
Dimitar Dimitrov Popov
Verified Expert in Engineering
Software Developer
Plovdiv, Bulgaria
Toptal member since February 20, 2020
Dimitar is a passionate developer with more than 15 years of experience and over 30 robust websites, platforms, and applications. His expertise includes programming, architecture, and the development of scalable systems. Dimitar is conversant with Agile and enjoys creating high-performing solutions for clients.
Portfolio
Experience
- PHP - 12 years
- JavaScript - 12 years
- Unity3D - 10 years
- C# - 10 years
- Laravel - 8 years
- MySQL - 8 years
- React - 7 years
- Vue - 7 years
Preferred Environment
Laravel, MySQL, React, Next.js, Vue
The most amazing...
...project I've helped develop is Kepler's internal system for trading stocks and ETF/ETCs for high-value clients with real-time integration of the FIX protocol.
Work Experience
Freelance Full-stack Developer
Toptal Clients
- Contributed 10,000 hours of full-stack engineering to 15+ diverse clients globally since 2020.
- Engineered secure B2B APIs for PepsiCo, internal Vue SPAs for T-Mobile, and an optimized Next.js platform for a US Defense Department contractor.
- Architected a React/FIX protocol Execution Management System for Kepler Cheuvreux, managing millions of rows, plus OCR-driven financial analysis tools, a Canadian city tax portal, and multi-level billing pipelines.
- Collaborated with an international team to develop a cross-platform mobile application (Appy Saúde Mobile App) mapping over 1,800 health facilities in Angola, allowing users to quickly locate critical healthcare information.
- Built the Vue 3 front-end backbone for DSCVR (a Web3 social network) and a scalable, multi-language OCR platform to digitize millions of scanned magazines.
- Managed a 17-person team to ship "Moo Lander" on PC/Consoles. Developed Unity-based mobile cognitive training apps, optimizing UI/UX for 60+ fps.
- Developed the front-end and backbone architecture for mobile cognitive training applications and educational game bundles in Unity, achieving optimal 60+ fps performance.
- Built a milestone-driven training platform for young lawyers, featuring a 25-week curriculum process and comprehensive data tracking.
- Led a major redesign, developed new features, and performed ongoing maintenance for a season-long fantasy college football website.
- Built a comprehensive Lithyem billing platform for processing and paying client bills, incorporating a multi-level pipeline and complex account role management.
Team Lead | Full-stack Developer
The First Hammer
- Led a development team to build an innovative SaaS CRM platform designed specifically for business development, PR, and sales teams.
- Engineered a secure and highly scalable system architecture using a modern tech stack of React, Next.js, Laravel, and PostgreSQL.
- Implemented advanced AI features directly into the platform to help users efficiently manage their contacts and potential partners.
- Integrated 3rd-party email services to streamline external communications and assist with the internal company workflow.
- Focused on aligning fast application performance with a secure and scalable back end to safely handle sensitive customer and partner data.
Senior Laravel (PHP) Engineer
Intersect Professional Services
- Developed from scratch a platform for conducting psychological tests with test subjects with PHP, Laravel, Inertia, and React.
- Worked with databases of over 8 million images and achieved lightning-fast database and website performance.
- Developed a suite of automated systems for generating trials, scanning and validating images, and more.
Senior Front-end Engineer
MobilALLY LLC
- Developed the website from scratch for presenting Cryptographic Solutions to the USA defense department.
- Created reusable components, divided code and content, optimized for a 100% score in Lighthouse.
- Set up continuous deployment to the Vercel ecosystem.
Senior Front-end/Full-stack Developer
Kepler Cheuvreux SA
- Created a reusable architecture of React Components, State Management, and FIX protocol integration for the current (and, as they need similar capabilities.
- Developed the UI/UX for optimal usage of all available monitor real estate by the trading agents.
- Oversaw the project team alongside the project manager, helped divide and order the tasks correctly, both for the back-end and front-end teams.
- Helped create the correct and optimal API structure for communication between back end and front end.
PHP Expert (Data Import Specialist) for a Career Institute
Joshua Educational Systems, LLC
- Created a system that the university can use to distribute online tests to students.
- Developed an online learning and curriculum system for students and teachers to use.
- Optimized slowly performing PHP code on the back end and streamlined the upload of documents and other learning materials.
- Implement bulk CRUD operations on a lot of different types of resources in the back office.
Senior Full-stack Developer
PepsiCo
- Developed many new APIs for B2B communication between the different branches and clients of PepsiCo.
- Built a system for automated testing of configurations for the different PepsiCo environments to mitigate deployment errors.
- Optimized the way data is stored in the database and the scripts that store large amounts of data.
- Worked on advanced SSO features for clients in the PepsiCo back office.
- Created new functionalities for the back-office, like the asynchronous job system, which mitigates the risk of running into timeouts for time-heavy processes.
Unity Engineer for Gaming App
Qene Games Inc. (Delaware C-Corp)
- Developed the front-end of Gigabrain - an app for training cognitive abilities.
