
Rahul Narayanan
Verified Expert in Engineering
Full-stack Development Developer
Waterloo, ON, Canada
Toptal member since April 20, 2022
Rahul is a dynamic tech leader and lead engineer with 8+ years of experience in designing, delivering, and scaling high-concurrency applications. Expert in modernizing legacy architectures, building AI-enabled data ecosystems, and focused on the intersection of full-stack development and Generative AI. Passionate about automating complex business workflows and leveraging cutting-edge tech to solve high-stakes enterprise challenges.
Portfolio
Experience
- Web App Development - 7 years
- Full-stack Development - 7 years
- REST APIs - 5 years
- CI/CD Pipelines - 5 years
- Solution Architecture - 4 years
- Admin Panels - 4 years
- Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) - 2 years
- Microservices - 2 years
Preferred Environment
Admin Panels, Amazon Web Services (AWS), OpenShift, Microservices, System Architecture Design, Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), Full-stack, CI/CD Pipelines, Solution Architecture, Web App Development
The most amazing...
...project I've led improved security for two million users and generated substantial revenue growth by integrating a scalable permissioning service.
Work Experience
Lead Engineer
RBC
- Launched "Data Marketplace" from 0 to production in three months, transitioning a POC into a live enterprise tool that eliminated the need for manual table querying.
- Reduced business user search time by 50% by architecting a semantic search layer, allowing non-technical users to find data without understanding complex underlying structures.
- Architected an LLM-powered data assistant using MCP, enabling users to query and summarize data in natural language, significantly lowering the barrier to data-driven decision-making.
- Optimized big data query performance by orchestrating the integration of Trino, resulting in significantly faster retrieval times from existing massive datasets.
- Automated BA workflows by building a self-service scheduling system, reducing the daily manual execution burden for business analysts and ensuring consistent data delivery.
- Engineered an "RTB Train Schedule" dashboard to track real-time job arrivals, providing the Run-The-Bank team with high-visibility monitoring and proactive system health tracking.
- Architected a RAG-based search interface using Python and Vector Databases to enable natural language querying of complex financial datasets, successfully moving the project from a POC to a production-ready internal tool.
- Built a high-concurrency chat interface using Next.js, integrating with proprietary APIs to provide real-time, AI-driven data insights for stakeholder decision-making.
Senior Full-stack Engineer
Royal Bank of Canada (RBC)
- Migrated a 30-year-old legacy system to Aries Permission Services, accelerating time-to-market by 50% through end-to-end ownership of requirements and stakeholder coordination.
- Achieved 95% code coverage by integrating Gen-AI into testing protocols, eliminating regression defects, and ensuring an SLA of <500ms for high-traffic REST APIs.
- Maintained 99.9% uptime via auto-scaling and performance optimization on OpenShift (OCP), minimizing downtime for critical workbench applications.
- Mentored a high-performance agile team, standardizing development processes and improving overall team velocity.
- Introduced generative AI for testing, increasing code coverage to 95% and eliminating regression defects.
- Achieved 99% uptime for the application through autoscaling, reducing downtime, and ensuring high availability.
Front-end Developer (via Toptal)
First Mile Care LLC
- Developed an integrated app with Google Apps Script for patient handling, reducing manual work by 95%.
- Coordinated with the client effectively to enhance the features and optimized the processes.
- Oversaw the development of the application and surpassed the client's expectations.
Lead Engineer (via Toptal)
WeMove LLC
- Spearheaded the exclusive creation of WeMove, a responsive web app linking tenants and lessees for referrals.
- Implemented core features, including apartment listings, direct messaging, notifications, and an admin panel.
- Delivered a streamlined referral system, surpassing client expectations with prompt and high-quality development.
- Exhibited adaptability and efficiency, ensuring seamless functionality and client satisfaction throughout the project lifecycle.
Full-stack Engineer
Zoho Corporation
- Revamped an outdated Admin Console application, driving a 140% surge in sales volume post-redesign.
- Enhanced sign-up and onboarding workflows, leading to a doubling of customer acquisition and retention rates.
- Orchestrated the creation of an internal app called Toolkit, slashing the first response time in customer support by four hours.
- Streamlined testing processes through the implementation of unit and automation tests, ensuring improved application reliability.
- Modernized API architecture from Servlet APIs to REST APIs, cutting application load time to one second.
- Addressed security vulnerabilities proactively and resolved bug bounty issues to ensure application integrity.
- Provided exemplary leadership, mentoring junior developers and standardizing product development processes.
Experience
TravellAR
https://github.com/rahul-narayanan/TravellARFood Order Application
https://github.com/rahul-narayanan/food-order-applicationDate and Time utils
Education
Master's Degree in Applied Computing
University of Windsor - Windsor, Ontario, Canada
Bachelor's Degree in Information Technology
Anna University - Chennai, India
Skills
Libraries/APIs
React, Node.js, REST APIs, OpenAI API, jQuery, React Redux, Google Maps API, SQLAlchemy, Vue
Tools
Redux Toolkit, Shell, GitHub, Webpack, Expo, Postman, Claude, Figma, BigQuery, Celery
Languages
JavaScript, HTML, CSS, SQL, TypeScript, ECMAScript (ES6), Python, Java, C, HTML5, GraphQL, Python 3, Google Apps Script
Frameworks
Express.js, React Native, Material UI, Vanilla JS, Next.js, NestJS, Angular, Django, Swagger, OAuth 2, Jakarta Server Pages (JSP), Redux, Bootstrap, MUI CSS, Ionic, Flutter, Spring Boot
Paradigms
Database Design, UI Design, UX Design, Object-oriented Programming (OOP), DevOps, Microservices Architecture, Continuous Delivery (CD), Continuous Integration (CI), Unit Testing, Refactoring, Hosting, Mobile Development, Microservices, Design Patterns, Model Context Protocol (MCP)
Platforms
Amazon Web Services (AWS), Linux, Visual Studio Code (VS Code), OpenShift, Docker, FlutterFlow, Android, iOS, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), AWS Lambda, HubSpot, Replit, Shopify, Firebase, Heroku, Cloud Native
Storage
Databases, PostgreSQL, Redis, JSON, MongoDB, MySQL, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), Amazon DynamoDB, Elasticsearch
Other
Software Development, APIs, Front-end Development, Domain DNS Setup, Domains & Hosting, Full-stack, API Integration, System Architecture Design, Solution Architecture, Web App Development, Back-end, Architecture, Back-end Development, Scalability, Front-end, Single-page Applications (SPAs), CSS Modules, ChatGPT API, FastAPI, User Interface (UI), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Cloud Storage, Performance Optimization, Data Security, Data Privacy, Software Architecture, OAuth, Software as a Service (SaaS), Code Auditing, SaaS, Security, RESTFul APIs, Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), Admin Panels, Full-stack Development, Analytics, Web Analytics, Mobile UX, Mobile UI, Mobile Apps, Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), CI/CD Pipelines, Okta, Product Management, Technical Leadership, Mobile App Development, Mobile Applications, Algorithms, OpenAI, Storybook, Agentic AI, AI Agents, LangChain, Retrieval-augmented Generation (RAG), Vector Databases, Llama 3, Supabase, AWS Cloud Security, PWA, Networking, Machine Learning Operations (MLOps), Large Language Models (LLMs)
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