Kaido Toomingas
My first website came from a practical need
I built my first website around 2007 for a small forestry business I ran. I needed a website but could not afford to buy one, so I started learning and building it myself.
I started developing with Drupal when Drupal 5 was available. I built a site that I believed had the potential to grow significantly. It even received television advertising that I did not pay for separately.
When Drupal 6 came out, I broke the site during the upgrade and that opportunity fell apart. Later, I returned to Drupal. Today, an upgrade means taking a backup, trying the change in a test environment and checking important workflows before release.
My work at WebPro
My work starts with listening: what does the client want to achieve, and where does the current solution get in their way? I examine the existing system, data and dependencies before proposing a solution. I make architectural decisions and do development myself; the whole takes shape with the client, the WebPro team and other partners where needed. I use AI to explore solutions and write code and tests, check changed behaviour and important user journeys, and try to turn new observations into reusable checks.
I do not consider a change ready to publish simply because AI-generated code looks plausible.
A recent example is the Suveniiripood (opens in a new tab) package covering product-data and copy synchronisation, purchasing-journey improvements and interface changes. I directed, developed and checked this work with AI assistance. The three working days included improving search feedback: a test confirmed the missing results heading before the fix, and afterwards we checked searches both with matches and without. I describe this work in my article on changing development work.
Longer-running WebPro work includes the Palmako associated websites and Tallinn Health Care College.
A few milestones
Around 2007: I built my first website. I came to Drupal during the Drupal 5 era.
2017: I founded WebPro. The Estonian Business Register (opens in a new tab) records the company’s registration on 10 November 2017.
2020: I started teaching software development at Viljandi Vocational Training Centre, where I taught part-time for one year.
2020–2022: I worked as a software developer in the University of Tartu’s Information Technology Office. This experience also appears in my ETIS CV (opens in a new tab).
2023: I carried out contract-based Drupal development for Estonia’s Ministry of Education and Research.
Drupal and open source
My Drupal.org profile (opens in a new tab) records long-term participation in the community through modules, patches, documentation, translations and helping other developers. Public projects include Commerce order2pdf (opens in a new tab), whose project page dates back to 2012.
My public code and earlier contributions can be found on DrupalCode and GitHub.
I was also one of the people behind the idea for DrupalCamp Baltics and part of its organising team. For me, participating in the community has included both technical contributions and bringing people together.
Sharing experience despite the discomfort
I have spoken at conferences even though I felt very uncomfortable presenting. That is part of my experience as a developer too: sharing what you have learned does not have to mean feeling at ease on stage.
One of those events was DrupalCamp Spain 2019 (opens in a new tab), whose official Drupal.org event record lists me among the speakers.
Acquia’s contemporary conference recap (opens in a new tab) also mentions my talk comparing Drupal and WordPress. It covered the strengths of both systems and what the platforms and their communities could learn from each other.
Why I share my thoughts
Articles published under my name express my perspective. I write about questions developers and website owners face in practice: why an upgrade gets complicated, how to verify a solution and when new development is needed at all.
The WebPro blog also has room for other authors’ experiences and perspectives. I want to involve other contributors so that we can explore the same field from different angles.
I also write personally about AI’s impact. I have watched work shrink for myself and other developers, and seen experienced people looking for jobs. I am trying to understand what is changing, which experience we can carry forward and where there is reason for hope. I explore that in “Developer work is changing. Where does experience fit?”.
Get in touch
To discuss a Drupal project or a topic from the blog, email kaido@webpro.ee or use the contact form below.
