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18 Best Spree Commerce Developers to Watch

spree commerce developers - 18 Best Spree Commerce Developers to Watch

Spree Commerce has grown into one of the most powerful open-source e-commerce platforms—thanks to a passionate global community of developers, founders, and advocates.

This list features some of the most influential Spree contributors, including core team engineers, startup CEOs still writing code, independent evangelists, and behind-the-scenes infrastructure experts. Whether they’ve authored major Spree features, led its adoption at scale, or supported developers through documentation and forums, each of these individuals has played a critical role in shaping the platform. Below is a carefully curated list of the world’s leading Spree Commerce developers and contributors, selected for their ongoing impact on the ecosystem.

  1. Raúl Pérez-Alejo Neyra
  2. Mike Faber
  3. Tomasz Niezgoda
  4. Houtan Fanisalek
  5. Matthew Kennedy
  6. Alberto Almagro
  7. Mazen Kurdy
  8. Brock Wilcox
  9. Hussein Elsayed
  10. Jason Fleetwood-Boldt
  11. Manik Juneja
  12. Nicole Ciemniak
  13. Ryan Bigg
  14. Priyank Gupta
  15. Vishal Zambre
  16. Brian Quinn
  17. Felipe Zavan
  18. Damian Kaczmarczyk

Now, let’s delve into their profiles and contributions:

Raúl Pérez-Alejo Neyra

YouTube Video

Nationality: Spanish

Raúl is a seasoned Rails engineer and a respected Spree Commerce contributor.

He has authored and reviewed numerous pull requests improving Spree’s core and API. Raúl’s expertise in internationalization and performance tuning has been key to Spree’s evolution. Frequently spotted on Spree’s Slack and GitHub discussions, he provides guidance to newcomers.

Mike Faber

The beauty of Spree is that it’s flexible enough to support startups and scalable enough to support global brands—if you build it right.

Nationality: Polish-American

As Spree’s community evangelist and COO-turned-CEO of Vendo, Mike drives global awareness of Spree Commerce.

He co-founded Spark Solutions (now Vendo) and has been instrumental in Spree’s roadmap and partnerships. Mike champions Spree at conferences, blogs, and Slack, translating developer milestones into business value. His outreach and leadership help keep Spree’s worldwide community engaged.

Tomasz Niezgoda

Nationality: Polish

Tom is a senior Spree core team engineer, known for his deep contributions to Spree’s codebase and extensions.

As a Spark Solutions Tech Lead, he has overseen development of major features (from the new Storefront UI to API enhancements) and mentors other contributors. Tom’s practical approach and clean coding have made him a respected figure in the Spree dev community.

Houtan Fanisalek

Houtan Fanisalek - 18 Best Spree Commerce Developers to Watch

Nationality: American

Houtan is the Chief Technology Officer of eyewear startup Felix Gray, which runs on a heavily customized Spree platform.

A Columbia University CTO-in-residence, he still codes daily – co-authoring a Spree + Stripe Terminal integration gem. Houtan spoke at SpreeConf 2021 about scaling Felix Gray’s Spree store to millions in revenue. His blend of hands-on coding and tech leadership showcases Spree’s potential in startups.

Matthew Kennedy

Nationality: American

Matthew is one of Spree’s most active independent contributors.

He helped implement Spree’s mobile-first storefront (earning special thanks in release notes). A full-stack developer and frequent SpreeConf speaker, Matthew shares insights via talks and GitHub. His code contributions and community support make Spree more accessible to developers worldwide.

Alberto Almagro

Nationality: Spanish

Alberto is the co-founder of Be Bellón and a passionate Spree open-source contributor.

With a background in e-commerce startups, he still codes actively – contributing features, bug fixes, and integrations to Spree. Alberto’s work on payment gateways and multi-vendor extensions stands out. He exemplifies the startup founder who gives back to open source.

Mazen Kurdy

Mazen Kurdy - 18 Best Spree Commerce Developers to Watch

Nationality: Lebanese

Mazen is the CEO/Founder of Stylemyle, a luxury fashion marketplace built on Spree.

A former investment banker turned tech entrepreneur, Mazen remains involved in Stylemyle’s product development. He chose Spree for its flexibility and speed, enabling a multi-vendor, multi-currency platform. At SpreeConf, Mazen shared how Spree gave his startup a competitive edge in launching quickly.

Brock Wilcox

Nationality: American

Brock is the Vice President of Engineering at Framebridge, a fast-growing custom framing retailer powered by Spree.

With a background in open-source (handle “awwaiid”), he has contributed to Spree’s service-based features. Brock’s SpreeConf talk on omnichannel innovation highlighted how he integrated Spree with custom design tools. He’s an active proponent of clean code and often writes about engineering leadership.

