Joseph Kerkhof

Introduction

Soli Deo gloria
A profile picture of Joseph Kerkhof

It's me!

Hello, nice to meet you! đź‘‹ I’m Joseph, a backend engineer building scalable systems and solving complex distributed architecture challenges. I am saved by grace thru faith ✝️.

Recent Work

Most recently at Teamworks, building NCAA-compliant payment systems and GM budget management platforms. Previously at Prodege optimizing advertising systems processing millions in ad spend, and at Clockwork leading product development for 50K+ users.

Dev Philosophy

I value proven, well-tested tools with strong communities and reliable stability. While I’m not drawn to every new framework, I’m always evaluating technologies that solve real problems effectively. I believe fundamentals matter more than language—clean architecture, comprehensive testing, and maintainable code transfer across any ecosystem.

Professionally, I’ve built production systems with PHP/Laravel, and I’m expanding my toolkit with Go and Python. The patterns I use daily are language-agnostic.

At work, I thrive in asynchronous, remote environments. I’ve been working 100% remotely since 2019, which has honed my ability to communicate clearly and collaborate effectively across distributed teams. Thoughtful documentation, comprehensive PR reviews, and strong async communication are second nature.

It’s not just about writing code. I focus on reducing tech debt and ensuring what I build is maintainable, efficient, and scalable. All software degrades without maintenance—that’s why a proactive approach is essential.

Testimonials

“Today is Joseph’s two-year anniversary with Clockwork. In that time, I’ve seen him excel as a software engineer. He’s demonstrated a depth of expertise in LAMP stack web application development, content management systems (Craft, Drupal, WordPress), and building out a series of job portals on PageUp.

He’s also shown a breadth of expertise by inspiring his team as a scrum master, teaching machine learning to other engineers, and most recently, leading a migration from Salesforce Pardot to HubSpot. Joseph sets an outstanding example for his peers and it’s not a surprise why they love working with him. Thank you Joseph for all your contributions these past two years!”

- Vince Cabansag (2021), COO @ Clockwork

Let’s Connect

I’m exploring backend engineering opportunities where I can apply my expertise in distributed systems, architecture, and performance optimization. Check out my resume , browse my projects , or reach out via email .

Posts

Indexing Tough Fields in MySQL


Intro

When working with a database, you’re often working with a lot of data, and it’s likely necessary to search through that data quickly. One excellent option to help with this is to use indexes to speed up your queries. But what if you’re working with a field (or multiple fields used together) that are quite long and difficult to index? It is possible to index these fields, but what are the trade-offs and how can you do it effectively?

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A Match Made in PHP


PHP is often criticized for being a bad language. Developers often point to the

Despite these criticisms (though the last isn’t really PHP’s fault), PHP remains a very popular web language choice. There are plenty of mature , well-tested frameworks to make getting started easy. Composer is an excellent package manager and there are no shortage of testing libraries .

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The Dots Find Their Way


It started with boredom as all good things do

I was at the end of the summer semester while getting my Masters in Data Science and I was bored and needed a hobby project.

Naturally, I was interested in concepts I was learning about in machine learning and I had discovered something called a “genetic” algorithm. A genetic algorithm would “evolve” as each generation passed without having specific instructions on how to explicitly solve the problem.

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My Christian Testimony


I was really fortunate to grow up in a Christian home where we went to church almost every weekend. Weeknights in childhood would be filled with church-related activities like Sonlight (a lot like Awana). My parents homeschooled me to have a deeper relationship with me and I always had plenty of social interaction.

During one of the Sunday school classes there was a speaker who told us how every one of us are sinners and because we’ve sinned, deserve eternal separation from our Holy Father. But God loves us, and wanted to make a way for us to be with him again. However God also loves justice so our sin must have atonement. Without this atonement we cannot be with God. God sent his son Jesus to take our sinful punishment and atone for our sins. Because of Jesus’ sacrifice, we can be restored and be with God again.

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