whose core system is older than most of the people maintaining it, and can't stop while it's replaced. I modernize in stages: old and new run side by side, one area moves at a time, and each step can be reversed. The TopGear India CMS had the same constraint: it moved from CodeIgniter to Laravel while the newsroom kept publishing every day, and every URL stayed as it was. The staged approach suits an order system, an integration layer or a reporting database: move one piece, keep the data in step, and switch over when it's boring.
What teams across the United States bring me
- An app built in a hurry, by an agency, a contractor or AI tools, is now slow, fragile or risky to change, and customers have noticed.
- Enterprise buyers send security questionnaires, and the number of state privacy laws keeps growing.
02
The hours we share with Chicago
Chicago is on Central time: your 09:00 is 20:30 in Mumbai in winter and 19:30 in summer. Cut-overs are scheduled at the start of your day, when your team and I are both online, never late in your afternoon, which is the middle of my night; every step has a written rollback.
Each city's 09:00–18:00 working day on the clock in Mumbai (UTC+5:30), in January and in July, so daylight saving is accounted for.
| City | In January | In July |
|---|---|---|
| ChicagoUTC−6 / UTC−5 | 20:30–05:30 (next day) | 19:30–04:30 (next day) |
Clocks Daylight saving time runs from 2:00 a.m. local time on the second Sunday in March to 2:00 a.m. on the first Sunday in November (15 U.S.C. 260a). India keeps one clock all year, so only your side moves.
03
Rules a Chicago team's software meets
Biometric privacy (BIPA)
Illinois' Biometric Information Privacy Act (740 ILCS 14) restricts how private entities collect, retain, disclose and destroy biometric identifiers such as fingerprints, voiceprints and scans of face or hand geometry.
Source: Illinois Supreme Court: Rosenbach v. Six Flags, 2019 IL 123186
Private lawsuits
BIPA lets any aggrieved person sue, for liquidated damages of $1,000 per negligent violation or $5,000 per intentional or reckless violation, or actual damages if greater. In Rosenbach v. Six Flags (25 January 2019) the Illinois Supreme Court held that a person need not allege harm beyond the violation itself to sue.
Source: Illinois Supreme Court: Rosenbach v. Six Flags, 2019 IL 123186
Across the United States: State privacy laws · SOC 2 and security questionnaires
This is engineering guidance, not legal advice: confirm what applies to your business with your counsel.
Further reading
- Article: CodeIgniter to Laravel: a staged migration playbook · 10 October 2026
How to move a live CodeIgniter or plain-PHP application to Laravel in reversible stages, keeping every URL and the business running.
- Article: Laravel performance in 2026: a production playbook · 10 October 2026
What actually makes Laravel applications fast in production, from queries and caching to queues and Octane.
04
Contracts and invoicing
Invoices in US dollars, monthly or per milestone, paid through Wise or Payoneer. I can work under your master services agreement and statements of work, with intellectual property assigned to you, and provide a W-8BEN.
More on working with teams in the United States is on the United States page.
Tax and legal treatment depends on your company and country: confirm it with your accountant or counsel.
05
Where Chicago teams usually start
Legacy modernization
Move an aging system to a modern stack without stopping the business.
- Price
- Fixed-price assessment, then a fixed quote per stage
- Timeline
- An assessment first, then migration in stages on a schedule agreed with you
Laravel development and upgrades
Laravel applications and APIs built, upgraded and kept current by an engineer whose main stack is Laravel.
- Price
- Fixed quote per stage after reading the code
- Timeline
- Scoped on a first call; upgrades are planned one major version at a time
API development and integrations
APIs other teams can build on, and integrations with payments, CRMs and SaaS tools that never lose data quietly.
- Price
- Fixed quote per integration or API
- Timeline
- Scoped per integration after mapping the systems
Database design and query optimization
Slow queries found and fixed, schemas that hold at the next stage of growth, and backups that have actually been restored.
- Price
- Fixed price for the review, then a quote for larger changes
- Timeline
- Scoped after reading the slow-query logs
06
Case studies
- Case study: TopGear India CMS · CMS migration and modernization
- page load time, before → after
- 1–3 min → 3 s
- Case study: Vayudoot Aviations · Education platform
- Case study: Exhibit Social · B2B SaaS platform
- influencers indexed
- 10,000+
07
Questions from Chicago teams
What hours do we share with Chicago?
Your 09:00 is 20:30 in Mumbai from early November to mid-March and 19:30 the rest of the year, an hour later than New York's. Cut-overs and reviews go at the start of your day; the rest runs in writing.
Does Illinois' biometric law affect our software?
If it collects, keeps or shares fingerprints, voiceprints or scans of face or hand geometry, it does: BIPA restricts how private entities handle biometric identifiers, and any aggrieved person can sue, for $1,000 per negligent violation or $5,000 per intentional or reckless one, without alleging harm beyond the violation. Time clocks, identity checks and face login are the features to check first. Confirm what applies with your counsel.
Can you replace an old system without stopping the business?
That's the point of doing it in stages: old and new run side by side, one area moves at a time, and each step can be reversed, with traffic going back to the old system while the new part is fixed. A modernization assessment comes first and says what to keep, rewrite and retire.
Do you have an office in Chicago?
No. I work remotely from Mumbai, with no office or staff in Chicago, and I don't offer in-person meetings there. We work on video at the start of your day and in writing the rest of the time.
08