Oliver is currently unavailable
Oliver Ullman
Verified Expert in Engineering
Full-stack Developer
Boulder, CO, United States
Toptal member since April 21, 2021
Bio
Oliver is a React expert who has worked with high-profile clients such as Facebook, Chess.com, and Diem and a full-stack developer who brings energy and intelligence to any team he joins. Oliver's clients value his rapid pace of development and high throughput. His love of programming comes from writing clean, elegant, and scalable solutions.
Portfolio
Dfuzr Industries
React, Gatsby, Docusaurus, GraphQL, PHP, WordPress...
CollegeVine
React, Gatsby, WordPress, PHP, CSS-in-JS, A/B Testing
Facebook
React, GraphQL, Relay, PHP, Mercurial, CSS, JavaScript
Experience
- JavaScript - 6 years
- React - 5 years
- Node.js - 4 years
- GraphQL - 4 years
- Web Architecture - 4 years
- Full-stack - 4 years
- Gatsby - 3 years
- TypeScript - 1 year
Work Experience
Senior Full-stack Engineer
2020 - PRESENT
Dfuzr Industries
- Re-architected Diem.com's background to decouple the front end and back end, eventually using WordPress as a headless CMS with Gatsby and Sass on the front end.
- Served as the lead developer on Facebook Open Source's showcase site, built with TypeScript, React, Storybook, Sass modules, Jest, Plop.js, and Docusaurus.
- Used PHP to build a recursive migrator for moving data from Fieldmanager to Advanced Custom Fields for Diem.com.
- Communicated effectively in a fully remote environment.
Technologies: React, Gatsby, Docusaurus, GraphQL, PHP, WordPress, Advanced Custom Fields (ACF), NPM, SCSS, Webpack
Full-stack Developer
2018 - 2018
CollegeVine
- Implemented site speed optimizations on our WordPress site. I used Lighthouse and GTMetrics to understand what our bottlenecks were, then used preloading, pre-connecting, and critical style inlining to speed up loading by 25%.
- Developed and maintained the front-end components such as a new universal navigation bar, footer, and consultation form on both of our websites. The first one was our main website, built with React, Gatsby, and SCSS. The second was a WordPress blog.
- Refactored our styles to be component scoped to better encapsulate our styling. This resulted in fewer errors when writing SCSS and a faster development time.
Technologies: React, Gatsby, WordPress, PHP, CSS-in-JS, A/B Testing
Contract Enterprise Engineer (Full-stack)
2017 - 2018
- Wrote front-end components with React, Relay, and GraphQL.
- Created a notification system for order transactions in PHP on the back end. Notifications would be sent out through email and the Facebook app. The challenge here was understanding Facebook's architecture and how to plug into it.
- Connected to Facebook's address doctor library to implement back-end address validation.
Technologies: React, GraphQL, Relay, PHP, Mercurial, CSS, JavaScript
Full-stack Developer
2017 - 2017
Chess.com
- Wrote components with Vue.js, VueX (similar to Redux), and SCSS. I also wrote back-end routing using PHP Symfony.
- Developed a fast, spontaneous algorithmic chess position generator in JavaScript that saved our company the time to create them manually.
- Developed the entire application (the mini-game solo chess) myself, demonstrating my seniority and planning skills.
- Contributed to and worked with an 80,000 file codebase. Chess.com is one of the 1000 most popular sites in the world, so it operates on a very large scale.
Technologies: JavaScript, Vue, Sass, Symfony, PHP, CSS, Git
Front-end Developer | Designer
2016 - 2017
Freelance
- Used JavaScript, jQuery, CSS, and HTML to create mobile-friendly websites for companies such as Bowtie, Crudex, and The Naiive.
- Crafted personalized designs using Balsamiq and Photoshop. My time designing websites gave me an appreciation for the importance of visual detail and user experience.
- Used Jekyll, Lunr, and Bowtie.io to create a fashion blog. This unconventional approach allowed us to have the benefits and security of a static site generator (Jekyll) with the features of a more traditional site such as login and search.
Technologies: JavaScript, CSS, Jekyll, jQuery
Project History
Diem Showcase Site
https://diem.comRefactored and maintained Gatsby and React on the front end, using WordPress as a headless CMS. The original setup involved generating a Gatsby build and then translating the built code to PHP to serve using WordPress.
The refactoring involved delegating WordPress to the role of a headless CMS, keeping the Gatsby build instead of translating it, and having the site served up as a static site that is rebuilt upon update using a concurrent Netlify build. I wrote a custom PHP migrator to change our data from Fieldmanager to Advanced Custom Fields.
The refactoring involved delegating WordPress to the role of a headless CMS, keeping the Gatsby build instead of translating it, and having the site served up as a static site that is rebuilt upon update using a concurrent Netlify build. I wrote a custom PHP migrator to change our data from Fieldmanager to Advanced Custom Fields.
Facebook Shop
• Built the front-end components with React, Relay, and GraphQL. My work includes the entire account page, the orders page, and parts of the checkout process.
• Created notification system for order transactions in Hack, in-house version of PHP. Notifications are sent out through email and the Facebook app.
• Improved data verification for customer support case assignments on the back end.
• Created notification system for order transactions in Hack, in-house version of PHP. Notifications are sent out through email and the Facebook app.
• Improved data verification for customer support case assignments on the back end.
Solo Chess
https://www.chess.com/solo-chessThe game consists of mini puzzles that need to be solved, progressively getting more complex. In addition to building the aspects of the application that you can see, I developed a fast, spontaneous algorithmic position generator that saved our company the time needed to create solutions manually.
Diem DIP Documentation
One of the two websites I built that is a part of Diem's documentation ecosystem. This site showcases different proposals that change the way the Diem is run.
It is a static site built with Docusaurus. I used React, Docusaurus, and CSS modules.
It is a static site built with Docusaurus. I used React, Docusaurus, and CSS modules.
Certifications
JUNE 2017 - PRESENT
Software Engineering Immersive
Hack Reactor
MAY 2016 - PRESENT
Front-end Web Development
freeCodeCamp
Skills
Libraries/APIs
React, Node.js, jQuery, REST APIs, Vue, Backbone.js
Tools
GitHub, Create React App, Webpack, Advanced Custom Fields (ACF), NPM, Jekyll, Mercurial, Git, Knex.js
Languages
CSS, JavaScript, HTML, Sass, PHP, TypeScript, GraphQL, SQL, SCSS
Frameworks
Docusaurus, Vanilla JS, Express.js, Symfony, Relay, Jest, Angular, Next.js, Redux
Paradigms
Jamstack, REST, Design Patterns, Microservices, Unit Testing, Web Architecture
Platforms
WordPress, Docker, Heroku
Storage
MongoDB, MySQL, PostgreSQL
Other
Gatsby, Algorithms, Full-stack, APIs, CSS-in-JS, A/B Testing, Data Structures
Collaboration That Works
How to Work with Toptal
Toptal matches you directly with global industry experts from our network in hours—not weeks or months.
1
Share your needs
Discuss your requirements and refine your scope in a call with a Toptal domain expert.
2
Choose your talent
Get a short list of expertly matched talent within 24 hours to review, interview, and choose from.
3
Start your risk-free talent trial
Work with your chosen talent on a trial basis for up to two weeks. Pay only if you decide to hire them.
Top talent is in high demand.
Start hiring