CDorris · Hendersonville, Tennessee area

Machines and the software that runs on them.

Web applications developer / senior software engineer. Hardware selection, production Linux, PHP and JavaScript, database-driven workflows, automation, and integrations. Inherited AI systems brought to a working live path. Practical interfaces. Reliable guts.

Work Contact
01

Ten-plus years of Patriot Angels engineering and IT. Production systems, not side projects.

02

Hardware through assembly, OS, and stack — then the applications that live on that host.

03

Primary builder of the client and employee portal used for VA Aid & Attendance casework.

04

Integration fabric across CRM, e-sign, telephony, HR sync, email, and lead pipelines.

Featured

From bare metal to business systems

Not a deploy. The machine that runs it.

Build photo TODO(caleb): add /images/server-build.jpg and a parts/specs note. No invented SKUs, RAM, or RAID.

Production host · Patriot Angels

Chassis, Linux, then the lead in Salesforce.

Most full-stack work stops at the application. This work starts at the parts list.

Patriot Angels’ main production server: hardware selection, physical assembly, OS and stack configuration, and ongoing operations. The same host serves the public site and the custom applications that move leads, documents, and day-to-day operations.

Role Hardware, assembly, install, config, ops — plus the major application and integration surface on that machine.

Capability Infrastructure ownership. Linux / Apache hosting. Multi-site vhosts and SSL. Living with production.

  • Linux
  • Apache
  • PHP
  • MySQL / MariaDB
  • JavaScript
  • WordPress
  • Composer
  • cron

Public patriotangels.com. Metrics on that site are company stats.

Server notes

Selected work

Systems in production

Portals, glue, marketing sites, ops tools, and AI surfaces. Each card has a detail route for a longer write-up later.

01Original build

Client & employee portal

Full-scale portal for VA Aid & Attendance casework. Clients register, complete questionnaires, upload documents, and message the team. Claims staff work a file queue with checklists and handoffs. Legal gets a structured consult path into worksheets, assessments, and checklists.

Salesforce is the system of record. Acrobat handles static PDFs. PandaDoc covers coordination-agreement signing.

Role Primary builder and maintainer.

Capability Multi-role product design, PHP app architecture, document generation, CRM sync, staff UX that holds up in daily use.

  • PHP 8
  • HTML / CSS
  • JS + jQuery
  • MySQL / MariaDB
  • Bootstrap / AdminLTE
  • PhpWord
  • PhpSpreadsheet
  • Dompdf
  • TCPDF

Live portal.patriotangels.com

Portal notes
02Original build

Integration fabric

Connective tissue across the business: Salesforce relays, imports, and control utilities; DocuSeal e-sign automation (prior Docubee path is legacy); Nextiva and RingCentral telephony utilities; BambooHR hooks; email automation; Google Ads and conversion-adjacent tooling; lead and partner form pipelines; Grok Bot inbound and outbound relay; PDF and brochure paths; maps and review flows.

Role Primary author of the bulk of this glue.

Capability API design, reliability, automations that save hours every day, multi-vendor fluency.

  • Salesforce
  • PandaDoc
  • DocuSeal
  • BambooHR
  • Nextiva
  • RingCentral
  • Stripe
  • Google Analytics / Ads
  • reCAPTCHA
  • WordPress
  • PHPMailer
  • Cloudinary
  • Agent relay
Integrations notes
03Original build

Angels In Action

501(c)(3) marketing site for veterans, children, and Graham House. Donate via Stripe Payment Links, with analytics, privacy, terms, and contact. Production static drop-in — Next-built HTML, CSS, and JavaScript — shipped onto the Patriot Angels hosting and DNS family.

Role Built and shipped to production.

Capability Public nonprofit shipping — taste and conversion, not only internal tools.

  • HTML / CSS / JS
  • Stripe
  • Analytics

Live angelsinaction.org

AIA notes
04Conversion

People Ops

Production people-ops app: roles, time and clock concerns, encrypted sensitive fields, documents stored outside the web root, BambooHR read-only import, and backups.

Not the original product design. Converted from Node / Next.js to PHP / HTML / JS and productionized on Patriot Angels hosting.

Role Port and production hardening.

Capability A modern JS app delivered as an equivalent secure PHP production system — encryption, sessions, ops discipline.