Hussein Elsayed

Nationality: Egyptian-Canadian

Hussein, Payment Core Tech Lead at Fullscript, has leveraged Spree to build complex commerce systems.

He contributed code to Spree’s payment processing and led his company’s Spree implementation for healthcare e-commerce. A frequent conference speaker, Hussein shares advanced techniques for scaling Spree stores. His blend of corporate experience and open-source contributions enriches the Spree ecosystem.

Jason Fleetwood-Boldt

Jason Fleetwood Boldt - 18 Best Spree Commerce Developers to Watch

Nationality: American

Jason is a Rails consultant known for his extensive support of Spree users on forums and Slack.

A former Spree community manager, he contributed documentation and even a few code fixes via pull requests. Jason wrote guides on tricky Spree topics (mass product import, Heroku scaling) and often shares debugging tips on his blog. His dedication to educating and unblocking Spree developers has earned him a mentor-like status.

Manik Juneja

Nationality: Indian

Manik is the founder/CEO of VinSol and a veteran in the Spree world.

Under his leadership, VinSol (now rebranded as Stadium after an acquisition) maintained Spree and built many popular Spree extensions (Subscriptions, Wallet, Admin Roles, etc.). Manik himself wrote and reviewed significant portions of Spree code in the early 2010s. A Rails expert and speaker, he helped shape Spree’s community post-acquisition.

Nicole Ciemniak

Nationality: Polish

Nicole is a freelance developer who joined the Spree core effort to prepare the 4.5 release.

She tackled the Rails 7 upgrade and content internationalization, ensuring a smooth release. Nicole also authored guides on Spree’s new multi-language support on her blog. Her attention to detail and fresh perspective (as one of the few women in Spree’s core team) have made a notable impact.

Ryan Bigg

Ryan Bigg - 18 Best Spree Commerce Developers to Watch

Nationality: Australian

Ryan (a.k.a. “Radar”) was the top committer to Spree for many years and served as Spree’s Community Manager.

He co-authored Rails 3 in Action and wrote Spree guides that onboarded countless developers. Ryan traveled globally to speak about Spree’s architecture and authored the “Spree in a Box” deployment guide. Though he later helped fork Solidus, Ryan’s contributions – over 1,100 commits and numerous plugins – cemented Spree’s foundation.

Priyank Gupta

Nationality: Indian

Priyank is a long-time Spree core team member from the Vinsol era.

Now a Senior Developer at BigBinary, he has authored major Spree features and maintenance releases. Priyank’s contributions span from Rails 7 upgrades to refining the APIs. He’s also known for mentoring developers (he’s active on forums and Slack) and for his open-source work in Rails itself.

Vishal Zambre

Nationality: Indian

Vishal is an open-source enthusiast who has contributed to both Rails and Spree.

With deep Ruby expertise, he has fixed complex issues in Spree’s code (from API bugs to performance bottlenecks). Vishal often shares knowledge via blogging and community chats, helping developers implement Spree best practices in real-world projects.

Brian Quinn

Brian Quinn - 18 Best Spree Commerce Developers to Watch

Nationality: Irish

Brian co-founded Spree Commerce, Inc. and was its CTO, guiding development through major releases (1.x to 2.x).

An alumnus of Rails Dog, he implemented mission-critical Spree stores (e.g. for Chipotle) and helped architect Spree’s extension system. Brian’s deep understanding of scaling Rails apps informed Spree’s design for high traffic. He later led engineering at Sticker Mule and Shopify, but his early code and leadership set high standards for Spree’s code quality.

Felipe Zavan

Nationality: Brazilian

Felipe has been an invaluable community contributor, often swooping in to patch issues in Spree’s promotions and internationalization systems.

With a knack for bug-hunting, he’s submitted fixes for tricky edge cases (like coupon code edge conditions). Felipe also maintains a Spree fork for Brazilian localizations, exemplifying global open-source collaboration.

Damian Kaczmarczyk

Nationality: Polish

Known as “Vegann” on GitHub, Damian K. is a key contributor focusing on Spree’s API and backend refinements.

He co-authored the new headless Platform API and has improved webhooks and Stripe integration. Damian’s contributions ensure Spree’s API-first vision (since version 4) stays robust. His clean coding style and thorough PRs have earned him respect in the community.

Wrap Up

These legends represent exceptional talent, making them extremely challenging to headhunt. However, there are thousands of other highly skilled IT professionals available to hire with our help. Contact us, and we will be happy to discuss your hiring needs.

Note: We’ve dedicated significant time and effort to creating and verifying this curated list of top talent. However, if you believe a correction or addition is needed, feel free to reach out. We’ll gladly review and update the page.

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