- Helped shape up the minigames and proposed and implemented appropriate UI/UX solutions to the various problems that the team faced.
- Optimized the game to run at 60+ fps on mobile platforms.
Senior Unity Developer
Qene Technologies
- Created the backbone architecture of the entire educational game bundle application.
- Developed almost all of the different minigames that are supposed to improve people's cognition abilities.
- Worked extensively with UI/UX and offered my expertise to help improve the user experience.
- Organized tasks and deliverables in Jira and tracked progress for me and other people on the team.
Front-end Developer
DSCVR, Inc
- Translated design proposals into Jira tasks and deliverables.
- Identified and created a lot of reusable widgets and front-end components.
- Created mobile-optimized designs using Vue 3 and Tailwind.
- Developed and applied solutions for hard front-end related problems.
- Created the structure and backbone architecture of numerous bigger front-end features like portals management, user personalization, roles, and permissions, etc.
- Estimated and distributed tasks between myself and the rest of the front-end team.
Project Manager
The Sixth Hammer
- Co-created a company for providing digital solutions within the web, mobile, and gaming industry, including over 20 company websites and eCommerce platforms and six mobile applications and games.
- Managed a large gaming project for PCs and consoles and coordinated a multinational team of programmers, artists, composers, and designers.
- Worked as a senior developer on dozens of projects, including eCommerce solutions, web applications, company websites, and SaaS.
Back-end Drupal Developer
Trio Interactive
- Worked on various eCommerce solutions and company websites for the German market.
- Contributed to the Drupal community with various Drupal 8 modules.
- Worked as a senior developer on projects overseeing and coordinating the work of the Bulgarian team.
- Participated in daily Agile meetings and weekly stand-ups.
Senior Web Developer
PSoft, Ltd.
- Developed an application for selling pizzas for a large German company.
- Participated in the development of custom themes and plugins for a Joomla project.
- Delivered a new usable version of the project each week.
Web Developer
ZonaBG, Ltd.
- Developed a portal built from scratch featuring an eCommerce platform and business directory.
- Developed a sub-system for generating personal websites for all participating companies enabling them to trade their goods and services within their own personal domain.
- Oversaw the launch process resulting in hundreds of companies with thousands of products in the first month after the launch.
Experience
HammerLens - AI driven CRM
https://hammerlens.ai/I led a development team to build a secure SaaS CRM platform for sales and PR teams using React, Next.js, Laravel, and PostgreSQL. To help users manage their contacts and daily workflows, I integrated third-party email services and built AI features directly into the system. I also focused heavily on making the back-end fast and scalable so it could safely handle sensitive customer data.
MobillALLY - A Security Contractor for the Defense Department of USA
I developed the whole website from scratch, including the UI/UX, the website design, the reusable component structure, and the automated deployment pipeline for Vercel.
Stocks EMS (Execution Management System)
http://keplercheuvreux.comI worked in a big international team, assuming a leadership position within it. They held daily meetings with project managers, weekly meetings with company owners, and tech demo meetings, where our developer was responsible for presenting the progress in a professional manner. The challenges to solve with this project were:
• working with millions of rows of data,
• integrating with the FIX protocol and other APIs
• providing great UX for the traders (features that ease the workflow).
• full customization of everything on the screen - sizes, fonts, etc.
• fast multi-window communication with the JavaScript Broadcast API
The project was developed in two-week-long sprints, with a working version released after each one.
TMobile Internal SPA Application
Decentralized Social Application
https://dscvr.oneVue Front-end Expert for a SaaS Product
Moo Lander and Its Web Infrastructure
https://moolander.comA 2D action-adventure RPG with Metroidvania elements featuring an epic plot, mighty cow bosses, beautiful environments, clever puzzles, and lots of milk!
It has been developed by a team of 17 people from four continents in seven years. It has been released for PCs, Xbox, and PlayStation with a pending release on Nintendo Switch!
Unlock a deadly arsenal of milk weaponry and defenses while stranded on a dangerous alien world. With your trusty AI companion - Hamilton, you will fight and outsmart hordes of enemies, meet memorable characters, and unearth ancient secrets while the adventure twists and turns at every corner. Challenge our Mighty Cow bosses and tame them for their precious milk! Expect glorious action battles, unique environmental puzzles, beautiful art, and self-recorded immersive music. Continue fighting as a Mighty Cow in our four-player couch multiplayer full of different PvP and PvE modes on multiple battle arenas.
Lintel Betonwerk Company Website
https://www.lintel-gruppe.de/Brandsync Company Website
Associate Portal SaaS Platform
DC News Website
https://dcnews.bg/WingTsun Illinois Website
http://wingtsunil.com/EWTO Website
http://wingtsun-bg.com/Spatium Game
Christmas Fools Game
Accounting Software for EWTO Bulgaria
Orient Plus Application
Smart Hits Application
HappyQuizz Website
Hotel Condor Website
Yang Taichi Bulgaria Website
PetrolheadShirts Website
Zona BG Portal
Lord of Fire
Christmas Fools
https://apkcombo.com/christmas-fools/com.christmas.fools.android/Lead Front-end Developer
This application was created for the internal use for a big broker firm!
