Richard Forsythe

The project started with a white-board and the client's exec team, leading to the mapping of the critical functionality into an agile backlog and estimate. From there, design and development took over, delivering against the initial milestone.

Due to the variety of offerings from multiple insurance companies that need to be handled by the system, a sophisticated interface layer was devised to support the complexity inherent to this market.

As the product matured, direct data integrations were required, both to the insurance companies themselves, as well as customer-facing providers such as ADP.

This Ruby on Rails application is now successfully handling the insurance needs of hundreds of companies and thousands of their employees while continuing to add additional features and capabilities.

Hyatt acquired a chain of spas and wanted to allow World of Hyatt loyalty points to be earned by spa customers, as well as redeemed for spa services. The subsidiary used a shrink-wrap ERP system, MindBody Online, that could not be directly modified.

First, it was necessary to work through the very detailed and complex business requirements associated with the processes involved, involving the operations teams of both Hyatt and the subsidiary.

A technical analysis then indicated the tech stack needed to align best with Hyatt's internal systems. Once identified, a team of four developers was hired to build the system against a tight launch deadline.

The product was launched on time, even with some late-cycle scope changed that was requested and accommodated. Further enhancements were made post-launch to expand the scope of the integration, and the system is still used today.

Working closely with the product owner, a Ph.D. biochemist, the team was tasked with implementing significant functionality to maximize the distribution of information between numerous departments.

Built on Angular + Python/Django, the project involved the development of visualization tools for humane genomes, drill-downs into complex data structures, and application performance tuning in support of a multi-terabyte back-end database.

The project started as a small external team supporting in-house developers converting an iOS app from Parse to a Node.js back-end. Over the next nine months, the Toptal team grew to over 10 iOS developers across four agile teams; each team tasked with making rapidly evolving enhancements to the app.

Toptal's client needed to develop a sophisticated tool that could be used by their customers to precisely measure customer satisfaction for the purpose of developing actionable insights into customer behaviors. I worked closely with their executive team to define and detail the concept and create both an immediate backlog and project estimate.

Once design and development began, the client was active throughout -- attending weekly sprint review and planning sessions as well as frequent involvement in the daily calls.

For the QA team, the project represented a particular challenge, with complex rules governing the conversion of insurance claims data into client-facing emails and alerts.

This React + Java Spring Boot project was delivered under budget, with functionality beyond the original specification.

Led the technical design process for an international real estate developer wanting to embed leading-edge smart home functionality for a multi-dwelling new build construction.

The vision, which incorporates a custom voice interface and advanced IoT control of the home, requires a complex, cross-platform UX/UI framework and the tight-knit integration of a voice interaction platform.

The team worked directly with the client to build detailed user stories detailing their mobile application concept. I worked closely with both developer and designer over the course of two weeks, ensuring the successful completion of the Lightning Start, bringing in the project on time and comfortably within budget.

A cross of detailed interviews and brainstorming sessions with the client led to the creation of wireframes. Refinement of the underlying technology architecture enabled the creation of a comprehensive development plan.

Designed as an iPad app to be used in-classrooms, the solution combined a teacher-facing component and a child-facing component, providing the children with the benefits of guided learning through the steps of individual actions.