Available for one ongoing advisory engagement
Less tangled.
More forward.
Technical advice for businesses built on Rails.
I help founders and engineering leaders decide what to fix, what to build, and how to move Rails products forward, from the first line of code to a mature system. Architecture guidance, modernization planning, and technical direction grounded in 20+ years of production experience.
I work with you directly, or alongside your developers or delivery partner. My focus is technical direction, reviews, and decisions.
Slovenia · remote worldwide Independent since 2006
Discuss your technical challenge Ways to work together
What’s on your workbench?
Pick a starting point. Let’s find the next useful move.
Explore ways to work together ↗Selected experience
Advice grounded in delivery and team leadership.
Nadine West
~50% more throughput
As tech lead, I led a distributed Rails team, rebuilt the inventory and order system, and redesigned warehouse scanning workflows. The workflow changes increased throughput by approximately 50%.
The same engagement reduced test runtime from an hour to five minutes.
Jetpack Workflow
From inception to thousands of daily users
As lead developer, I built the SaaS product from the start and managed a small team as it grew to thousands of daily users.
Experience spanning architecture, team leadership, and the needs of a growing product.
Ways to work together
A clearer way forward.
For Rails businesses with or without a development team. I consult on greenfield projects just as well. Choose focused advice or ongoing support.
01
Technical assessment
When delivery slows or technical risk is unclear.
What to expect
Conversations with you (and your team, if you have one) and a review of the relevant system or plans, architecture, and delivery process.
You receive: A written assessment of the main risks, priorities, and recommended next steps.
02
Modernization advisory
Before committing to an upgrade, rewrite, or significant AI feature.
What to expect
Review the options and tradeoffs, agree a practical sequence, and support you through key technical decisions.
You receive: A modernization plan and agreed review checkpoints for the implementation.
03
Ongoing technical advisory
When you need regular senior technical guidance.
What to expect
Architecture and roadmap reviews, mentoring, hiring input, and scheduled decision meetings with founders or engineering leaders.
You receive: A regular advisory cadence with written decisions, priorities, and follow-up actions.
How we start
We first discuss your business, your product or idea, and the decision you need to make. I then propose a paid engagement with a defined scope, deliverables, fee, and timeline. For ongoing work, we agree meeting time, review capacity, and response expectations before starting.
I work with you directly, or alongside your developers or delivery partner. My focus is technical direction, reviews, and decisions.
In their words
What it's like to work together.
“Please meet Miha Plohl, former lead Rails engineer here at Nadine West. I think Miha is an exceptional engineer and that some company will be lucky to have him. I fully vouch for his talent and his work ethic.”
Ben Munoz Founder, Nadine West
“Miha is self-starting and always motivated to stay on top of the game. I was lucky to hire him to build and scale my startup idea. I would have not made it without Manitu.”
David Cristello CEO, Jetpack Workflow
“Our bloated test suite was trimmed down and groomed, it now runs fast and is easy to change and maintain. We are definitely recommending Manitu to our business partners.”
Joanna Doull Dev Manager, Kajima
Experience
Where I've done this before.
2024 — Present
Founder — eternalfriend.io · Independent Rails & AI Consultant
Founder of eternalfriend.io, building the next generation of software for artists and crafters. Alongside it, independent consulting: integrating AI into production Rails systems and designing classification pipelines.
2021 — 2024
Tech Lead — Nadine West
Led a distributed Rails team, rebuilt the inventory & order system, cut test runtime 12x, redesigned warehouse workflows for ~50% more throughput.
Earlier experience · 2013–2020
2020
CTO / Lead Developer — Hemplinenlife
Built a Rails monolith on Shopify's GraphQL API, a WebRTC video chat component, and the company's manufacturing resource planning software.
2019 — 2020
Senior Rails Consultant — Tuskerdirect
Cut test suite time from 3h to 20 minutes, upgraded Rails 5.2 → 6 in under 14 days, replaced Jenkins with CircleCI.
2018 — 2019
Lead / Senior Rails Developer — Kajima Partnerships
Architected parts of a Rails 4 app, upgraded a legacy Rails 3 app, integrated the Worldpay payment API, mentored a team of five.
2016 — 2018
Senior Ruby Developer — Purepoint UK
Scaled a Spree-based Rails webshop from one storefront to six localized shops worldwide, in a large remote-first team.
2013 — 2016
Lead Developer — Jetpack Workflow
Built a SaaS product end-to-end and scaled it from zero to thousands of daily users, managing a small, lean team.
Plus earlier roles founding and leading Rails + iOS startups, and three years as a Java/J2EE engineer.
About
Software has been the whole story since the '90s.
I started building software as a teenager, went professional over 20 years ago, and have shipped production code across retail, manufacturing, e-commerce and SaaS ever since — as a developer, a tech lead, and occasionally the whole engineering department.
Since 2006 I've worked independently under manitu, Rails-inspired, based below the Julian Alps in Slovenia, remote-first before remote-first was a category. I've led distributed teams, upgraded legacy Rails apps whenever the business needed it and built a SaaS product from its first line of code to thousands of daily users.
Today I bring that experience to technical advisory work with founders and development teams, on new and established Rails products. I also build eternalfriend.io, software for artists and crafters.
Good technical advice connects the needs of the business with a plan the team can carry out.
Comic: an AI bot upgrades an app to Rails 8 in seconds by deleting the failing tests; the developer, reading the diff, is not impressed.
Now
What I'm working on this season.
Updated September 2026
Explore current projects and tools
- Building eternalfriend.io. Software for artists and crafters — from the data model to what they actually touch.
- Shipping on Rails 8 defaults. Hotwire, Solid Queue and Kamal deploys — fewer moving parts, less infrastructure to babysit.
- Working with AI agents every day. LLM features in production apps, and evaluating agentic coding workflows in day-to-day development.
- Svelte front ends & AI tools. Fast, lightweight Svelte interfaces on top of Rails, and small AI-powered tools built for real, everyday work.
Current toolbox
- Ruby
- Rails 8
- Svelte
- Hotwire
- Solid Queue
- Kamal
- PostgreSQL
- LLM APIs
- AI agents
- MCP
- Claude Code
- Vision models
Writing
Articles
29 October 2026
human readable websites are dead.
I asked AI to finish this article. It invented LMML. Then we put it in a comic. Recursively.
All articles → · For bots: Markdown & media
Let’s talk
What technical decision is holding you back?
Tell me a little about your business, your product or idea, and the decision you're facing. I'll reply by email so we can discuss whether an assessment or ongoing advisory support would help.