Matthew Best
Verified Expert in Engineering
Python Developer
Houston, TX, United States
Toptal member since December 20, 2016
Matt is a passionate, talented software developer with 10 years of experience developing complex applications in the fields of cyber security, energy, automated tools, cloud applications, and back-end support systems. He is an expert in Windows applications, but is also proficient in creating cross-platform and web applications. Matt is an avid learner, a great communicator, and an excellent addition to teams of all sizes.
Portfolio
Experience
- Python - 9 years
- C - 7 years
- Windows - 7 years
- Java - 6 years
- Linux - 6 years
- Security - 6 years
- Agile Software Development - 3 years
- Django - 2 years
Preferred Environment
Git, Visual Studio, PyCharm, Linux, Windows, REST APIs
The most amazing...
...project I've developed was a multi-agent system for offensive computer network operations during my time working for the Department of Defense.
Work Experience
Senior Software Engineer
Sunnova Energy
- Expanded our data ingestion and processing capabilities to include additional solar energy panel and residential battery manufacturers, such as Generac. Integrated with vendor APIs to ETL data for billing and business development.
- Created the company's first automated enrollment system for virtual power plants (VPP) integrations.
- Oversaw the creation of the new Grid Services team and provided technical leadership. The team expanded from three people to over a dozen in the course of 1.5 years, creating brand new VPP event handling and auto-enrollment capabilities.
Senior Software Engineer
Lavoro Technologies
- Developed firmware for monitoring the processes at field well sites.
- Engineered the cloud back end using Docker and Kubernetes. Features included real time display of field unit metrics as well as pushing of updates to deployed hardware.
- Led code reviews and performed testing to ensure code quality across our product line.
Senior Software Architect
Aidap
- Developed custom data types capable of importing data from several industry storage standards. These types formed the foundation for several analytics tools, allowing for easy programmatic access to data values.
- Used Django to build a dynamic, plug-n-play application framework for ingesting and analyzing oil and gas drilling data.
- Worked with oil and gas engineers to analyze data, developing intelligent algorithms capable of identifying the drilling activity of rigs based solely on simple surface data.
- Analyzed existing documentation to create new algorithms, identifying errors in previous work to improve results.
Capabilities Development Specialist
Department of Defense
- Developed tools to support offensive computer network operations for a variety of software frameworks across multiple operating systems.
- Collaborated with multiple development teams to organize and create multi-agent tool sets.
- Led Agile development teams of four to ten developers to solve some of the DoD's most complex, high-priority challenges.
- Worked with team members to create the organization's first multi-project automated test framework using Jenkins and Python.
- Utilized Java expertise to work with several teams to create advanced tool sets for the deployment of capabilities.
- Made efforts resulting in several professional awards, including the National Intelligence Meritorious Unit Citation.
Summer Intern - Security Researcher
Department of Defense
- Conducted extensive testing of commercial static code analysis products using a publicly known OpenSSL bug to evaluate which product(s) yielded the best results.
- Published findings in an extensive whitepaper for future researchers to use in their follow-up evaluations of the products.
- Worked with fellow intern to create a Python application capable of displaying and comparing the results of different code analysis tools.
Summer Intern - Global Network Exploitation and Vulnerability Analyst
Department of Defense
- Worked with existing team members and customers to identify the requirements for new tool capabilities.
- Designed and implemented complex operational capabilities using C, C++, and Windows native APIs.
- Tested functionality using both manual and automated testing procedures.
- Wrote user interface and tester scripts in Python, along with modifying proprietary XML-based testing definitions to ensure data integrity across software versions.
Summer Intern - Systems and Network Security Analyst
Department of Defense
- Evaluated the hardware and software security solutions for both small and large scale networks.
- Analyzed VoIP protocols to determine what possible attack vectors were present in the latest commercial products.
Experience
DrillVista
The feature set includes the ability to import data, view data using an in-depth visualization system, and several analysis plugins that provide meaningful insights or identify potential drilling problems/risks.
Education
Master's Degree in Computer Science
University of Tulsa - Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science
University of Tulsa - Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States
Skills
Libraries/APIs
API Development, REST APIs, Visual Studio SDK, Matplotlib, React, jQuery
Tools
PyCharm, Visual Studio, Git, Atlassian Suite, Jenkins, Celery, Interactive Disassembler (IDA), Supervisor, Apache, AWS Command Line Interface (CLI), NGINX
Languages
Python, C, Java, C++, HTML, XML, CSS, PHP, Perl, JavaScript, Lua, Bash Script, SQL, TypeScript
Frameworks
Django, Django Channels
Paradigms
Agile Software Development, Penetration Testing, REST
Platforms
Windows, Linux, Docker, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Kubernetes, Heroku, MuleSoft, Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
Storage
JSON, Redis, Elasticsearch, SQLite, PostgreSQL
Other
Security, Software Development, Secure Software Development Lifecycle (SSDLC), Technical Leadership, Software Architecture, Google+, Agile Software Testing, Microsoft 365, VoIP, TCP/IP, HTTP, Reverse Engineering, Image Processing, Internet of Things (IoT)
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