Who you'd be
working with.
Jonathan Morales
Founder, Morales Dev Works
I'm Jonathan Morales. For eight years I've worked on Edverum, a university learning platform I helped build with three other developers and now direct — it runs across four campuses, serves about 4,000 students, and handles roughly 1.2 million requests a day. Morales Dev Works is where I bring that same engineering to businesses in Claremont and the Pomona Valley.
- Building software
- 8+ years
- Requests a day, at work
- 1.2M
- Based in
- Claremont, CA
01 — Experience
Eight years, one platform.
I joined Stanbridge University in Irvine as a junior developer in December 2017 and never left. Edverum, the learning platform I helped build there, went from an idea to the system four campuses run on. I've been promoted through every seat on the way — and I still read the logs.
Dec 2017 — Dec 2019
Junior Web Developer
Accessible, mobile-responsive interfaces, plus the enrollment and testing workflows underneath them.
Dec 2019 — Jun 2021
Web Developer
Core platform architecture — PHP, Laravel, Vue, MySQL, REST — and the audit capabilities that keep high-stakes academic records trustworthy.
Jun 2021 — May 2022
Lead Web Developer
Led the Vue 2 to Vue 3 migration and standardized pull requests, automated testing, and CI — cutting build and test time by 40%.
May 2022 — present
Assistant Director of Web Technology
Direct strategy, roadmap, and delivery for the platform, and lead the team spanning development, QA, UX, DevOps, and support.
02 — Point of view
Software you can still run in year three.
Eight years on a platform you cannot walk away from teaches one lesson above the rest: the software that matters is the software still working in year three, run by people who did not choose it and cannot be retrained every time you ship.
I learned that the expensive way. We built Edverum for one campus — our own students in Irvine — and shipped it on time. What we had not planned for was other campuses adopting it, and when they did, the platform suffered for it. The team rallied and rebuilt what needed rebuilding to carry the load; it now runs across four campuses at roughly 1.2 million requests a day. What changed permanently was when I ask the question. I want to know what happens at ten times the current usage before the first version ships, not after it is already somebody's daily tool.
That is why I hand things over. Mendivil Coffee's owners publish, price, archive, and restore their own coffees — I am deliberately not in the loop for routine catalog work. It is why I would rather talk you out of AI than sell it to you, when a better form or a well-written rule would fix more of the problem for a fraction of the cost.
And it is why I want to build for businesses near me. The ideas worth building usually belong to the person who owns the business, not the person writing the code. My job is to get them to market without breaking what already works.
03 — Client work
Two, told honestly.
Morales Dev Works is young — the LLC was registered in 2025. Two client engagements, both still running. I would rather show you both in full than pad a portfolio.
Mendivil Coffee
A Walnut roaster with no way to sell online. A custom Stripe storefront in four weeks, then an owner-managed catalog two weeks after that.
Eeva Learning
Long-term contract work on a Korean-first English-refinement platform: speech analysis that starts from the English a learner already used.
04 — How I work
I have a day job. Here's what that means.
You should hear it from me rather than work it out later: I am Assistant Director of Web Technology at Stanbridge University, and I build client software alongside it.
In practice that is ten to fifteen hours a week, given consistently rather than whenever I feel like it. If your site is down, your checkout is broken, or your data is at risk, you hear from me within four hours — any day of the week — and I start work immediately. Routine changes get batched and shipped every couple of weeks instead of trickling out. If you have a launch date that cannot move, tell me at the start and I will say honestly whether the scope fits it, rather than three weeks in.
It also means I take on fewer projects than an agency would, and that the person you talk to is the person writing the code. There is nobody to hand you off to.
05 — Where I am
Local, and actually from here.
I graduated high school in Diamond Bar, about eight miles from Pomona, and spent years in Fullerton and Brea before moving into the Pomona Valley four years ago. This is not a market I picked off a map. It is where I have lived my whole life, and it is close enough that the projects that go well — the ones where the owner and the developer actually sit down together — are the normal case rather than the exception.
- Claremont, CA
- Pomona, CA
- La Verne, CA
- San Dimas, CA
- Glendora, CA
- Upland, CA
- Montclair, CA
- Ontario, CA
- Rancho Cucamonga, CA
06 — Questions
Before you ask.
Do you do this full time?
No. I am Assistant Director of Web Technology at Stanbridge University and I build client software alongside that role, about ten to fifteen hours a week. I would rather you know now than find out later. It shapes what I take on: fewer projects, scoped honestly, on a schedule we agree before anything starts.
What happens if my site breaks at night?
If your site is down, your checkout is broken, or your data is at risk, you hear from me within four hours on any day of the week, and I start work immediately. Mendivil Coffee takes real orders from real customers, so this is not a hypothetical standard — it is the one that engagement runs to.
Can you commit to a launch date that cannot move?
Yes. Mendivil Coffee went from no online storefront at all to a live one in four weeks, and to an owner-managed catalog two weeks after that. Tell me the date at the start and I will say honestly whether the scope fits it, rather than discovering the problem three weeks in.
Do you only work with businesses in the Pomona Valley?
No, but it is where I prefer to work. Being close enough to sit at the same table changes a project — I can see the actual inbox, the actual paperwork, the actual bottleneck, which is usually where the real scope is hiding. Remote clients elsewhere are welcome.
How long has Morales Dev Works existed?
The LLC was registered in 2025. The experience behind it is older than that — eight years building and directing a platform that four campuses depend on. I would rather be straightforward about the age of the business than imply a longer track record than it has.
Let's talk about yours.
A short note about what you are trying to build is enough. If it turns out I am the wrong person for it, I will tell you that too — and usually point you somewhere better.