Ricardo is available for hire
Hire RicardoRicardo Torre
Verified Expert in Engineering
Software Developer
Porto, Portugal
Toptal member since November 8, 2017
Bio
Ricardo is a seasoned software developer who has been working mainly with C#, ASP.NET, Angular, and the Microsoft Integration stack for the past 15 years. Currently, he's working on a startup for a PaaS product based on the Azure and Microsoft Integration stack. Ricardo is passionate about designing and building software and teams for high-performance delivery.
Portfolio
BizTastic
Architecture, JavaScript, TypeScript, Web API, Entity Framework, C#, .NET...
Latch Systems, Inc.
Angular, TypeScript, Angular Material, Swift, Android, Figma...
Kovai (BizTalk360)
Azure SQL, Architecture, Service, Azure, Web API, Knockout (Knockout.js)...
Experience
- Microsoft Dynamics CRM - 15 years
- Architecture - 15 years
- C# - 15 years
- BizTalk - 15 years
- Azure - 15 years
- TypeScript - 9 years
- Angular - 9 years
- Azure SQL - 7 years
Preferred Environment
Angular, Entity Framework, Web API, C#, BizTalk
The most amazing...
...thing I’ve done was to develop solutions for BizTalk—taking them to production, supporting them, and operating them on a day-to-day basis.
Work Experience
Architect
2013 - PRESENT
BizTastic
- Architected and developed compelling and innovative services and software for the enterprise integration space with a strong Microsoft technology background.
- Served as the lead BizTalk architect.
- Developed an Azure-based SaaS product focusing on the integration space using the most up-to-date Azure technologies including Azure websites, Azure Service Bus, Azure Storage, Application Insights, SQL Azure, and Key Vault.
- Built a CI and CD environment using VSTS and Azure ARM.
- Architected the UI and UX based on Angular 4 with full-stack responsibilities all the way from the concept and design to development, testing, and continuous integration.
Technologies: Architecture, JavaScript, TypeScript, Web API, Entity Framework, C#, .NET, Angular, BizTalk, SQL, Microsoft SQL Server, Azure Active Directory, Azure DevOps, Microsoft Azure, Cloud Architecture, C#.NET, APIs, REST APIs, Microsoft Dynamics, Azure Functions, Secure Web Development, Web Development, Web Security, API Integration, HTML, CSS, Stripe, BizTalk Server, Full-stack, Software Architecture, Front-end, Material UI, Storybook, Git, RESTFul APIs, iOS, Portuguese, CI/CD Pipelines, HTML5, Google Sheets, Node.js, SendGrid, Back-end, Role-based Access Control (RBAC), React, API Development, Back-end Development, Database Design, Technical Leadership, Leadership, Cloud Infrastructure, Microsoft Power Apps, Microsoft Power Automate, Automation, Business Strategy, Full-stack Development, SaaS Design, System Architecture, AI Integration, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Solution Architecture, Microsoft, ETL, Large Language Models (LLMs), Engineering Management, Product Management, Agentic AI, Azure Active Directory B2C (ADB2C), Single Sign-on (SSO), Authentication, Authorization, IIS, Microsoft Entra, Microsoft Entra ID, Enterprise Architecture, DevOps, Python, Forms, Workflows, Dynamics CRM Plugins, Event-driven Architecture, SaaS, RxJS, Performance Optimization, Agentic Coding, Next.js, Systems Design
Lead Software Engineer
2021 - 2025
Latch Systems, Inc.
- Defined the technical approach, tech stack recommendations, 3rd-party systems integration components, application architecture diagrams, and other technical requirements.
- Deployed Angular front-end applications with over 300,000 users to production while working with all the stakeholders for a successful deployment.
- Hired the front-end engineering team for all web projects.
Technologies: Angular, TypeScript, Angular Material, Swift, Android, Figma, Engineering Management, Terraform, Authentication, Authorization, UI Components, Enterprise Architecture, DevOps, Python, Event-driven Architecture, SaaS, RxJS, Performance Optimization, Agentic Coding, Leadership, Systems Design
Lead Software Architect | Head of Technical Presales
2013 - 2016
Kovai (BizTalk360)
- Helped the company grow from three employees to 35 in two locations (UK and India).
- Developed and delivered a world-class software product which is the most popular Microsoft BizTalk Server third-party product in the market.
- Fostered the internal efforts to grow the company portfolio from one product to four products.
- Worked directly with the CEO and played important roles in critical areas such as sales, marketing, product development, and support.
- Mentored the members of the BizTalk teams. Hired, mentored, and supported the India team.
- Architected, designed, and developed an upcoming SaaS product hosted in Azure, based on a PaaS Azure functionality that includes Azure websites, web jobs, Azure storage, Service Bus, and SQL Azure including SQL elastic pools, Azure Event Hubs.
- Championed innovative features in the product that led to the BizTalk360 Rules Engine and Analytics.
- Hired, mentored, and developed the support team and its procedures to deliver a remarkable service with a reportedly high level of satisfaction from customers.
