Charles Hughes, Developer in Oakland, CA, United States
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Charles Hughes

Software Engineer and Developer

Oakland, CA, United States

Toptal member since March 12, 2026

Expertise
JavaScriptReact.jsTypeScriptGraphQLPythonD3.jsSoftware DevelopmentPostgreSQLAWS LambdaAWS IAMReduxMongoDBCSlack Development
Bio

Charles is a senior web applications engineer with over 14 years of experience in the software industry. They possess deep front-end expertise from years of practice and intentional skill development. They also have back-end proficiency through professional experience. Charles also has particular experience in building and maintaining authentication and authorization systems.

Portfolio

Binti
JavaScript, Ruby on Rails 8, PostgreSQL, React, Apollo Client, Cypress...
Zillow
JavaScript, TypeScript, React, Apollo Client, GraphQL, AWS Lambda, AWS IAM...
ThousandEyes
Angular 15, D3.js, Redux, JavaScript, MongoDB

Experience

  • JavaScript - 12 years
  • React - 8 years
  • TypeScript - 8 years
  • Apollo Client - 6 years
  • Cypress - 6 years
  • GraphQL - 6 years
  • Ruby on Rails 8 - 3 years

Preferred Environment

Slack, Jira, Asana

The most amazing...

...solution I've developed is a cross-agency permissions system that allows social workers to collaborate more effectively.

Work Experience

Senior Software Engineer

2022 - 2025
Binti
  • Led the development of a cross-agency permissions system enabling secure data sharing between social services organizations.
  • Maintained a core authentication system and SSO integrations with zero downtime during a major refactor.
  • Built new user interfaces and refactored legacy UI code with React and Apollo Client, delivering highly maintainable, performant, and decoupled front-end architecture.
  • Mentored engineers on Apollo Client, React, and Cypress through technical talks and code review.
Technologies: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails 8, PostgreSQL, React, Apollo Client, Cypress, Playwright, Devise

Software Engineer

2018 - 2022
Zillow
  • Designed and built an automated test data inventory system serving multiple teams across the company.
  • Developed features for web products with React, precisely matching technical and design specifications through close collaboration with product and design teams.
  • Created and delivered internal technical training workshop on modern web development practices.
  • Served as a tech lead for a CCPA data compliance service handling the majority of Trulia's privacy requirements, using Node.js, Serverless, and AWS Lambda.
Technologies: JavaScript, TypeScript, React, Apollo Client, GraphQL, AWS Lambda, AWS IAM, Ramda

Software Engineer

2014 - 2018
ThousandEyes
  • Built custom data visualizations using D3.js for a network monitoring dashboard.
  • Led a front-end architecture migration to Redux, improving state management with minimal regressions.
  • Identified and resolved a critical data processing bug affecting multiple product features.
Technologies: Angular 15, D3.js, Redux, JavaScript, MongoDB

Software Engineer

2012 - 2014
Cummins Allison
  • Developed an SQL Server CE ORM and database migration tool in C++ using Microsoft's OLEDB API.
  • Created an STL-like tree container library and smart pointer library from scratch.
  • Optimized an underperforming C server through deep analysis and conversion to a robust C++ implementation.
  • Refactored and debugged large legacy C++ codebases.
Technologies: C++98, C

Experience

Calendarbot

https://github.com/chughes87/calendarbot
This was a simple project I built to fulfill my own needs at the time. I switched to a dumb phone that didn't have a calendar app at the time. I decided to make a tool that would send me a text message via Twilio at the 45th minute of each hour if I had a calendar event the following hour. This was a basic exercise in setting up a scheduled job and integrating services.

Education

2006 - 2011

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Engineering

University of Illinois at Chicago - Chicago, IL, USA

Skills

Libraries/APIs

React, Apollo Client, Ramda, Playwright, D3.js, Devise, Node.js

Tools

AWS IAM, Slack, Jira, Asana

Languages

JavaScript, TypeScript, GraphQL, C++98, C

Frameworks

Cypress, Angular 15, Redux

Platforms

Embedded System Design (ESD), AWS Lambda

Storage

PostgreSQL, MongoDB

Other

Ruby on Rails 8, Software Development

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