GraV-IT

About

I build durable software for people who'd rather pay once than rent forever.

I'm Stephen Gravitt, a senior software developer based in the United States. Grav-IT is my one-person consultancy — running since August 2013, 12+ years and counting.

The work I take on tends to fall into three shapes:

  • Custom WordPress at scale — multi-brand multisite frameworks, ACF-driven themes, and custom Gutenberg block libraries for civic, hospitality, and care-services clients.
  • Laravel SaaS engineering — API architecture, OAuth flows, encryption middleware, queue infrastructure, and CI/CD discipline for products where the codebase has to last.
  • Direct-to-client consultancy through Grav-IT — mostly for non-profits and mission-driven organizations. Pacific Zen Institute has been a long anchor here — a non-profit content library running on a custom paywall, donation pipeline, and QuickBooks integration I built and maintain.

Pragmatic about stack. WordPress earns its keep more often than people expect — after 12+ years inside it I can usually tell in the first conversation. But it isn't always the right call, and AI has shifted which lighter stacks are reachable for which jobs. Laravel is excellent for APIs and single-app SaaS, though often overkill for what a project actually needs. React with TypeScript and a NoSQL backend fits plenty of app shapes too. The point isn't a default stack — it's picking what fits the project.

Accessibility as default, not bolt-on. WCAG Level A/AA is the floor I ship to. Markup, contrast, keyboard paths — built in from the start, not retrofitted.

I report problems early. The real damage pattern in this work isn't a missed deadline — it's the developer who goes quiet when something gets hard. When I hit something I don't know, you'll hear it from me before it costs you a sprint.

AI is part of the daily workflow now. I use Claude Code as the execution layer — I define the architecture and the brief, structure the context, let the model generate, then read every line against the framework's actual patterns. The AI ships fast; my job is to make sure what ships is correct.

Native English, fluent Spanish.

Talk to me

The fastest path is a short paragraph about what you're trying to do via the contact page.