Hi, I’m Matiss Gaigals

👋 I build software that solves real business problems. I'm a Ruby on Rails engineer with over 6 years of hands-on development experience and over a decade in business development and strategic planning. My work bridges the gap between robust engineering and real-world business impact.

Whether it’s scaling a backend system, refactoring legacy code, or launching a new feature, I approach development with the mindset of a product owner: focused on value, performance, and the customer experience.

Before moving full-time into tech, I led advertising business growth at Helio Media, partnering with global media brands like Fox, Viacom and Discovery, building IT platforms, and negotiating strategic deals. This background helps me code with context—always asking “what problem are we solving?” and “how does this help the business grow?”

🛠 You can explore:

📝 My Blog – Thoughts on software engineering, productivity, and tools
📂 Projects – Highlights of what I’ve built
💼 About Me – Skills, experience, and personal interests

Baltic Ruby 2025 — A Few Hours Well Spent

From June 12-14, 2025, the Baltic Ruby conference took place in Riga, Latvia (EU), bringing together Rubyists from across the region. The speaker lineup looked fantastic, and I was excited to attend. Unfortunately, my master’s thesis defense fell on June 13, so I could only join for a few hours on the final day. Even with limited time, my impression was overwhelmingly positive - the event was well-organized, and I felt a bit unlucky to have missed the first two days. ...

Beyond the Code: Why Developers Should Understand the Business Behind the Product

As software engineers, we often pride ourselves on writing clean code, optimizing queries, or mastering the latest frameworks. But after six years in engineering and over a decade in business development and strategic planning, I’ve learned something that’s equally valuable: understanding the business behind the product can be a developer’s unfair advantage. Before transitioning into tech, I spent years leading business development at Helio Media — negotiating media deals with global partners like Fox, Viacom, and Discovery, and launching scalable digital products. That experience gave me a deep appreciation for how revenue models, customer behavior, and market timing shape every product decision. ...

AI-Assisted Error Mitigation in Enterprise Systems: My Master’s Thesis

Mistakes and errors are inevitable in enterprise systems. Developers introduce bugs, product teams make imperfect decisions, and users sometimes perform unexpected actions that cause data inconsistencies. Once such errors leave development and reach staging or production, the cost of mitigation grows — requiring coordination between multiple teams and risking business disruption. For my Master’s thesis in Business Informatics at Riga Technical University, I explored innovative methods to address functionality gaps, data integrity violations, and system interoperability issues resulting from these types of errors. ...