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Matthew Dick
Verified Expert in Engineering
Software Engineer and Developer
San Francisco, CA, United States
Toptal member since February 28, 2022
Bio
Matthew is a die-hard Ruby on Rails full-stack developer who loves new and existing projects alike. Clean and readable code is his mission, and code coverage is his baseline. Matthew is passionate about programming, and he is eager to combine forces to build something beautiful!
Portfolio
Cisco Meraki
Ruby, Ruby on Rails (RoR), React, Redux, RSpec, PostgreSQL, REST...
Cobuy
Ruby, Ruby on Rails (RoR), RSpec, Bootstrap, Stimulus, Heroku, Fastly, Bugsnag...
Plated
Ruby, Ruby on Rails (RoR), SCSS, HTML, React, PostgreSQL, Heroku, CircleCI...
Experience
- RSpec - 8 years
- Ruby on Rails (RoR) - 8 years
- Ruby - 8 years
- Heroku - 6 years
- PostgreSQL - 6 years
- Amplitude - 6 years
- React - 6 years
- Segment.io - 6 years
Work Experience
Senior Software Engineer
2020 - PRESENT
Cisco Meraki
- Educated colleagues on Rails' best practices and mentored interns toward proficiency with new languages and frameworks, namely Ruby, Rails, React, and Redux.
- Designed low-level business-specific tooling to safely navigate from under technical debt and away from antipatterns entrenched in over a decade of code contributions.
- Collaborated with newer product partners to establish processes and scope new features.
Technologies: Ruby, Ruby on Rails (RoR), React, Redux, RSpec, PostgreSQL, REST, Authentication, Authorization, HTML5, CSS, SQL, JavaScript, APIs, MySQL, Full-stack, Back-end, Front-end, API Integration, JSON, Architecture, Leadership, Datasets
Head of Engineerinrg
2019 - 2020
Cobuy
- Defined guiding principles for the engineering organization, emphasizing a product-first approach.
- Re-architected the outdated Ruby on Rails web application focused on simplifying data models, introducing full test coverage, and maximizing flexibility.
- Spearheaded recruitment of software engineers and product leadership.
- Introduced application monitoring, analytics tracking, and continuous deployment to the web app.
- Integrated CoBuy's core business services with the Salesforce CRM platform.
Technologies: Ruby, Ruby on Rails (RoR), RSpec, Bootstrap, Stimulus, Heroku, Fastly, Bugsnag, CircleCI, Google Analytics, Stripe API, Amplitude, Segment.io, Salesforce Sales Cloud, HTML5, CSS, SQL, JavaScript, APIs, MySQL, Full-stack, Back-end, Front-end, API Integration, Webhooks, JSON, Facebook Ads, Facebook Pixel, Google Ads, Integration, Architecture, Leadership, Datasets
Engineering Lead
2016 - 2019
Plated
- Contributed as a full-stack engineer and member of three Agile product teams over 15 months, each comprising 2-4 engineers and operating within 1-2 week sprint cycles.
- Identified opportunities to refactor and improve in-house frameworks widely recognized as illegible or defunct and worked with engineering leads to prioritize the highest value of these initiatives.
- Led the sole consumer-facing full-stack engineering team of five engineers.
- Expanded engineering recruitment efforts to hire over 10 new engineers, requiring coordination with internal recruitment alongside engineering peers and leadership.
- Collaborated with engineering leaders weekly to ensure technical cohesion of architectural decisions between consumer-facing products and back-of-house requirements.
- Worked closely with product managers and designers to identify potential products, estimate technical effort, and schedule a backlog of engineering work to validate and build new features.
Technologies: Ruby, Ruby on Rails (RoR), SCSS, HTML, React, PostgreSQL, Heroku, CircleCI, Jira, HTML5, CSS, SQL, JavaScript, APIs, MySQL, Full-stack, Back-end, Front-end, API Integration, Webhooks, JSON, Integration, Architecture, Leadership, Datasets
Software Engineer
2014 - 2016
Imfuna
- Developed new features in an agile environment using Ruby on Rails, HTML, Haml, CSS, Sass, JavaScript, and jQuery.
- Utilized behavior-driven development techniques to confidently integrate new features with the existing application before each incremental release.
- Addressed customer support requests for information and back-end maintenance via the Rails console using the ZenDesk platform.
- Completed multi-week sprints organized in the Jira Agile tracker by Atlassian.
- Assembled custom UIImagePickerController prototype in Xcode using Objective-C for asynchronous photography within the Imfuna mobile inspection application.
Technologies: Ruby, Ruby on Rails (RoR), RSpec, Capybara, Knockout (Knockout.js), jQuery, Bootstrap, Xcode, Zendesk, HTML5, CSS, SQL, JavaScript, APIs, MySQL, Full-stack, Back-end, Front-end, JSON
Project History
Abalone Analytics
https://github.com/rubyforgood/abaloneNot mine, but an open-source project I like to volunteer with.
The Abalone project is a data tracking and analytics system that stores and measures data for population trends, mortality rates, and breeding programs.
The Abalone project is a data tracking and analytics system that stores and measures data for population trends, mortality rates, and breeding programs.
Ruby Gem: Service Objects for Rails
https://github.com/mattwd7/service_objects_railsThe service_objects_rails gem is a lightweight, high-speed service layer for Rails applications. Gone are the days of fat controllers and fat models! Service objects (sometimes known as Commands) enable an important service layer in your Rails applications to keep your code readable, reusable, and testable. Service objects help to facilitate the separation of concerns and the single responsibility principle.
Casa (Court Appointed Special Advocate)
https://github.com/mattwd7/casa/tree/mainCASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate) is a role fulfilled by a trained volunteer sworn into a county-level juvenile dependency court system to advocate for youth in the corresponding county's foster care system. CASA is also the namesake role of the national organization CASA, which exists to cultivate and supervise volunteers carrying out this work – with county-level chapters (operating relatively independently of each other) across the country.
Education
2007 - 2012
Bachelor's Degree in Civil Engineering
University of California in Los Angeles - Los Angeles, CA, USA
Skills
Libraries/APIs
React, jQuery, Stripe API, Segment.io
Tools
GitHub, Jira, Slack, RSpec, Facebook Pixel, n8n, Podio, CircleCI, Xcode, Fastly, Bugsnag, Google Analytics, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Webpack
Languages
Ruby, SCSS, HTML, HTML5, CSS, SQL, JavaScript
Frameworks
Ruby on Rails (RoR), Redux, Capybara, Bootstrap, Stimulus, Knockout (Knockout.js)
Platforms
Visual Studio Code (VS Code), Heroku, Zendesk, Google Ads
Storage
JSON, PostgreSQL, MySQL
Paradigms
REST
Other
APIs, Back-end, Integration, Architecture, Leadership, iTerm2, Authentication, Authorization, Amplitude, Full-stack, Front-end, API Integration, Webhooks, Datasets, Citrix Podio, Critical Thinking, Physics, Applied Mathematics, Ruby Gems, Facebook Ads
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