- Delivered technical presentations of the products to potential customers and liaise with all levels of customer contacts from the technical teams up to the chief-experience officer level.
- Acted as a client account manager: managing and coordinating the top three largest customers to maintain high levels of customer satisfaction and upsell.
Technologies: Azure SQL, Architecture, Service, Azure, Web API, Knockout (Knockout.js), Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), C#, JavaScript, TypeScript, BizTalk, SQL, Microsoft SQL Server, Azure Active Directory, Azure DevOps, Microsoft Azure, Cloud Architecture, C#.NET, APIs, REST APIs, Secure Web Development, Web Development, Web Security, API Integration, HTML, CSS, BizTalk Server, Full-stack, Software Architecture, Front-end, RESTFul APIs, Portuguese, CI/CD Pipelines, HTML5, SendGrid, Back-end, API Development, Back-end Development, Database Design, Technical Leadership, Leadership, Cloud Infrastructure, Microsoft Power Automate, Automation, Business Strategy, Full-stack Development, SaaS Design, System Architecture, Solution Architecture, Microsoft, ETL, Engineering Management, Product Management, Single Sign-on (SSO), Authentication, Authorization, IIS, Microsoft Entra ID, Enterprise Architecture, DevOps, Forms, Workflows, Event-driven Architecture, SaaS, Performance Optimization, Systems Design
Premier Field Engineer – BizTalk/Integration
2007 - 2013
Microsoft
- Delivered proactive services to Microsoft Premier Customers; these services require internal certification to guarantee a high level of quality and consistency of the delivery across regions.
- Drove BizTalk readiness across EMEA, improved collaboration, mentored new hires, and wrote technical training plans for engineers.
- Evaluated and assessed the BizTalk Server infrastructure and operational processes.
- Conducted a workshop overview of the Microsoft BizTalk Server along with presentations and labs on how to design, build, and operate a robust and scalable environment.
- Designed a workshop to address disaster recovery planning requirements, which are a vital pillar of building a mature enterprise-class business system.
- Created the BizTalk Performance Lab, a customized engagement focused on tuning your specific application to meet its performance requirements.
- Developed the BizTalk Architecture and Design Review, a customized engagement designed around the business and technical requirements of your specific application.
- Built-up the .NET Code Review process, which provides a detailed look at specific components of a .NET application’s source code and provides recommendations around the issues that may cause support issues.
- Analyzed an integration related to Microsoft Azure offerings that could be used to form the next generation PFE services for integration, including BizTalk Services, running BizTalk Server on Azure Virtual Machines, and Azure Service Bus.
Technologies: Azure, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, C#, .NET, BizTalk, SQL, Microsoft SQL Server, Azure Active Directory, Azure DevOps, Microsoft Azure, Cloud Architecture, C#.NET, APIs, REST APIs, Microsoft Dynamics, Secure Web Development, Web Development, Web Security, API Integration, Full-stack, Software Architecture, RESTFul APIs, Portuguese, Back-end, API Development, Back-end Development, Database Design, Cloud Infrastructure, Microsoft Power Apps, Microsoft Power Automate, Automation, System Architecture, Solution Architecture, Microsoft, ETL, Single Sign-on (SSO), Authentication, Authorization, IIS, Microsoft Entra ID, Enterprise Architecture, Forms, Workflows, Dynamics CRM Plugins, Event-driven Architecture, SaaS, Performance Optimization, Systems Design
Application Consultant
2004 - 2007
myPartner
- Served as an application consultant, working with Dynamics NAV and BizTalk with a strong focus on development.
- Collaborated with functional consultants to review business requirements and design, implement, and test feature requests.
- Implemented and customized ERP deployment projects, ranging from the application design and architecture specifications down to the functional module configuration, code customization, and version upgrades.
- Managed the full application development lifecycle of the BizTalk integration projects. This included collecting the integration requirements, proposing functional and technical designs, developing, testing, and training the customers.
- Played a key role in a large integration project on Dynamics CRM, which was one of the most important integration targets. Brought extensive knowledge of the internal workings of the Dynamics CRM platform.
Technologies: Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, .NET, BizTalk, C#.NET, APIs, Microsoft Dynamics, Web Development, Full-stack, Software Architecture, Portuguese, Back-end, API Development, Back-end Development, Database Design, Microsoft Power Apps, Microsoft Power Automate, Automation, System Architecture, ERP Implementation, ETL, Authentication, Authorization, Dynamics CRM Plugins, Event-driven Architecture, Performance Optimization, Systems Design
Experience
BizTalk360
https://www.biztalk360.comOnce your BizTalk solutions are developed and taken to production, you begin supporting them and operating them on a day-to-day basis. At this point, your support staff experiences various challenges on an ongoing basis.
The standard tools, like the BizTalk Administration Console, are not designed or appropriate for ongoing support and operational activities. For example, the console lacks a lot of basic functionality such as basic user access and keeping an audit trail of activities performed by support staff. In some cases, the standard BizTalk console is way too powerful to hand over to inexperienced or non-BizTalk people.
