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RIliya Oblakov · Sofia, Bulgaria

Web apps your customers will actually love

I design, build, and launch SaaS products and business web apps with Ruby on Rails and Next.js — live in weeks, not months. Then I stick around to keep them running. You work directly with the person who writes the code.

5.0 client ratingMaintenance includedReplies within 24h
8+
years shipping production code
6
products live right now
100%
on-time delivery
<24h
reply time, EN or BG
About

Hi, I'm Iliya — your software engineer

ILIYA OBLAKOV
ILIYA OBLAKOVSofia, BG

Full-Stack Ruby on Rails Developer

I’m a Ruby on Rails Developer with 8 years of professional experience building web applications that are designed to scale—technically and operationally. I enjoy working on products where code quality, architecture, and performance matter, and where there’s a clear need for reliable delivery and long-term maintainability. My core strength is backend development with Ruby on Rails , including building well-structured domain logic, integrating third-party services, improving performance, and supporting new product features end-to-end. I’m equally comfortable collaborating with product and design teams to translate requirements into clean, stable implementations. On the frontend, I work with Rails-native approaches using Stimulus (Hotwire) , and I also have experience building and integrating dynamic UI features using React and jQuery . For styling and responsive layouts, I use HTML/CSS alongside Bootstrap and Tailwind CSS to deliver consistent, production-ready interfaces. I’m proficient with Docker and Docker Compose , using containerization to keep development and deployments reliable and repeatable. I also have a foundational understanding of the AWS console and how cloud services fit into real-world Rails delivery workflows. Alongside development, I apply SEO best practices , focusing on technical foundations that support visibility, performance, and clean site structure.

How I work

  • Quality
  • Reliability
  • Ownership
  • Maintainability
  • Scalability
  • Performance
  • Pragmatism
  • Collaboration
  • Continuous Improvement
  • User Focus

Tech stack & skills

RubyRuby on RailsHotwireStimulusJSReactjQueryHTML5CSS3BootstrapTailwind CSSDockerDocker ComposeAWS (Basics)SEO
Download CV
Services

Everything your product needs, under one roof

One person, full stack — so nothing gets lost between a designer, an agency, and a subcontractor.

Web Development

Custom Ruby on Rails and React applications tailored to your needs.

API Development

RESTful API design and implementation for your business.

Database Design

Efficient database architecture and optimization.

Consulting

Technical consulting and code reviews.

Automation

Streamline your business processes with custom automation solutions. Reduce manual work and increase efficiency.

AI Solutions

Integrate cutting-edge AI technologies into your applications. From machine learning models to intelligent chatbots.

Agentic AI

Build autonomous AI agents that can reason, plan, and execute complex tasks independently.

N8N Workflows

Design and implement powerful automation workflows using N8N. Connect your apps and automate complex processes.

Recent work

Products that are out there, earning

Not concepts — live products with real users, built end-to-end and still maintained today.

Hotel Sofia

Hotel Sofia

Bilingual hotel website with its own booking engine, seasonal pricing, inline editing and AI-readable data, built for a boutique hotel in Bansko.

Rails 8.1Next.js 16Booking engineSEO / GEOHetzner + Coolify

Hotel Sofia

See it live

Bilingual hotel website with its own booking engine, seasonal pricing, inline editing and AI-readable data, built for a boutique hotel in Bansko.

Delivered

  • Bilingual site (BG/EN) with localized URLs for every page, a language switch that lands on the same page, and one canonical address per page
  • Home page with video hero, offers, gallery, location, FAQ and booking call to action; a page per room type; about, contact and booking pages; a menu of rooms, services and amenities
  • Booking engine: live availability calendar, room, guests and board selection, paid and free extras (sauna, transfers, events), seasonal prices and a firm quote per stay
  • Every request gets a reference number (HS-7K2M9Q style) and lands in the hotel's reservations calendar to confirm or reject; payment on site
  • Reservations calendar: confirm or reject, manual reservations, closed dates, and a pricing editor with seasonal periods
  • Inline editing of every section, page metadata, hotel facts and room pages in both languages, with no separate admin panel; edits show on the public page within seconds
  • Structured data for the hotel, rooms, offers, breadcrumbs and FAQ; sitemap, robots.txt and an llms.txt with live prices, so search engines and AI assistants read the site directly
  • Launch audit passed with zero failures: single-hop 301 redirects, HTTPS with HSTS, self-canonical sitemap URLs, hreflang with x-default, valid JSON-LD and a real 404 page
  • Security: admin sessions with idle timeout and instant revocation, brute-force and rate-limit protection, clickjacking protection
  • Over 550 automated API tests and over 40 real-browser scenarios run before every change reaches the hotel
  • Docker images built in GitHub Actions and deployed through Coolify on a Hetzner server, with Let's Encrypt certificates, persistent media storage and a watchdog that checks the site every five minutes and emails on failure

Coming next

  • Email notifications switched on: an acknowledgement to the guest, the request details to the hotel, and confirmation or rejection in the guest's language with the final price (built with retries and a resend button; goes live with the hotel's mail provider)
  • Charging Booking.com and Expedia virtual cards through the hotel's own Stripe account: a "to charge" list on checkout day, the card fee known in advance, and the charge status in the calendar
  • Channel synchronisation with Booking.com, Expedia, Trip.com and Airbnb through WuBook: one source of truth for availability, no double bookings
  • Reservation details: transfer pickup and drop-off with a confirmed price, a baby cot as a bookable service, and a full history of who confirmed, rejected or changed a request
  • Bookings through AI assistants: machine-readable instructions so an assistant can check availability, get a quote and send a request that lands in the calendar like any other
  • AI receptionist for guest messages by email and WhatsApp, in the guest's language, handing over to a person when needed
  • Offers at the right moment before arrival (transfer, late checkout, sauna, dinner, ski pass), guest registration filled in from the reservation, a monthly report on which channel really earns after commissions, and live chat from the site answered from a phone

Stack

Rails 8.1 APINext.js 16React 19TypeScriptTailwindPostgreSQL 16Solid QueueDockerGitHub ActionsCoolifyHetzner
See it live
Raya Real Estate

Raya Real Estate

Real estate platform for a Plovdiv agency: bilingual listings, AI property valuation, natural-language search and a built-in CRM with leads, deals and email.