Pepsico Internal System
Implemented automated verification of different parameters when deploying systems for the different countries.
Synced with international teams in Asia for polishing the systems for distributions.
Then I was transferred to the front end, where I worked on numerous different systems, pages, and React components, reorganized code, introduced better structure, and adhered to standards - the front-end was React-based.
Education
Master's Degree in Software Technologies and Design
Plovdiv University "Paisii Hilendarski" - Plovdiv, Bulgaria
Bachelor's Degree in Software Technologies and Design
Plovdiv University “Paisii Hilendarski” - Plovdiv, Bulgaria
Certifications
HTML, CSS, and JavaScript Course
Software University
Teaching Degree
NUMTI Dobrin Petkov
HTML, CSS, and JavaScript Course
Telerik Academy
PHP Back-end Development Course
Viscomp, Ltd.
Skills
Libraries/APIs
jQuery, Vue, React, REST APIs, Node.js, Framer Motion, Claude API, Shopify API, Windows Forms (WinForms), Vue 2, Vuex, Three.js, Stripe, Inertia, OpenAI API, Cache API, TanStack Table
Tools
Photo Editors, Git, AI SDK, Claude, Vue CLI, Jira, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Premiere Pro, Confluence, Webpack, After Effects CC, Audition CC, Figma, PHPRunner, GitLab CI/CD, Claude Code, TanStack Router, Apache
Languages
PHP, PHP 5, PHP 7, HTML, CSS, CSS3, JavaScript, ECMAScript (ES6), HTML5, SQL, TypeScript, SCSS, Sass, Less, C#, Python, Java, Pug, C#.NET, GraphQL, PHP 8
Frameworks
Laravel, Laravel 5, Unity3D, PhoneGap, Bootstrap, Bootstrap 3, Tailwind CSS, Unity, PHP MVC, Redux, Next.js, Cypress, CodeIgniter, Fat-Free Framework, CodeIgniter 3, Yii, CakePHP, Nuxt.js, Express.js, Bootstrap 3+, Symfony, LibGDX, Angular, Nova, Hydra, React Native, Laravel 11, Laravel 9, Laravel 8, Photon
Paradigms
Agile, Agile Software Development, Web Architecture, Back-end Architecture, Agile Workflow, Object-relational Mapping (ORM), UX Design, Management, Object-oriented Programming (OOP), Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Test-driven Development (TDD), UI Design, REST, Agile Project Management, Database Design, Mobile Development, Web UI Design
Platforms
LAMP, XAMPP, Twilio, Drupal, Drupal 8, WordPress, Firebase, Shopify, Visual Studio Code (VS Code), Android, Drupal 7, Joomla, Mobile, iOS, AirDev Canvas, Azure, Vercel, Apache2, Linux, Ubuntu, Ubuntu Linux, Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Storage
MySQL, Relational Databases, JSON, MongoDB, NoSQL, PostgreSQL, Databases, Database Architecture, Cache
Other
Ajax, Front-end, Web Development, Web App Development, Front-end Development, Front-end Architecture, Back-end Development, Web UX, App UX, Web UI, Vue Router, Full-stack, Full-stack Development, User Interface (UI), Back-end, Games, 2D Games, APIs, MVC Frameworks, Team Leadership, Architecture, Video Editing, Integration, Game Design, Game Development, API Integration, Data Structures, Tailwind UI, Storybook, Large Language Models (LLMs), Server-side Rendering (SSR), Software Architecture, Static Site Generators, RESTFul APIs, AI Integration, AI Agents, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Technical Leadership, Web3, Fintech, 3D Games, Tax Software, Image Processing, Video Processing, Video Players, Payment APIs, Vite, Bots, Chatbots, Cordova, Photoshop CC 2019, User Experience (UX), Websites, eCommerce, WordPress Plugins, Axios, Software, Symphony, Remote Team Leadership, Bootstrap 4, Mobile Game Development, Design, FIX Protocol, Zustand, App UI, DataGrid, PayPal, Finance APIs, SEO Tools, Web MVC, Optical Character Recognition (OCR), Analysis, Optimization, Game Back-end, Mobile UX, Mobile UI, Wireframing, Manual QA, Scalability, Data Integrity, Cloud Infrastructure, Security, SaaS, CI/CD Pipelines, Cloudflare, Supabase, CRM, CRM APIs, Software as a Service (SaaS), Team Leadership & Supervision, Minimum Viable Product (MVP), Figma to React, Web App UX, Web App UI, Analytics, Front-end Design, AI Tools, Gemini API, Web App Security, Email, Relational Database Design, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Data Processing, Business to Business (B2B), Business Development, Gemini, Workflow Automation, Technical Architecture, Product Engineering, Payments, AI-generated Code, Dashboards, IT Security, Fraud Detection
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