Brett is available for hire
Hire BrettBrett Adams
Verified Expert in Engineering
Python Developer
Hendersonville, NC, United States
Toptal member since February 6, 2018
Bio
For the past 20 years, Brett has built his career primarily around using Python to build REST APIs, data pipelines, and desktop applications, as well as JavaScript/TypeScript to build fully-featured web apps, hybrid mobile apps, React Native apps, and APIs. Along the way, Brett has also worked on various platforms and projects using ClojureScript, Go, Java, shell scripts, 4D, and ColdFusion.
Portfolio
Banzai
Amazon Web Services (AWS), PostgreSQL, Clojure, React Native...
EmbraerX | Beacon
GraphQL, Expo, React Native, React, Clojure, Python, Amazon Web Services (AWS)...
University of Colorado Boulder
Amazon Web Services (AWS), Data Pipelines, Docker, Terraform, Spark, Pandas...
Experience
- Python - 15 years
- Full-stack Development - 15 years
- React Native - 6 years
- Clojure - 6 years
- REST APIs - 6 years
- TypeScript - 6 years
- React - 5 years
- GraphQL - 4 years
Work Experience
Senior Software Engineer
2024 - PRESENT
Banzai
- Led the development of Pendant (pendant.io), an employee benefits guide. Pendant is a server-rendered web application built with Clojure and PostgreSQL as the core technologies and running in AWS.
- Created the Pendant mobile app using React Native and built out the back-end services needed to drive the app.
- Re-architected an AI-driven chat application that helps users better understand their benefits and drive health care decisions, like which medical plan to choose, based on a user's personal needs.
Technologies: Amazon Web Services (AWS), PostgreSQL, Clojure, React Native, Web App Development, Full-stack Development, Claude Code, Mobile Development, CI/CD Pipelines, Distributed Systems, Technical Leadership, Architecture, Concurrency, Full-stack, API Development, Back-end Development, Front-end Development, Back-end APIs, GitHub Actions, HTMX, Amazon Route 53, Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), Back-end, Retrieval-augmented Generation (RAG), AI Workflow, Claude, SaaS, Security, OpenAI, Gemini
Software Engineer III | Back-end Lead
2020 - 2024
EmbraerX | Beacon
- Led the back-end team in building and designing a GraphQL API and related services using Clojure that supported our flagship mobile and web apps.
- Built AWS environments from scratch using Terraform/CDKTF, including services such as ECS/Fargate, Amplify, EC2, S3, SQS, Event Bridge Scheduler, Lambda, RDS, and Route53.
- Created the internal admin tool for our product using Clojure to deliver server-rendered pages. Used HTMX and Alpine for interactivity.
- Ported an MVP app that was React and React Native-based to a universal app using React Native Web to share the code between native and web in a single codebase.
Technologies: GraphQL, Expo, React Native, React, Clojure, Python, Amazon Web Services (AWS), PostgreSQL, Python 3, SQL, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), MacOS, Terraform, GitHub Actions, HTMX, Alpine.js, Cloud Architecture, Technical Leadership, API Integration, Full-stack Development, Mobile Development, CI/CD Pipelines, Distributed Systems, Architecture, Concurrency, Full-stack, API Development, Back-end Development, Front-end Development, Back-end APIs, Amazon Route 53, Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), Back-end, SaaS, Security
Freelance Senior Software Developer
2018 - 2020
University of Colorado Boulder
- Built a distributed data pipeline using Airflow, Python, and various AWS services, including ECS/Fargate, Lambda, Glue, and S3, and provisioned with Terraform. The pipeline was well-tested using Tox, Pytest, and Coverage.py.
- Created an anonymization framework for anonymizing confidential data using Pandas.
- Converted and modernized legacy SAS scripts into data transformations running in Spark.
- Developed a data API using the Serverless Framework and deployed it to AWS Lambda. The API was fully tested with Pytest and Tox.
- Helped support a React-based web app for managing data permissions and integrating it with Tableau.
Technologies: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Data Pipelines, Docker, Terraform, Spark, Pandas, Python, Flask, Apache Airflow, REST APIs, PostgreSQL, Python 3, Node.js, SQL, Agile, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), MacOS, Cloud Architecture, Technical Leadership, API Integration, Full-stack Development, Distributed Systems, Architecture, Concurrency, Full-stack, Apache Spark, PySpark, Spark SQL, API Development, Back-end Development, Back-end APIs, AWS Glue, Back-end
Senior Software Developer
2017 - 2018
BuildStar Technologies
- Created a hybrid mobile app using the Ionic framework to extend a legacy web app.
- Added API endpoints to the existing ColdFusion back end as needed.
- Assisted with testing and management of Kubernetes-based back end and built scripts.
Technologies: Cordova, Angular, TypeScript, Ionic, MacOS, API Integration, Full-stack Development, Mobile Development, Full-stack, Front-end Development, SaaS
Senior Software Developer
2014 - 2017
Untappd
- Rewrote the Untappd mobile app using Ionic, Angular, TypeScript, and Cordova.