Rails 8.1React + ViteAI valuationVertex AI searchBuilt-in CRM

Raya Real Estate

See it live

Real estate platform for a Plovdiv agency: bilingual listings, AI property valuation, natural-language search and a built-in CRM with leads, deals and email.

Delivered

  • Bilingual property listings (BG/EN) with filters for offer type, city, price, bedrooms and area, sorting, a property page with an image lightbox and a contact sidebar
  • Machine translation of listings between Bulgarian and English, so the agency writes once and publishes twice
  • Property valuation engine: comparable sales, hedonic adjustments, the national house price index (NSI) and a confidence band, with a written explanation for the client
  • Natural-language search over the listings with Google Vertex AI and generated answers
  • Listing import from other portals: paste a URL, the system fetches the page and extracts the property data with AI
  • City landing pages, buyers' and sellers' service pages, a "work with us" page, cookie consent, and SEO with prerendered pages, sitemap and JSON-LD
  • Built-in CRM: a leads board with a calendar view, lead cards promoted to deal cards, and a deals pipeline
  • Email in the admin: inbound mail through a Mailgun webhook, search, compose and reply, attachments and bulk actions
  • Admin with user accounts, hero slide management and signed image uploads to Cloudinary
  • Docker images built in GitHub Actions, deployed through Coolify on a Hetzner server, background jobs on Solid Queue

Stack

Rails 8.1 APIReact 19ViteTypeScriptTailwindPostgreSQLCloudinaryGoogle Vertex AIOpenAIMailgunDockerCoolifyHetzner
See it live
IBJ Inspired by Joanna

IBJ Inspired by Joanna

Bilingual storefront for handmade photo albums and gifts, with a live chat the owner answers from Slack, premium courses with access control and a homepage layout editor.

Rails 8HotwireSlack live chatCloudinaryBilingual

IBJ Inspired by Joanna

See it live

Bilingual storefront for handmade photo albums and gifts, with a live chat the owner answers from Slack, premium courses with access control and a homepage layout editor.

Delivered

  • Bilingual storefront (BG/EN) with localized URLs: album collections, product variations, an "available now" section and prices in both BGN and EUR
  • Live support chat on every page: the visitor writes on the site, the owner answers from a Slack thread, and messages sync both ways in real time
  • Premium services (courses and digital designs): a visitor requests access or a purchase, the owner gets an email and grants access per item, the customer gets an automatic reply, and paid materials open only for entitled accounts
  • Customer accounts with sign-in, profile photos and role-based permissions
  • Owner admin: users, access rights, premium services and incoming requests, plus a homepage editor that picks which collections fill each slot
  • Search across albums, variations and premium services in both languages
  • SEO basics (robots.txt, gzipped sitemap, page metadata), images on Cloudinary, request rate limiting and HTTPS behind Cloudflare
  • 68 automated tests

Coming next

  • Online checkout: cart, order and card payment (the cart and order flow is scaffolded)

Stack

Rails 8Ruby 3.4HotwirePostgreSQLSolid QueueSolid CableDevisePunditCloudinarySlack APICloudflare
See it live
How it works

A process with no surprises

You know the price before we start, and you watch the product grow every week.

1

Scope

One call. We define what "done" means, then you get a fixed scope and a fixed quote.

2

Build

Weekly demos on a live staging link. You steer while changing course is still cheap.

3

Launch

Production deploy with real tests, monitoring, and backups. Launch day is a checklist, not a gamble.

4

Grow

I stay on for maintenance, iteration, and new features. No disappearing act.

Clients

What clients say after we ship

Real feedback from businesses I've helped build and grow.

Илия направи сайта на хотела и собствена система за резервации. Гостите избират стая, дати и допълнителни услуги и виждат крайната цена веднага, а ние потвърждаваме заявките от календара. Всичко на сайта променяме сами, на двата езика, без да чакаме никого.
Ралица и ДобриРалица и ДобриСобственици — Хотел SOFIA, Банско
Сайтът ни е много повече от каталог с обяви. Пишем обявата веднъж и тя излиза на два езика, а лийдовете, сделките и имейлите са на едно място. Илия разбира как работи една агенция и прави точно това, което ни трябва.
ТаняТаняRaya Real Estate
Илия направи магазина така, че да отговарям на клиентите от Slack, докато работя, а курсовете ми се отключват само за хората, които са ги поръчали. Всичко изглежда точно както го исках.
ИвелинаИвелинаОсновател — IBJ Inspired by Joanna
FAQ

Everything You've Been Wondering About

Straight answers to the questions clients ask me before we get started.

Still have a question? Ask me directly.

Contact

Let's build something your customers will love.

Tell me what you're working on — you'll get honest feedback and clear next steps within 24 hours, in English or Bulgarian.

iliya@rayastats.com

Available for new projects

No spam. No pressure. Just a friendly conversation.