I'm Ivan Ponamarev. I modernize legacy e-commerce platforms without breaking the business.
I'm a Senior Full-Stack Developer with over 10 years of experience shipping high-load, search-driven e-commerce platforms. My current focus is taking heavy legacy stacks — typically 1C-Bitrix or Laravel monoliths — and decoupling them into modern headless applications on Next.js + Elasticsearch, without losing SEO rankings or interrupting the cash flow.
I'm currently a Senior / Lead Full-Stack Developer at WebGoodPeople, where I design headless architectures and Elasticsearch-based filtering for international e-commerce projects. Before that I led the technical direction at Senat, worked on high-load portals at the SPb Information and Analytical Center, and started my career building corporate systems at Malahit.
I don't ship rewrites for the sake of fashion. My approach is pragmatic engineering over blind hype: keep the backend that already makes money, replace only what actually slows the business down, and migrate piece by piece behind a clean API. The result is architecture that survives traffic spikes and a team that doesn't burn out.
Recent example: I decoupled a 28,000-product 1C-Bitrix store with complex regional logic. We kept the stable PHP backend, built a Next.js + Elasticsearch frontend layer, and got instant filtering, instant navigation, and 100% SEO preservation — no big-bang rewrites.
I'm open to Senior / Lead roles, remote worldwide or with relocation. If you have a legacy platform that needs to go fast without going down, let's talk.
Ways to work together
Where I am useful to a team or founder
I fit best when there is a working product, a legacy layer and a risky rewrite on the table. I start by finding what already makes money, separate must-have scope from optional work, define acceptance criteria and propose the safest next step.
Senior / Lead role
I take ownership of a complex area: PHP/Bitrix/Laravel backend, Next.js frontend, releases, reviews and production stability.
Architecture review
I review rewrite ideas, API boundaries, search, cache and SEO risks, then turn them into a compact plan instead of a 100-page document.
Founder / CTO partner
I help make the technical decision before a contract, hire or large budget: what to keep, what to decouple and what to test in a small scope.
When this is a good fit
- You have a working e-commerce or B2B platform, but releases, search, SEO or performance are starting to limit growth.
- The team is choosing between a risky rewrite, step-by-step modernization and a new vendor, and needs a sober technical review.
- You need a senior engineer or a small work slice to test the workflow quality before committing a larger budget.
What you can verify before a call
28,000 SKU
Hands-on experience decoupling a 1C-Bitrix catalog into Next.js + Elasticsearch without a big-bang rewrite.
SEO-safe rollout
I work with URL structure, indexability, staging checks and reversible releases, not only the UI layer.
Small work slice
For new teams I prefer a short, verifiable scope so risk, quality and pace are visible before a large budget.
Where to start
Hiring / role
Write to me directly: we can discuss the team context, stack, expectations and senior/lead format.
Architecture review
Best when you need to check a rewrite decision, API boundaries, search, SEO and release risks quickly.
WGP Catalog Probe
For 1C-Bitrix e-commerce: a compact commercial review of catalog, search, integrations, scope and the next work slice without promising a fixed custom-work price before discovery.