- Worked with three other developers to create the Untappd for the business platform using Ruby on Rails.
- Created the API and back-end services to support the Next Glass mobile app using Python, Flask, SQLAlchemy, and PostgreSQL.
- Developed a distributed image processing pipeline using Python, Celery, Redis, Amazon S3, Amazon SQS, and Cloudinary.
Technologies: Flask, Angular, Ionic, JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, REST APIs, SQLAlchemy, PostgreSQL, Redis, Node.js, SQL, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), MacOS, API Integration, Full-stack Development, Mobile Development, Distributed Systems, Architecture, Concurrency, Full-stack, Front-end Development, Go, SaaS
Lead Software Developer
2012 - 2013
AcctVantage ERP
- Led a three-person development team to help expand a small business ERP application using the 4D language, database, and development environment.
- Built a modern REST API server from scratch on top of our legacy ERP system to enable the company to expand beyond our existing product line.
- Integrated the Magento web store into our application with a custom SOAP communication library to create a two-way communication channel between our product and the online web store using the Magento SOAP API.
Technologies: Sencha Touch, Angular, MacOS, Technical Leadership, Full-stack Development, Mobile Development, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Full-stack, API Development, Back-end Development, Back-end APIs, Back-end
Curator of Collections
2010 - 2012
Naples Botanical Garden
- Created a responsive web app using Python, Flask, and PostgreSQL to allow garden staff to manage the garden's plant collections in the field.
- Wrote plant accession and management policies for a living plant collection.
- Consulted with the horticultural team about the maintenance, care, and health of the garden's plant collection.
Technologies: ArcGIS, BG-BASE, Google App Engine, Heroku, Python, Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
Technical Support Specialist | Foreman of the Garden
2002 - 2010
Belize Botanic Gardens
- Created Bauble which is an open-source, cross-platform desktop application for managing plant collections.
- Managed the internal network of Linux and Windows computers with Active Directory.
- Managed all plant records for the garden including the accessioning, species determinations, and mapping of thousands of individual plants.
Technologies: SQLite, MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLAlchemy, PyGTK, Python
Software Developer
2000 - 2001
Flavor Software
- Implemented the MPEG-J standard of the MPEG-4 specification to allowing interactive video files by programmatically manipulating the video's scene graph.
Technologies: C++, JNI, Java
Project History
Sepal
http://sepal.appSepal is a web application for managing plant records for botanical gardens, herbaria, or arboreta. It is open source and freely available to anyone, but also available as a hosted service at https://sepal.app.
Clojure Land
https://clojure.landClojure Land is a site to help Clojure developer search for and discover open source libraries. It is rebuilt daily from publicly available Clojure project data. The official Clojure language site at https://clojure.org links to Clojure Land as one of the go-to sites for finding Clojure libraries.
Untappd Mobile App
While working at Untapped, I led the development of a group-up rewrite of the mobile app and its release into the Google Play and Apple App stores. The app was rewritten in Ionic and successfully launched to a million active users.
Bauble
Bauble is a desktop application that helps botanic gardens manage their plant records. It was created using Python, PyGTK, SQLAlchemy, PostgreSQL, MySQL, and SQLite.
I founded this project and released it as open-source software. It has since been taken over by a small community of developers.
I founded this project and released it as open-source software. It has since been taken over by a small community of developers.
Education
1995 - 2000
Bachelor of Science Degree in Computer Science (Minor in Mathematics)
University of North Texas - Denton, TX, USA
Skills
Libraries/APIs
Vue, SQLAlchemy, REST APIs, Lodash, React, API Development, Back-end APIs, RxJS, Node.js, HTMX, ArcGIS, Pandas, PyGTK, PySpark
Tools
Apache Airflow, Pytest, Terraform, Boto, Boto 3, Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS), Emacs, Celery, Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), Claude Code, Claude, Expo, AWS Glue, Spark SQL
Languages
TypeScript, JavaScript, Python, GraphQL, Python 3, HTML, Clojure, CSS, Java, C++, Ruby, Go, SQL, C
Frameworks
Flask, Ionic, Angular, React Native, ClojureScript, JNI, Sencha Touch, Ruby on Rails (RoR), Django, Spark, Alpine.js, Apache Spark
Platforms
Heroku, Firebase, Google App Engine, Docker, Amazon Web Services (AWS), MacOS, Linux, Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
Paradigms
ETL, Mobile Development, Agile, Functional Programming
Storage
SQLite, PostgreSQL, Redis, Data Pipelines, MySQL, Google Cloud, Amazon S3 (AWS S3)
Other
Architecture, APIs, Back-end, API Integration, Full-stack Development, Full-stack, Back-end Development, Front-end Development, Firebase Cloud Functions, Google Cloud Functions, Cloudinary, Cordova, Concurrency, GitHub Actions, Software Design, Technical Leadership, FastAPI, Cloud Architecture, CI/CD Pipelines, Distributed Systems, AI Workflow, SaaS, Security, OpenAI, Gemini, BG-BASE, Amazon Route 53, Motif, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Web App Development, Fly.io, Retrieval-augmented Generation (RAG)
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