Xavier Noria

from Barcelona

Software Consulting

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

Full-time Collaborations

Full-time collaborations typically involve a dedication of around 80–100 hours/month.

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 been working in this manner for fifteen years.

Quick Dive-Ins

Quick dive-ins are short-term collaborations, often lasting a few days or even hours.

These are ideal for tackling punctual issues. For example, you suspect your application may be facing a bug in Rails and need help understanding what is going on. Generally, these collaborations focus on addressing concrete and often challenging needs promptly.

You can contact me and I'll dive into it.

Advisory

You can also hire me as an advisor. This is a retainer-based model where your team has a direct line to me for whatever assistance I can provide.

Contact

If you would like us to work together, please just drop me a line at fxn@hashref.com.

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:

  • Tropical on Rails 2025 (São Paulo, Brasil)
  • Rails World 2024 (Toronto, Canada)
  • EuRuKo 2024 (Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina)
  • Balkan Ruby 2024 (Sofia, Bulgaria)
  • Mobile World Congress 2024 (Barcelona, Spain)
  • Ruby Warsaw Community Conference 2024 (Warsaw, Poland)
  • Rails World 2023 (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
  • Friendly.rb 2023 (Bucharest, Romania)
  • The Rails SaaS Conference 2023 (Athens, Greece)
  • RailsConf 2022 (Portland, USA)
  • Madrid.rb, November 2021 (Madrid, Spain)
  • Stuart Tech Meetups, February 2020 (Barcelona, Spain)
  • Barcelona Perl & Friends 2019 (Barcelona, Spain)
  • RubyRussia 2019 (Moscow, Russia)
  • Elixir Paris Meetup, June 2019 (Paris, France)
  • Batch, June 2019 (Barcelona, Spain)
  • Barcelona on Rails, May 2019 (Barcelona, Spain)
  • RailsConf 2019 (Minneapolis, USA)
  • RubyKaigi 2019 (Fukuoka, Japan)
  • RubyDay 2019 (Verona, Italy)
  • Full Stack Vallès, February 2019 (Terrassa, Spain)
  • Barcelona Perl & Friends 2018 (Barcelona, Spain)
  • Startup Grind Barcelona Tech Conference 2018 (Barcelona, Spain)
  • ElixirConf EU 2018 (Warsaw, Poland)
  • Barcelona Perl & Friends 2017 (Barcelona, Spain)
  • Paris.rb, July 2017 (Paris, France)
  • Elixir Barcelona, June 2017 (Barcelona, Spain)
  • RubyC 2017 (Kiev, Ukraine)
  • ElixirConf EU 2017 (Barcelona, Spain)
  • RubyConf Italy 2016 (Florence, Italy)
  • Barcelona Perl Workshop 2016 (Barcelona, Spain)
  • Conferencia Rails 2016 (Madrid, Spain)
  • EuRuKo 2016 (Sofia, Bulgaria)
  • RailsConf 2016 (Kansas City, USA)
  • Madrid.rb, April 2016 (Madrid, Spain)
  • YAPC::Europe 2015 (Granada, Spain)
  • Valencia.rb, February 2015 (Valencia, Spain)
  • RailsConf 2014 (Chicago, USA)
  • code.talks 2014 (Hamburg, Germany)
  • Rails Israel 2013 (Tel Aviv, Israel)
  • EuRuKo 2013 (Athens, Greece)
  • BaRuCo 2012 (Barcelona, Spain)
  • RailsClub 2012 (Moscow, Russia)
  • RuLu 2012 (Lyon, France)
  • Railsberry 2012 (Krakow, Poland)
  • RuPy 2011 (Poznań, Poland)
  • RailsConf 2010 (Baltimore, USA)
  • Conferencia Rails 2010 (Madrid, Barcelona)
  • Conferencia Rails 2009 (Madrid, Spain)
  • Conferencia Rails 2008 (Madrid, Spain)
  • Conferencia Rails 2007 (Madrid, Spain)
  • Conferencia Rails 2006 (Madrid, Spain)
  • V Congreso Hispalinux (2002, Madrid, Spain)

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.

Reading

I keep a listing of the books I read.

Contact

Please feel free to contact me at fxn@hashref.com.