Hello! I’m Eliot Sykes, a developer, coach, and open source contributor.

I help my clients grow their Rails applications and technical expertise as a Rails consultant and coach for Rails developers. I can help you too.

I’ve worked as a web developer for over 20 years, and I’m fortunate to get to share this experience with my students and my clients. I’ve worked with Ruby on Rails since 2006.

My past experience as an educator includes producing Web Dev Break screencasts (2014), and teaching at Bloc (2014‑2016), a coding bootcamp where I helped keep their Rails curriculum up‑to‑date. I have been coaching developers independently since 2016.

I now work with individuals and teams all over the world, most often in the US and UK (wherever you are, differences in time zone are rarely an issue). My home is in London with my wife and our cat.

Open Source

GitHub does a great job of journaling my open source adventures.

The projects I have contributed to that are of most interest to Rails developers are Real World Rails, Rails Security Checklist, Rails Testing Toolbox, and Payola (a Rails engine for handling payments and SaaS subscriptions).

I enjoy working on any open source project I discover I can help with. Some of the more well-known projects I’ve made small contributions to include Rails, RubyGems.org, Ember, and PhoneGap.

Writing

Find links to some of my past articles below, and subscribe to this RSS feed to keep up with my latest writing.

Rails Consultant

Do you have a Rails app at the core of your business? Would you like to build more features and add experience to your team without paying for a full-time hire?

In only a few hours a month I’m able to grow the quality of your software, build new features, and coach developers. There’s a number of techniques I leverage to achieve this, which can include pair programming, code reviews, refining workflows, and supercharging test suites.

If you’re interested in growing the experience in your team and the quality of your software, email for details and availability.

Rails Coaching

If any of these apply to you, then I can help:

  • You’ve bootstrapped your own business and it runs on Rails.
  • You build Rails apps but you’re missing a mentor.
  • You work on a Rails app with other developers who don’t have time to coach you.
  • You’re an experienced developer wanting to level up your Rails knowledge.

Whatever your level of experience, and if you’re motivated, one-to-one coaching with me will grow your Rails expertise faster and break through roadblocks to your progress.

Investing in a coaching plan accelerates the growth of your expertise and can be invoiced to your employer’s training or development budget (billed by the hour).

In our sessions we’ll pair together on the Rails app from your day job. We’ll build new features, fix bugs, and write tests. (If you have a boss who needs convincing, you can tell them this means your software will benefit from your coaching from day one.)

So if you’re interested in attending online coaching sessions with me at least once a month get in touch for more details.

Eliot is a wonderful mentor and dedicated teacher. He’s deeply knowledgeable about Ruby on Rails, the entire web development stack and other topics you’ll see working in the field. Eliot made learning Ruby fun and he’s the reason why I’m comfortable working in RoR and love to use TDD. I’d recommend Eliot to anyone who wants to improve as a web developer and write solid well-tested code. I’m really glad I got to work with him.

Tien Yuan, Senior QA Manager at CapLinked

I had and have the great pleasure of being mentored by Eliot. Eliot is an intelligent, skilled, well versed, experienced, kind, honest, and moral individual. He is adept at communicating complex ideas in a very logical, and highly digestible manner. He knows when to ask probing questions, and when to listen, patiently, to guide you, as you seemingly guide yourself, to the correct answer. He has either access, intuition, or a current resource for what feels like any question you present him with. And if he doesn’t, he always finds one, and follows up immediately and consistently. Eliot is a fantastic mentor, and I highly recommend him to anyone looking to learn anything in and around web development, at any level.

Harry M. Levine, Software Engineer at Mojo Lingo

Eliot stood starkly out as one of the most talented and caring mentors I’ve met. Eliot brings a remarkable balance of experience and humility. He is both incisively smart and deeply invested in his students. His charming warmth, approachability, and enthusiasm form a perfect storm of mentoring ability and temperament. Working with Eliot has been a constant edifying pleasure, and I honestly couldn’t recommend him more highly.

Sasha Klein, Web Developer

Get in Touch

Got questions? Great! Send ’em to e@eliotsykes.com.

Send Me a Message