
Dattu Patel
Verified Expert in Engineering
Full-stack Developer
Toronto, ON, Canada
Toptal member since April 13, 2022
Since 2008, Dattu has architected enterprise-grade systems for global leaders, including TD Bank, Hearst, CBC, and Altus Group. As a principal architect, he specializes in React/Next.js and C#/.NET ecosystems, driving digital transformation and technical strategy. Dattu excels at governing complex front-end architectures, mitigating technical risk, and scaling engineering teams through advanced mentorship and rigorous performance and WCAG accessibility standards.
Portfolio
Experience
- JavaScript - 15 years
- CSS - 15 years
- HTML - 15 years
- Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) - 5 years
- React - 5 years
- Node.js - 4 years
- Tailwind CSS - 3 years
- Next.js - 3 years
Preferred Environment
Visual Studio Code (VS Code), MacOS
The most amazing...
...was architecting an enterprise dynamic form engine in React that eliminated custom development for new workstreams and standardized data intake globally.
Work Experience
Front-end Developer
Toptal Client
- Architected a high-performance media delivery platform using React and Next.js, implementing advanced caching strategies and SSR (Server-Side Rendering) to achieve industry-leading Core Web Vitals benchmarks.
- Engineered a highly customized headless CMS architecture via Payload CMS, overcoming core framework limitations by developing 10+ proprietary custom fields and complex data models to support dynamic, media-rich content workstreams.
- Pioneered a component-driven development (CDD) workflow by integrating Storybook, establishing a robust library of isolated, reusable UI primitives that accelerated feature delivery and ensured visual consistency across all landing page assets.
- Spearheaded an AI-driven POC integrating Gemini Pro and YouTube APIs to automate video transcription and interactive chat; implemented a vector database (Postgres/pgvector) for sophisticated retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) capabilities.
- Designed a real-time token telemetry dashboard and financial forecasting panel to monitor LLM consumption and operational costs, ensuring the scalability and fiscal viability of AI integrations.
- Developed a robust synchronization engine to manage high-frequency data streams between the YouTube API and internal databases, utilizing advanced state management to ensure data consistency and system resilience.
Front-end Developer
Fellowship of Catholic University Students - IT
- Engineered complex search and discovery interfaces for parish data, implementing robust schema validation via Zod and React Hook Form to ensure high-fidelity data capture for critical fundraising workflows.
- Optimized the enterprise testing suite by re-engineering Jest configurations and achieving near-total code coverage, significantly reducing regression risks and enhancing long-term system maintainability.
- Elevated code quality through rigorous architectural peer reviews while performing targeted full-stack enhancements within the Laravel back-end to ensure seamless API integration and staging stability.
Front-end Engineer (via Toptal)
Gartner - Engineering
- Orchestrated the front-end evolution of 'AskGartner,' a flagship generative AI interface, engineering high-concurrency chat components and state management patterns to deliver a seamless, low-latency LLM user experience.
- Masterminded a comprehensive structural refactoring of the core codebase, implementing modular design patterns and separation of concerns that drastically reduced technical debt and optimized client-side execution speeds.
- Institutionalized a standardized design system via Storybook, facilitating rapid UI prototyping and ensuring visual consistency across the generative AI suite while streamlining the hand-off between design and engineering.
- Solidified system reliability by architecting a rigorous automated testing framework with 500+ unit tests, achieving near-total code coverage and establishing an enterprise-grade stability baseline for rapid feature iteration.
Staff Software Engineer
KEV Group
- Architected and governed the enterprise React component ecosystem, leveraging Lerna and Storybook to distribute a standardized UI/UX framework that accelerated development velocity across all business units.
- Engineered a flagship, high-concurrency dynamic form engine with complex drag-and-drop orchestration and real-time cross-platform previews, serving as the core revenue-driving tool for the organization.
- Directed the architectural overhaul of the District Catalog, implementing a modular widget injection pattern that enabled seamless feature extensibility and concurrent data processing at scale.
- Established and enforced enterprise-wide React standards, executing large-scale structural refactors to ensure all mission-critical projects met elite benchmarks for code quality and maintainability.
- Cultivated a high-performing engineering culture by mentoring senior and junior talent, institutionalizing advanced React patterns, and leading knowledge-sharing sessions to bridge technical skill gaps.
- Partnered with design leadership to codify an enterprise Design System, ensuring 100% visual fidelity and accessibility compliance across the product suite through a shared library of primitives.
- Designed a high-performance data visualization engine for real-time resource management, utilizing advanced virtualization and CSS orchestration to handle massive, interactive datasets with zero latency.
Senior React Engineer
Hearst - eCommerce Tower Project
- Engineered high-performance React components and custom hooks integrated with a complex GraphQL data layer, optimizing data fetching patterns for enterprise eCommerce at scale.
- Modernized the styling architecture by implementing a utility-first Tailwind CSS framework while ensuring 100% WCAG and AODA compliance for a global, inclusive consumer experience.
