AJ ONeal
Verified Expert in Engineering
Software Developer
Provo, UT, United States
Toptal member since October 22, 2020
AJ is an accomplished senior software engineer with 15 years of experience in applying cutting-edge technologies. He has worked on projects for Apple, Intel, and Sonos, and he specializes in APIs, IoT, authentication, and network protocols, such as OpenID Connect (OIDC) and Multicast DNS (mDNS). AJ also has a decade of experience in Go and Node.js, he is familiar with Rust, and versed in UX (not UI).
Portfolio
Experience
- Linux - 15 years
- Node.js - 10 years
- Go - 10 years
- Let's Encrypt - 5 years
- JSON Web Tokens (JWT) - 5 years
- OpenID Connect (OIDC) - 4 years
- Multicast DNS (mDNS) - 2 years
- Rust - 1 year
Work Experience
Software Engineering and Product Consultant
Freelance
- Created the audio-mixing service that powers Sonos Radio, using Rust and Node.js.
- Developed a network solution in Go to tunnel multiplexed connections between private offices for healthcare patient data without requiring admin access.
- Created an IoT system for clean-room environments at Intel, using Go.
- Led the team at Savvi.legal in defining "Feature Complete" and creating the product roadmap, which is currently in development.
- Spearheaded a user experience review of the product for which design changes are in progress.
Senior Go Engineer
Big Squid
- Led the team in refactoring existing Go code for production deployment.
- Developed and deployed a hybrid Go-Python solution for scaling machine learning deployments to multiple nodes simultaneously while maintaining internal states.
- Created a streamlined database interface for integrating with multiple traditional and business intelligence databases for machine learning and ETL.
Chief Technology Officer
Daplie, Inc
- Crafted the product vision, brand, and principal copy used for funding campaigns, leading to over $2,000,000 in capital raised.
- Drafted and led the technical team in creating a functional, secure in-home server that used a variety of IoT-ified DevOps, cloud, and auto-discovery technologies and security mechanisms, including DNS, mDNS, VPN, SOCKS5, OIDC, and Let's Encrypt.
- Created a domain reseller API to automate device setup with custom user-owned domains, which was created in part to avoid legal issues related to user content.
- Developed Greenlock.js, the most popular Let's Encrypt client for Node.js.
Software Engineering and Product Consultant
AJ ONeal Tech LLC
- Consulted with Auction Mobility to create a real-time auction control panel for auction clerks, using WebSockets and Node.js. Architected the REST API and WebSockets integration for the mobile apps and recruited a full-time Node.js developer.
- Worked with a company that manufactured IoT HVAC controllers (similar to, but long before, Nest), debugging an existing Node.js application to fix various connectivity and SQL database issues.
- Contributed bugfix patches and documentation to Node.js core, including the fs and URL query packages.
- Guest lectured at Utah Valley University, DevMountain, and General Assembly and delivered numerous Linux and JavaScript-related talks at UtahJS, Open West, and other conferences.
Lead Software Engineer
SpotterRF
- Bet on HTML5 and won. The web-based mapping and tracking application developed under my direction was such a good user experience that our military partners were able to get special permission to use Firefox instead of Internet Explorer.
- Reverse-engineered the Google Maps tile system to make our offline image caching system compatible with it as well as Yahoo and Bing maps.
- Created the prototype and directed development of a DD-WRT-based IoT gateway for integrating our product with other vendors in harsh network environments.
- Worked with various ARM SoC toolchains for prototype and production devices. Created patches for compiling Node.js on ARM and with OpenEmbedded and Raspberry Pi toolchains.
Project History
Telebit
PocketID (In Development)
Greenlock
Education
Associate's Degree in Computer Science
Brigham Young University - Provo, UT, USA
Technical Vocational Training in Information Technology
Newport News Aviation Academy - Newport News, VA, USA
Certifications
Network+
CompTIA
Linux+
CompTIA
Skills
Libraries/APIs
Node.js, REST APIs, OpenID, Socket.IO, Pandas
Tools
Let's Encrypt, Vim Text Editor, VPN, Domo
Languages
Go, JavaScript, Bash, Rust, JavaScript 5, ES5, Python, Snowflake, A+, Bash Script
Frameworks
JSON Web Tokens (JWT), Vanilla JS, OAuth 2, AngularJS
Paradigms
REST, ASN.1, Human-computer Interaction (HCI), DevOps
Platforms
Linux, MacOS, ARM Linux, Web
Storage
JSON, SQLite, PostgreSQL, Redshift, MySQL
Other
OpenID Connect (OIDC), HTTPS, APIs, OAuth, Multicast DNS (mDNS), Transport Layer Security (TLS), DNS, RSA, Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA), IoT Security, Networks, Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), UDP, TCP/IP, HTTP, Product Engineering Methodology (PEM), JavaScript Object Signing and Encryption (JOSE), JSON Web Key (JWK), ARM SoC, WebSockets, DNS Servers, Proxy Servers, SOCKS5, SSH, Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), Networking, CompTIA Network+ Certification, User Experience (UX), Information Technology, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Crypto, IT, JSON Web Signature (JWS), Full-stack
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