Bret Hall
Verified Expert in Engineering
C# Developer
Palm Harbor, FL, United States
Toptal member since April 1, 2021
Bret has nearly 20 years of experience in software and database development, mostly in the Microsoft stack. He has worked on projects ranging from APIs and hosted services to Windows Forms and WPF apps. Bret has served as an architect, a team lead, and an engineering manager, and he enjoys discussing and iterating on software design and design patterns.
Portfolio
Experience
- C# - 19 years
- Microsoft SQL Server - 15 years
- ASP.NET Web Forms - 10 years
- ASP.NET Core - 4 years
- TypeScript - 4 years
- Angular - 3 years
- Ionic - 2 years
- Azure - 2 years
Preferred Environment
ASP.NET Core, Microsoft SQL Server, Visual Studio, ASP.NET Web Forms, C#
The most amazing...
...thing I've created was a barcode scanning app that used heuristics to scan through millions of pages for barcodes, then scan them to classify paper documents.
Work Experience
Principal Architect
Freelance Clients
- Created the initiative and proof of concept for moving mobile apps away from native frameworks and toward Ionic, Angular, and progressive web applications (PWAs).
- Worked on enterprise software PoCs, including a high-volume cloud notification service.
- Created developer and QA tools to improve the product testing velocity and experience.
.NET Developer
Digital Principles Corporation
- Created a user portal for insurance customers to log into and view their coverage.
- Helped modify administrative tools to handle changing user plans and billing.
- Integrated the new insurance customer portal with the administrative portal, pulling necessary data back and forth.
Senior Lead Engineer
Freelance Clients
- Developed a dynamic filtering and rules engine that allowed nontechnical staff to create custom logic for customer marketing and alerts.
- Collaborated with other management and staff to push new training and onboarding initiatives forward.
- Modernized hiring practices and helped lead the hiring efforts for new engineers.
- Managed engineers from several product teams, enabling them to create features in their product areas with modern software architecture and design.
Principal Software Engineer
Freelance Clients
- Created a custom Windows SQL Management Studio-like application for querying data across the company's custom data back end.
- Led a team of developers, helping to make strategic and technological decisions that best fit our product and our platform, and mentored younger developers.
- Maintained and improved the customer voice call system, creating a simpler footprint configuration for FreeSWITCH installations.
Senior Software Engineer
Freelance Clients
- Designed and maintained systems for alerts and marketing to customers based on predefined business rules.
- Created developer tools that improved testing and development workflows.
- Improved system configurations and data migration systems.
Software Developer
Market Probe
- Developed custom, dynamic web reporting software that allowed customers to dive into survey data and response commentary for their companies.
- Spearheaded .NET adoption in the company, converting legacy apps from classic ASP, Excel, and Access VBA into ASP.NET and Microsoft SQL Server.
- Assisted in creating integrations from our call centers into dynamic reporting, thereby speeding up the delivery of data.
Software Development Contractor
DDH Web
- Developed a Flash site front end that pulled content dynamically from a custom CMS written in PHP.
- Created a custom marketplace product rating system, using C# as the back end and JavaScript on the front end.
- Developed a custom merchant website selling easy access to custom legal forms.
Experience
Dynamic Templating System
Alarm App for Retirement Homes
Dynamic Customer Filter
Education
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science
Louisiana State University - Baton Rouge, LA, USA
Skills
Libraries/APIs
ASPX, REST APIs, Entity Framework, Windows Forms (WinForms), jQuery, AWS Amplify
Tools
Visual Studio, Microsoft Visual Studio, Git, Docker Compose, Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM), FreeSWITCH, Flash
Languages
C#, C#.NET, SQL, TypeScript, CSS, HTML, C, JavaScript, Visual Basic
Frameworks
ASP.NET Core, ASP.NET Web Forms, .NET Core, .NET, .NET 6, .NET 5, ASP.NET Web API, ASP.NET, ASP.NET MVC, Entity, Entity Framework Core, Angular, Ionic, OAuth 2, Bootstrap, Razor Pages, Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Razor
Paradigms
REST, Web Architecture, Agile Software Development, RESTful Development, DevOps, Continuous Integration (CI)
Storage
Microsoft SQL Server, JSON, NoSQL, Couchbase, MongoDB, Redis, MySQL
Platforms
Azure, Software Design Patterns, Docker, Twilio, Android, Azure Functions, iOS
Other
APIs, Algorithms, Architecture, Azure Bicep, Performance, OAuth, Azure Service Bus, Authentication
How to Work with Toptal
Toptal matches you directly with global industry experts from our network in hours—not weeks or months.
Share your needs
Choose your talent
Start your risk-free talent trial
Top talent is in high demand.
Start hiring