- Architected automated content migration scripts and sophisticated Contentful data models, streamlining the headless CMS pipeline across multi-tenant environments to enhance editor velocity.
- Served as a strategic technical consultant, conducting deep-dive architectural research to resolve complex engineering bottlenecks and providing executive-level technical roadmaps.
Front-end (React) Developer
DocuSign Inc - Main
- Added new features and modified existing components to add additional functionalities in React, TypeScript, and styled-components.
- Added detailed storybook stories with proper descriptions and controls as a way to document the components and how to use them fully.
- Reviewed pull requests and provided appropriate feedback and suggestions.
Senior Developer
Informco
- Developed the enterprise-wide iLibrary web application to manage PDFs, permissions, and roles. This application is used to maintain client PDF forms and documents, which get processed and sent over to the print shop.
- Built new features to manage a list of subscriptions and options available throughout the application by adding new UIs and related APIs. Added and updated API endpoints to CRUD data based on user and client permissions and roles.
- Acted as the lead developer for a centralized PDF system microservice with PDFsharp and Pdfium. This microservice is used to extract fillable fields, add watermark to PDF documents, and rasterize documents.
- Enhanced the existing email microservice and added email queue processing, link tracking, and open tracking.
- Maintained a previous version of the iLibrary web application and the legacy system that used database first code and ported it over to a code first project.
Senior Developer
Altus Group
- Developed the multilingual enterprise-wide Altus Group tax appeal and recommendation portal used to maintain numerous data points for client properties and appeals for property taxations.
- Enhanced the Elasticsearch generation, search code in C#.NET, UI, and UX based on the provided requirements and feedback.
- Reviewed pull requests and created release code for deployment to various environments, more specifically, the front end of the website.
Application Developer
DAC
- Developed and maintained the social media engagement web portal, specifically the front end. This application periodically retrieved content from clients' various social media accounts and displayed it in a single portal for easy engagement.
- Architected and acted as the lead developer of a centralized email notifications microservice with audit logging. This microsystem was crated with C# scripting, SQL (including sharding), Azure elastic pool, Azure Function app, and Azure Service Bus.
- Developed and architected the second version of the social media engagement API, a microsystem crated with C# scripting, SQL (including sharding), Azure elastic pool, Azure Function app, and Azure Service Bus.
- Performed tasks as a team lead, including distributing tasks and guiding and mentoring junior developers. Completed periodic code reviews for quality control of code, conducted QA tests, and assisted the QA tester with various testing scenarios.
Senior Developer
CBC
- Developed the main internal news and resource portal for CBC employees, including a basic CMS. The main content was hosted in Polopoly CMS, and we queried content via the Polopoly APIs and Solr queries in C#.NET API.
- Architected and coded the new HR portal for CBC employees, including a basic CMS. This portal included all the features of the existing portals and new features. Maintained strict security measures for accessing only authorized data.
- Acted as the lead developer and architected an idea accelerator web application initially for CBC employees but eventually for all Canadians. It had an admin panel where admins could manage new seasons and facilitate judging and announcements.
- Developed and architected the pbi2016.ca website, a one-stop information and registration portal for the 2016 Public Broadcasters International conference.
Web Developer
The Source
- Led the development of the front-end of a web-based portal for customer representatives. The front end was created using HTML5, CSS3 (Stylus), and JavaScript.
- Collaborated with a partner team on the front end of the new thesource.ca website. We attended the Hybris training since the back end was based on Hybris.
- Ensured front-end best practices were followed and that the product was of the highest standards and quality.
UI Solutions Designer
TD Bank Group
- Created various smaller AngularJS library packages to be used in a larger AngularJS project while developing the front end of a web-based portal for customer representatives.
- Delivered a front-end solution that was crucial for the management to make proper decisions and create business requirements.
- Followed the strict TD standards for code, design, and accessibility.
Web Developer
Yconic
- Architected and coded various bilingual small-scale to mid-scale enterprise web applications in HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, jQuery, C#.NET, and MS SQL. Worked directly with business analysts and graphics designers to provide the best user experiences.
- Developed various web service APIs to get and post JSON data with C#.NET JSON and MS SQL. The most notable services tracked email opens and email clicks.
- Created various front-end templates for the Yconic and UThink websites to be integrated with Sitecore and helped maintain some existing sites in classic ASP.
- Designed a Visual Studio template for a project type that was repeatedly created, decreasing the time to roll out a new project from a few days to half a day. The template had standard UI, back end, database schema, and scripts.
- Ensured that all websites were W3C, WCAG, and AODA compliant, and some sites passed the requirements to be accessible by text-to-speech applications such as JAWS, as set forth by ami.ca. Improved the existing SEO practices.
- Developed numerous HTML and inline CSS emails and sent these emails after querying the members based on strict requirements. Generated reports for email engagements by querying data from the MS SQL database.
