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About me

A team of one.
The results of many.

Just me, my MacBook Pro, some good tunes, and a lot of coffee. Nashville-based, obsessively detail-oriented, and genuinely excited about every project I take on.

Jonathan Burton, a bearded man in a herringbone flat cap, looking at the camera.

Available for new projects

Jonathan Burton

Nashville, TN · Full-stack developer

My story

Building the web the right way.

I've been building things on the web since 2008 — nine years running the digital wing of an attorney advertising agency, then co-founding two companies, and now here. Long enough to have strong opinions about what lasts, and still curious enough to get genuinely excited when a framework does something clever. My stack has evolved a lot, but I've landed firmly on Laravel + Livewire + Tailwind and I'm not looking back.

Based in Nashville, Tennessee — a city that appreciates both craft and hustle. Running a solo shop means you get direct access to the person actually building your thing. No account managers, no hand-offs, no "let me check with the team."

I care about code quality, honest communication, and shipping software that people genuinely enjoy using. The MacBook Pro stays open until the job is right, not just done.

Let's work together

What I stand for

Values that shape the work.

Craft

Good enough is never good enough. Every component, query, and commit should make the next developer — often future me — happy.

Honesty

No vanity metrics, no over-promising. You get a clear picture of what's possible, what it'll cost, and how long it'll take.

Speed

Performance isn't optional. Fast servers, optimized assets, and smart caching are baked in from day one — not bolted on later.

Ownership

I treat your project like my own business. Proactive communication, not just updates when you ask.

The toolbox

Skills & stack.

Backend

  • PHP 8.4
  • Laravel 13
  • Pest Testing
  • Eloquent ORM
  • MySQL
  • Redis
  • REST APIs
  • Queues & Jobs
  • Artisan CLI

Frontend

  • Livewire 4
  • Alpine.js
  • Tailwind CSS 4
  • Flux UI
  • Blade
  • Vite
  • JavaScript ES2024
  • CSS Animations
  • Accessibility

Search & Paid

  • Google Ads
  • Google Analytics 4
  • Search Console
  • Tag Manager
  • Conversion tracking
  • Keyword research
  • Landing page testing
  • Bid strategy
  • Attribution

Tooling & Ops

  • Laravel Forge
  • Git / GitHub
  • Laravel Pint
  • Docker
  • Mailgun / Postmark
  • Cloudflare
  • Uptime Monitoring
  • CI/CD

AI Engineering

  • Claude API
  • Anthropic PHP SDK
  • Structured outputs
  • Prompt engineering
  • Prompt-injection defence
  • LLM feature testing
  • Token cost modelling
  • Spend caps & throttling
  • Graceful degradation

Journey

Experience timeline.

  1. 2019–Now

    Jonathan Burton Design

    Founder · Full-stack Developer

    Selective client work: Laravel and Livewire applications, performance-first marketing sites, and AI features built into products that already exist.

  2. 2019–Now

    DirectOffer

    Co-founder · CTO

    Real estate technology. Named inventor on three granted US patents, one covering the AI behind narrative audio tours and virtual agents.

  3. 2015–Now

    AuctionLook

    Co-founder

    The marketing platform behind more than half the statewide auctioneer associations in the country, including the two largest — Kentucky and Texas.

  4. 2009–2019

    Whitehardt

    Digital Director

    Built and led the digital wing of a leading attorney advertising agency. Ran search and paid acquisition for dozens of clients — several at five figures of monthly ad spend, and one at six.

  5. 2008–2009

    Web development studio

    Technical Director

    Ran the technical side of a small local studio, after years of freelance builds and keeping local businesses' IT running through college. Where the habits started: a codebase is only as good as the person who owns it, so I treat every one I touch as mine.

Ready to build something?

I'm currently taking on new projects. Let's have a conversation.

Get in touch