The other challenge is on the BizTalk monitoring side; once your BizTalk solutions are deployed to a production environment, it's important to keep an eye on their health. For example, you need to get notified if a receiving location or host is down. Currently, BizTalk customers need to rely on external tools like the Microsoft System Center Operations (SCOM) or HP Operations Manager (HPOM). SCOM has a good management pack for monitoring the BizTalk server, but the complexity of setting up SCOM and ongoing management of alerts become more and more challenging as your BizTalk applications grow.
The standard tools, like the BizTalk Administration Console, are not designed or appropriate for ongoing support and operational activities. For example, the console lacks a lot of basic functionality such as basic user access and keeping an audit trail of activities performed by support staff. In some cases, the standard BizTalk console is way too powerful to hand over to inexperienced or non-BizTalk people.
The other challenge is on the BizTalk monitoring side; once your BizTalk solutions are deployed to a production environment, it's important to keep an eye on their health. For example, you need to get notified if a receiving location or host is down. Currently, BizTalk customers need to rely on external tools like the Microsoft System Center Operations (SCOM) or HP Operations Manager (HPOM). SCOM has a good management pack for monitoring the BizTalk server, but the complexity of setting up SCOM and ongoing management of alerts become more and more challenging as your BizTalk applications grow.
Integration of AI-based Micro Front Ends into Dynamics CRM
I developed the integration of two micro front ends in Dynamics CRM to bring the enhanced AI-based functionality developed by the customer into their opportunity management user interface. One of the front ends was adapted to work inside Dynamics CRM using Iframes and SSO with SAML security. The second was developed from the ground up, using Angular to implement a subset of the back-end functionality, matching Dynamics CRM look and feel.
Monitoring Managed Services Product Migration to Azure
A portal for partners to remotely manage customers, using an Azure-hosted version of the product. For this cloud transformation project, I architected and designed the APIs to publish customer entities into a hosted Azure service using Azure Service Bus Relay, and I performed a lift and shift to the cloud by running the product in Azure Virtual Machines.
This was later followed with an improvement project to use cloud native capabilities; for example, using Azure App Service to host the web-based components and Azure SQL Database to host critical application data segregated by customer and partner inside an Azure SQL Database elastic pool to mitigate cost concerns.
This was later followed with an improvement project to use cloud native capabilities; for example, using Azure App Service to host the web-based components and Azure SQL Database to host critical application data segregated by customer and partner inside an Azure SQL Database elastic pool to mitigate cost concerns.
Education
2001 - 2007
Master's Degree in Computer Science
ISEP | Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto - Porto, Portugal
Skills
Libraries/APIs
Azure Blob Storage API, Web API, GoJS, REST APIs, API Development, RxJS, NgRx, React, Entity Framework, Azure API Management, Stripe, Node.js
Tools
Azure Logic Apps, Microsoft Visual Studio, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Azure DevOps Services, Azure Key Vault, Azure Application Insights, Microsoft Dynamics, Microsoft Power Apps, Git, Azure Active Directory B2C (ADB2C), Azure App Service, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Google Sheets, SendGrid, Figma, Terraform
Languages
C#.NET, SQL, JavaScript, TypeScript, C#, HTML5, HTML, CSS, Swift, Python
Frameworks
Angular Material, Angular, Entity, .NET, ASP.NET, Material UI, Knockout (Knockout.js), Next.js
Paradigms
Role-based Access Control (RBAC), Database Design, Automation, ETL, Event-driven Architecture, Agile, Azure DevOps, DevOps
Platforms
Microsoft, Azure IaaS, Azure, Visual Studio Code (VS Code), Azure PaaS, Azure Event Hubs, Visual Studio 2016, Azure Functions, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Microsoft Power Automate, iOS, Android
Storage
Azure Websites, Azure SQL, SQL Server 2014, Microsoft SQL Server, SQL Elastic Pools, Azure Active Directory, Microsoft Entra ID, Azure SQL Databases
Other
Dynamics CRM 365, APIs, Integration, BizTalk, Azure WebJobs, Azure Service Bus, Azure Resource Manager (ARM), Architecture, Cloud, SaaS, Microsoft Azure, Cloud Architecture, Web Development, API Integration, Software Architecture, Front-end, RESTFul APIs, Portuguese, Back-end, Back-end Development, Leadership, Full-stack Development, SaaS Design, System Architecture, Solution Architecture, Single Sign-on (SSO), Authentication, Authorization, IIS, Enterprise Architecture, Forms, Workflows, Dynamics CRM Plugins, Performance Optimization, Systems Design, CTO, Secure Web Development, Web Security, Full-stack, CI/CD Pipelines, Technical Leadership, Cloud Infrastructure, Business Strategy, AI Integration, ERP Implementation, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Engineering Management, Product Management, Microsoft Entra, UI Components, Agentic Coding, Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), Service, Monitoring, SaaS Monitoring, Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure, BizTalk Server, Storybook, Large Language Models (LLMs), Agentic AI
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