  • PHP 8.3
  • Apache
  • MariaDB
  • Cookie sessions
  • AES-256-GCM

Live Internal people-ops app.

People Ops notes
05Production path

VA-chat / RAG

Staff-facing AI document analysis and chat for VA packets: upload and OCR, analysis, and advisor-framed chat over Azure AI Foundry plus a vector knowledgebase, with admin and mass-train surfaces on a Docker / nginx path.

Not the original build. Brought the company VA-chat / RAG platform to a working production path — ops, wiring, reliability, the live route.

Role Production ownership. Not a from-scratch RAG design claim.

Capability Inherited AI stack driven to a live path. Azure AI and Python service literacy. Production judgment around RAG.

  • Python
  • FastAPI
  • Chainlit
  • Docker
  • nginx
  • Postgres
  • Azure AI Foundry
  • OpenAI-family models
  • JWT
VA-chat notes
06Maintenance

AI Voice

Company AI voice platform — telephony and voice-AI on the Patriot Angels stack. Taken over and maintained. Rebuildable if needed.

Not a greenfield authorship claim. Ownership and maintenance of a production voice system.

Role Current owner and operator.

Capability Inherited voice AI kept alive in production.

  • Voice AI
  • Telephony
  • Production ops

TODO(caleb): product one-liner and screenshots when they should be public.

AI Voice notes

Approach

What the work shows

End-to-end, including the host

Problems owned through the last mile — including the bare-metal server that hosts Patriot Angels and a large set of custom web apps.

Production systems: portals, integrations, marketing sites, ops tools, and AI surfaces. Built for legal, agents, HR, analysts, and clients.

Application UI · Server Logic · Integrations remains the spine, plus the machine underneath and inherited AI systems brought to a live path.

Employer context

Most of this lives at Patriot Angels, which helps U.S. wartime veterans and spouses secure VA Aid & Attendance benefits. Adjacent work includes Angels In Action.

GitHub is almost entirely private, as employer systems should be. Outcomes are described here. There is no public open-source grid behind this work.

Skills

Surface area

Grouped so each can grow into its own page without rewriting the index.

01

Application UI

Dashboards, admin tools, portals, multi-role forms and workflows. Bootstrap / AdminLTE. jQuery + AJAX house style. Accessibility basics.

UI notes

02

Server & backend

PHP 8.x on live Linux. Auth, sessions, roles. MySQL / MariaDB. PDF and Office generation. Python / FastAPI when AI needs it. Docker / nginx patterns.

Backend notes

03

Infrastructure

Bare-metal selection, assembly, install, and config. Linux admin. Vhosts, SSL, multi-site. Live-production discipline. Backup and docroot hygiene.

Ops notes

04

Integrations

REST / API glue, relays, cron. CRM, e-sign, telephony, HR sync, email, and agent orchestration.

Glue notes

05

AI systems

Production RAG ownership (make it work), document AI helpers, voice AI maintenance, Azure AI Foundry literacy. Honest about build vs. own.

AI notes

Stack

Tools in production

Languages & platforms

  • PHP
  • JavaScript
  • jQuery
  • HTML / CSS
  • SQL
  • Python
  • Linux
  • Apache
  • MariaDB / MySQL
  • Salesforce
  • Azure
  • Docker
  • Git
  • REST APIs
  • PDF tooling
  • C# expanding

Connected platforms

  • Salesforce
  • PandaDoc
  • DocuSeal
  • BambooHR
  • Nextiva
  • RingCentral
  • Stripe
  • Google Analytics / Ads
  • reCAPTCHA
  • WordPress
  • PHPMailer
  • Azure AI Foundry

About

Caleb Dorris

CDorris

Web applications developer / senior software engineer. Hendersonville, Tennessee area. Practical, polished web applications: clean interfaces, reliable PHP and JavaScript, database-driven workflows, automation, integrations, and the details that make software feel finished.

Ten-plus years in Patriot Angels engineering and IT.

Elsewhere

GitHub: federalpotato — almost everything is private.

LinkedIn for the résumé-shaped version. This page is the capability version.

Contact

Next problem

If the work is a fit, write.

Public address: himself@calebdorris.com. Experimental contact lab is also available.

A work inbox is unpublished until that is an explicit choice.

TODO(caleb): confirm whether himself@calebdorris.com stays public, or swap this block for a simple PHP form.

Email Contact lab