I'm Emma De Silva, a self-taught Laravel developer based in Malmö, Sweden, working through my own company, De Silva Group AB.

I'm probably best known for HydePHP, the Laravel-based static site generator I created and maintain. It's passed 200,000 downloads, and building it solo has taught me as much about documentation, API design, and support as it has about code. I've also contributed to Laravel itself, including the Number utility class in the framework core.

Before I went all in on Laravel, I worked in corporate cybersecurity, and that background still shapes how I build things. I think a lot about what happens when something goes wrong: what gets logged, what leaks, and what someone would try first. That's the subject of my talk "OPSEC for Laravel Developers," which I've given at several Laravel Live conferences.

When I'm not writing PHP, I host a weekly live improv comedy show in VR, write and record my own music, and work on different side projects.