Xavier Noria

Software Consulting

I am a software consultant specializing in Ruby and Ruby on Rails, with over 25 years of professional programming experience.

I work as an independent and external freelance. I specialize in tackling technical problems that demand careful consideration and focus. Problems for which someone concentrated and not in the day-to-day may be a great match. They are usually backend or platform projects.

These collaborations typically start with an initial problem statement, often open or exploratory in nature. My clients are tech-savvy, we speak the same language and work without estimations or dates. Projects are driven by a tight feedback loop, proactive communication, team playing, and continuous progress. As a pragmatic perfectionist, I pursue solutions that are simple, cost-effective, and correct.

I have worked in this manner for sixteen years.

Client Testimonials

From Jorge Gomez Sancha, Co-Founder and CEO of Tinybird:

Xavier is an exceptional programmer, whose clarity of thought and meticulous approach to coding was nothing short of transformative for the projects for which I hired him.

Xavier embodies the principle of 'measure twice, cut once' and wastes no time in building anything other than what is absolutely essential. Whether he is solving a deep and hard-to-find bug or building a framework, he works gradually but surely, validating his assumptions and findings with you every step of the way, ensuring you remain aligned.

His commitment to precision and attention to detail makes for high quality and highly maintainable code, and he raises the level of everyone around him. He also happens to be an inquisitive, curious person, with broad interests and voracious learning habits that make him a pleasure to be around.

From Lachlan Laycock:

I had the pleasure of working with Xavier whilst I was CTO at Stuart for almost 6yrs. I would give Xavier difficult projects that were critical to the technical success of our platform and could be delivered relatively autonomously. He never failed to craft solutions for us that were adapted to our needs, scaled with the business and worked flawlessly (engineered with simplicity, well tested, well documented). He was exceptional at finding the shortest path to the best adapted solution. This resulted in us consistently having high-quality solutions, very quickly.

Ever since our time working together, I often find myself using Xavier as an example of how we can be better as Engineers ourselves. He’s a model for us all, and I recommend him without hesitation.

From Ben Munoz, Co-founder Nadine West, Co-founder Ben's Friends:

Open Source

I have been into Open Source for a long time. Open Source represents freedom for me, doing things for the fun of it, sharing code and knowledge, collaborating openly with people from all over the world.

As recent highlights, I have been a member of Rails Core for more than a decade and I am the author of Zeitwerk. I also wrote Rails Contributors, and was part of the team behind the Rails Guides.

Awards

I am deeply honored by the recognition my Open Source contributions have received in the form of various awards:

Xavier Noria Ruby Awards
From left to right: Ruby Hero Award, Outstanding Performance Fukuoka Ruby Award, Open Source Rails SaaS Conference Award, and, finally, an award celebrating my longstanding contributions as part of the Rails Core team.

Talks and Keynotes

Over the years, I have presented at various conferences:

Background

I have a degree in Mathematics from the University of Barcelona.

Before starting my career in software development, I was a proofreader of math textbooks for six years.

I was also a part-time lecturer at the University of Barcelona in the 2000s, where I taught a semester in Perl for seven years. I did this alongside my full-time job as a programmer. It was vocational.

Contact

Email (fxn@hashref.com) · GitHub · Bluesky