- Maintained the fundyourfuture.ca website and the French counterpart for our client Scotiabank. The site followed strict guidelines as set forth by Scotiabank.
Web Developer
Seneca College (Faculty of Continuing Education)
- Developed the front end of the new Faculty of Continuing Education and Training (FCET) website. Provided the JSP templates integrated with OpenCMS. Followed strict W3C, WCAG, AODA, and institutional standards.
- Maintained the existing FCET website and interacted with the staff and faculty members to keep the information up-to-date.
- Built a live search FAQ integrated with advanced search capabilities through keywords with Google. Worked closely with the graphics designer to ensure the best possible user experience and interface and added responsive capabilities.
Technical Support Agent
Seneca College (Student Help Desk)
- Led the development of the Seneca Student Help Desk website and ResNet website in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Adhered to the W3C, WCAG, AODA, and institutional standards mandated by the Government.
- Provided technical support to Seneca students, faculty members, and Seneca resident guests in person, on the phone, and via email.
- Assisted the computer technologists with maintaining more than 1,000 workstations at four major campuses of the College.
Experience
Lerna and Storybook-based React Libraries
The common library included packages for form fields (enhanced Material-UI-based form components), Material-UI theme with company branding, common React and JavaScript utilities, dialog prompts, icons package, React-based authentication package, form validation package (to be used by React and Node.js.-based servers) and other company-specific components.
The largest package was the form-field package containing fully customizable but self-contained controls for a text field, date and time field, dropdown field, checkbox field, and radio button list field. It had complex controls for a WYSIWYG editor, address field, full name field, image upload or cropper field, signature, and custom company-specific fields. These fields took care of the error handling, validation, and styling.
We also provided all the documentation via Storybook.
KEV Forms
The code was set up to easily change a form field's dynamic, static, and dependent properties. For example, a date field can have a minimum and maximum date, so we ensured that the minimum date was at least a day before the maximum date.
I created a code with future enhancements and focused on the application's front end using HTML5, SASS, React, React-Redux, Material-UI, Node.js, Axios, C#.NET, .NET Core, SQL, MongoDB, webpack, and Babel.
Education
Diploma in Computer Programming and Analysis
Seneca College of Applied Arts and Technology - Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Skills
Libraries/APIs
jQuery, jQuery UI, React, React Redux, REST APIs, React Testing Library, Entity Framework, AG Grid, Rollup.js, Node.js, Formik, LINQ, PDFSharp, React-Intl, Redux-Saga, React Query, daisyUI, React Hook Form, Zod
Tools
Git, Redux Thunk, Lerna, Redux Toolkit, GitHub, JetBrains Rider, Apache Solr, Webpack, Babel, Figma, Stylus, RabbitMQ, Hangfire, Grunt, Jenkins, Visual Studio, Mongoose
Languages
HTML, CSS, JavaScript, C#.NET, HTML5, CSS3, TypeScript, Sass, ECMAScript (ES6), C#, SQL, Less, GraphQL, XML, Active Server Pages (ASP)
Frameworks
Bootstrap, Redux, Jest, Next.js, Material UI, .NET, Tailwind CSS, AngularJS, Angular, .NET Core, ASP.NET, Jakarta Server Pages (JSP), ADO.NET, Kendo UI, Angular Material, Entity Framework Core, Express.js, MUI CSS, Payload CMS, Laravel
Paradigms
W3C, Agile, Testing, Responsive Web Design (RWD), Agile Software Development, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Unit Testing, Microservices
Storage
Microsoft SQL Server, JSON, MongoDB, Data Integration, Databases, Database Architecture, NoSQL, Redis Cache, Elasticsearch, PostgreSQL
Platforms
Visual Studio Code (VS Code), Vercel, Contentful, Azure, Azure Functions, Netlify, MacOS, Windows, Salesforce, RouterOS, Docker
Other
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), AODA Compliance, User Experience (UX), Team Mentoring, Code Review, Axios, Storybook, i18n, Full-stack, Front-end, Software Engineering, Web Development, WCAG 2, Front-end Development, Technical Leadership, User Interface (UI), Architecture, Mobile First, API Integration, Full-stack Development, APIs, Consulting, Back-end Development, Data Visualization, UI Development, Progressive Web Applications (PWAs), Leadership, Front-end Architecture, Back-end, Data Structures, Solution Architecture, Helpdesk, IT Helpdesk, Polopoly, Enzyme, Scripting, Software Architecture, SVG, eCommerce, Headless CMS, Debugging, Supabase, Cloud Storage, Component Testing, SDKs, Blob Storage, Azure Artifacts, PropTypes, Sagas, Styled-components, SEO Content, Azure Service Bus, Monorepos, Headless Software, Accessibility, Fauna, NextAuth.js, reCAPTCHA, Apps, Server-side PDF Generation, AI Chatbots, Chatbots, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Zustand, Headless UI, Security, Vite
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